Papershades is my newest venture. It all began one very dreary winter, which seemed to go on for ever, and I started ripping up brightly coloured tissue paper to make a range of exuberant canvases covered with blowsy blooms, rosy roses and eye-popping poppies plus a tangle of foliage and a glimpse of blue sky.  I had a show of these works and they sold rather well.

Confident that the images had commercial appeal I set about exploring how I could use my artwork to create a product which would be more affordable than a large canvas and bring a bit of art into the home.  I looked around at the lampshades in my house and concluded that they were really very boring.  I decided that lampshades should not be boring, they should be art.

The next stage took quite a while to develop. I discovered a way to print details from my artwork onto special, stiff, translucent paper, and created a kind of ‘wheel’ to grip five printed panels.

The result is www.papershades.co.uk, an online shop through which I am selling the first range of floral Papershades lampshades. They cost a very modest £25 each and that includes the postage and packing.  The results have been very well received and I love nothing better than receiving a photograph of the lampshades looking glorious in homes.