Designer Ellen Merchant’s work is a celebration of colour and pattern, drawing from her love of folk art, antique textiles and botanical forms.

Hi Ellen! Thanks so much for chatting with us. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey into printmaking?

I suppose it all came about through my love of drawing. Growing up I used to spend hours making countless drawings and paintings that would sit around in sketchbooks or on walls but would never really amount to much. I wouldn’t dwell on something once it was completed, so it would be discarded in favour of a new idea or technique. I studied Illustration at Camberwell College of Art, where I was immediately drawn to the colourful chaos of the print room and my eyes were opened to a world of possibilities. I am naturally inquisitive about how things are made and always keen to turn my hand to anything practical, so I think the technical skills required in printmaking appealed to my nature. There is something pleasingly decisive about it, a satisfaction in the end result being out of your hands and somewhat removed from your drawings first rendition.

I remember a technician at the college once commented that my illustrations always looked like sections of something larger, so I thought I’d try putting a picture into repeat. When I started working with pattern, something clicked.

Pattern design requires the most skilled and precise sort of drawing, especially when trying to make repeats look natural and organic. I think I find the challenge of this a little addictive. Designing pattern requires a curiosity of forms, and how they interact. Repeated pattern is all about drawing with rhythm. I think that print has a remarkable ability to make a static form come to life; when it is repeated, it is animated.

I started experimenting with textiles a little later, which eventually led me to study an MA in printed textiles at the Royal College of Art, which has given me a much deeper understanding of materials. In my practice now, I use many different print techniques across both paper and textiles- most of which are totally self taught and I have just learnt to do intuitively. I hand carve designs into wood for fabric, as well as making stencils and mark-making by hand, sometimes all in one design! Printmaking, particularly printing repeated pattern, gives the ability for something you create to have new numerous lives, personalities and contexts. I find it endlessly rewarding.

We love the texture of your print work and the happy accidents that come from doing so by hand. What drew you to this method of printing?

Printing by hand is an integral (and the most enjoyable!) part of my process. I think that all too often the relationship between the designer and their product is diluted to the point where you cannot recognise the maker’s hand. In my work, I want my hand not just to be visible but to be an integral part of it, that’s when something really has soul. Most of my work is now relief printed, and this particular method actually came about quite miraculously because of the first lock down. When Covid struck I was in the middle of my studies at the Royal College of Art, where I had been working on large scale screen prints on a huge textile print table. Almost overnight all of the facilities were closed down indefinitely and I was left locked-down within the confines of my tiny flat.

I was inspired by Peggy Angus’ rudimentary lino prints to pare back my own approach and start from scratch. So, I got rid of all the intricate complications of my larger designs and started carving small lino blocks. I found that creating artwork for block printing imposed some necessary limitations on my ideas that otherwise can easily run riot. I didn’t have a table, so I lay lining paper out over my floor and jumped up and down onto the tiles to make the impressions. The result was the birth of a bit of a new identity for me, born out of nothing but the pure enjoyment of colour, print and pattern and an un-fussy desire to create. My methods and materials have become slightly more sophisticated since establishing my own studio, but the sentiment remains the same.

I have come to value patience and ‘slow work’. It’s most definitely a case of delayed gratification. You must be prepared to work rather hard on something- even when there is a chance that it might not work out perfectly! I believe that the result is imbued with a certain character that cannot be replicated or cheated, you can feel the craftsman in the lines.

Your work sits somewhere between classic and contemporary, with fresh takes on timeless methods and subject matter. Where do you draw your inspiration from?

As a contemporary designer, I suffer from being spoilt for choice. I find the hardest part of my process is in the refinement of my inspiration. In the digital age where centuries worth of images are at my finger tips, the real task is in discerning what exactly the point of interest is from a sea of ephemera. These days I actually try and avoid the internet all together, and its hugely refreshing. If I can, I will always choose to see things in the flesh, or out of a book. Mostly I will feel compelled to physically draw something from my head when an idea comes to me, thats when it stays with me and takes root.

I am hugely motivated by colour. It is undoubtedly my primary source of inspiration and colour combinations for a print will often come first, before I even have a design to use it on. I take a lot of photographs on my phone and when I see an unlikely combination of colours anywhere that strike a chord, in nature or in the street, I make a note of them.

I have always been attracted to anything with a certain decorative quality, and I am an advocate of the traditional arts and crafts aesthetic. I suppose I am also naturally influenced by contemporary culture and fashion that all feeds into my own design ‘hand-writing’. I like to clash influences from past and present, that’s what yields the most interesting results. There are more traditional motifs that I return to again and again. I’m unapologetically obsessed with flora and fauna in my prints- as is any other decorative artist. And rightly so! If it ain’t broke… etc.

Whatever I do, I try to do in my own style and I don’t actually like think to prescriptively about any influences when it comes to designing. I like to surround myself with colour and beautiful things both in my home and my studio, then I really just sit down and let the ideas flow.

What’s next for you, do you have any upcoming projects you can share with us?

I wear a couple of different hats currently, which keeps me busy and keeps things interesting. My boyfriend and I started a reclaimed furniture business last year called ‘Peacock and Pigeon’ We rescue interesting pieces of furniture and give them a new lease of life by restoring and reupholstering them using my unique hand printed textiles. We have an ever evolving collection that we sell through our Instagram and website, and from our studio. I have also been working on a few very exciting design collaborations for both interiors and fashion that I can’t say much about, but should be appearing over the next tyear.

I established my studio in 2020 with the aim of developing my offering and creating my own range of traditional hand printed wallpapers that I can make to order. I have recently acquired an amazing offset lithographic proofing press from the 1920’s that I am modifying to be able to print rolls of paper, and I already have a few designs in development. It’s already so much fun learning how much I can do with this old machine, and I can’t wait to see how much more it has to offer.