Behind The Design: Shells

The story behind Shells Wallpaper…

My parents have always had a glass bowl that they stored shells in, collected from holidays before we were born, then on family holidays and then on more exotic holidays that were easier once children weren't in tow. To me it always looked like a bowl of happy memories and I loved sorting out the shells as a child, it was this that triggered the idea for Shells Wallpaper.

I wanted to create a paper that felt light and carefree, that was reminiscent of that feeling of contentedness one has walking along a beach gathering the prettiest shells and the serenity that can only be found by the sea.

The design started with individual sketches of shells in a little notebook.

A mix of shells borrowed from my parents collection and also those that I have collected with my daughters in Devon. These sketches were amalgamated into a fairly complicated grotto style design, which felt a little too heavy, then into shell mandalas before its current simplified form, which felt a little more tranquil and playful. Soft nautical stripes made up of naive line drawings of shells. 

Then on to the colours…

There are countless, incredibly subtle and delicate colour variations in shells. And transferring these elusive hues into simple shades that could be traditionally printed into blocks of colour was challenging and something that I spent almost more time on than the actual line drawing.

There wasn't any room for shimmery, subtleties. I spent such a long time trying to mimic the the deepest sheen of black, with a hint of delicate violet, merging into the pearlescent cream to imitate a mussel shell before being told by someone who knows far more than I do, that people don't like purple wallpaper so that colour way was instantly abandoned as were several others that I still love.

In the end we settled on the pinks of a scallop shell, the beautifully calm neutrals of a cockle shell, the bright calm blues of a summer ocean and a digitally printed watercolour colour way that shows a little more of the subtleties within this small gathering of shells.

In progress image of tweaking the colour ways

But if there is a particular shade that you need for your project or home that we don’t have- please do get in touch we can help to create a custom colour way to suit your scheme.