Subversive Shabby

One of my favourite shops here in Tasmania is Flywheel.  On the High St of New Norfolk in the beautiful Derwent Valley, the shop is centred around a letterpress printing business, and features a wonderful collection of vintage and high-end stationary and printing accoutrements.

I've been working on some very pretty, very classically Shabby Chic designs, which is nice, but I felt like something was missing.  A visit to Flywheel inspired a quirkiness, a twist, that I needed to make it truly mine.  Victorian era style 'etchings' printed onto cardboard tags in their own letterpress studio, and wonderful old-fashioned anatomy posters gave me the start.

Later that day I shared two pictures on Instagram that got me the most likes I've ever received:

 

I've paired the skull with one of the Shabby Chic designs which will form part of a collection to be released at the start of March:

In the meantime, I've also been experimenting with some fantastic Derwent Inktense pencils I received for Christmas and shared this picture on Instagram:

And now I've combined the skull with this more dramatic palette to create a stand-alone print which is available for sale as a digital download on Etsy here.

It's also available on select Redbubble.com products in my shop here.

This sort of one-off image that doesn't really belong in a collection is a lot of fun, and expect to see more off-beat twists on classically pretty styles in the future!

Take care,
Emma.