alun callender's blog

Emma Mitchell crafts nature inspired jewellery from her shed at the top of her garden in rural Cambridgeshire.

I met her last summer in her beautiful cottage garden to shoot the second installment of Women and their Sheds for Country Living.

http://www.emmamitchelldesigns.co.uk/

You will usually find Andrew Davidson at work in his studio located in his garden, creating and keeping the art of wood engraving alive.

Out now in the July issue of Homes & Gardens, it was a great morning spent with him enjoying the peace and quiet of the Cotswolds.

He has just finished working on a new wallpaper range for Lewis & Wood, which celebrates the British landscape.

http://www.andrewdavidsonillustration.com/

Judith Rowe makes a range of Earthenware everyday pots,  decorated with birds, stripes, spots, plants, moths.

They reflect the landscape around with softly vibrant blues, greens and greys.

I  met her in her Pottery which looks down onto the town, on a beautiful evening last month.

Last month I found myself in Westbourne Grove to photograph inspirational florist Nikki Tibbles, Turquoise Island was gleaming in the sunlight and by 10am the displays of flowers were looking at their finest.

Shot for St James for their new publication called Homes & London.

http://wildatheart.com/

In a new series for Country Living, last year I met up with some creative and inspiring women and their sheds!

I was very pleased that I was asked to do this project for the magazine, as it seems to fit in perfectly with what I am currently up to.

First up and featured in the June issue is upcycler Esther Coombs who turns secondhand finds into coverted collection pieces.

http://www.esthercoombs.com/

Deborah Bowness makes wallpapers. Her unique domestic designs furnish interior spaces with an unexpected dimension: trompe I’oeil produced through a photo-realist twist.

Beautiful and functional they are handmade in England through a combination of digital printing, silk-screen and hand-painting.

I met her in her St Leonard’s studio. It’s a minimalist space within an old shop on the seafront, a contrast to her prop filled cellar below.

On walk through Brighton I found some of her work from the House festival in May still plastered to the walls.

http://www.deborahbowness.com/

Standing like Thor in his forge, Andrew Findlay creates beautiful intricate pieces of metalwork from his workshop in Herefordshire.

There has been a tradition of a Blacksmith stood almost in the same spot where he works every day since the 13th century.

Featuring in Homes & Gardens magazine this month, I met up with Andrew on an icy early February morning.

It’s hard to think even now with our late Spring weather that for most of the shoot I couldn’t feel my toes, even with two pairs of extra thick goat socks on, and the forge burning furiously!

http://www.andrew-findlay.com/

Susan Elliott is a Hastings based artist working with mosaic materials.

Recycled ceramic kitchen crockery, tourist mementos, novelty mugs and badges are woven into more traditional mosaic tesserae, creating multi faceted, jewel-like and iconic images.

They are full of humour, quirks, and an essential Britishness, she has been working with Philip Oakley who has designed illuminated signs that sit in front of her work.

So this is my flag waving done for our Jubilee weekend!

Her work can be seen from the 2nd of June at the  The Trafalgar Hotel, 2 Spring Gardens, Trafalgar Square, London SW1A 2TS