Water Garden for Sanderson

In 2021 I was thrilled to design and paint a huge mural wallpaper for Sanderson, which was released in Spring 2022. And here it is!

As part of the design process I was given access to Sanderson’s jaw-dropping archive, which dates back to 1860. Inspired by the Japanese papers and drawing guides that Arthur Sanderson imported in the late 19th century, I set my mind on designing the most tranquil springtime scene imaginable. I took the elegance, simplicity and spaciousness of Japanese screens, and I brought in iconic elements from the Sanderson visual lexicon - swallows, carp and trailing laburnum. The wallpaper is now for sale all over the world - it’s called Water Garden by Rachel Spelling and it’s part of the new 2022 Sanderson collection, also called Water Garden. You can read more about the project here.

The Chinese Wallpaper in Pitzhanger Manor

This epic project changed my life. Working in a team of three, under Alasdair Peebles and alongside Nicky Pasterfield, we recreated (from scratch) the Chinese wallpaper which had hung on the walls of Sir John Soane’s country house, Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing. The house is now open to the public. It’s the most ambitious project I’ve ever been involved in, it took six months and it broadened my horizons forever. I’ve written more about it on the blog.

Mural Archive

For many years I painted residential murals. I’ve moved on from this work now, but here is a brief edit of the many varied murals I painted going right back to the beginning. Some of these designs I produced as custom-fit wallpaper. This was a time when I was developing my skills and getting a sense of what I could offer the wonderful world of decorated interiors. I now see it as a colourful apprenticeship, and it was my route to finding my own visual language - which all suddenly started to make sense when I shrank my work to miniature in 2020.