PAINTED FURNITURE WITH ANNIE SLOAN

Are you looking to give a worn out piece of furniture a new lease of life this year?

In our upcoming workshop taught by world leading paint and colour expert Annie Sloan, be inspired to transform your furniture with her creative tips and tricks for painting and decorative mark-making.

Inspired by her collaboration with Charleston Farmhouse, the incredible home of the Bloomsbury group, this workshop will be focused on the colours Annie has designed, plus a special demonstration on decorative pattern and mark-making. A dream come true for the artist, Annie’s collaboration with Charleston has seen her create three distinctive Chalk Paint® colours. Each of the colours are named after local places which the artists would have known, and are inspired by elements of the highly decorated rooms within the British farmhouse.

Image: Detail of the fireplace in Duncan Grant's Studio at Charleston.

The products of the Omega Workshops - founded by Roger Fry in 1913 - were largely dreamt up and created by Bloomsbury Group members Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant who took the French Post-Impressionists’ ideas, such as their bold non-naturalistic colour spectrum, and applied them to ceramics, textiles, carpets, lamps, furniture and children’s toys. However, the most striking example of their vision is the Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex. In the midst of the First World War, Bell, Grant, and David Garnett decorated every inch of the place in what is now the distinctive Bloomsbury style. Their home is a riot of print and pattern, which, in keeping with the vast collection of art on its walls, is bold in its use of colours and shapes.

Image: Vanessa Bell’s bedroom at Charleston Farmhouse.

Annie's profound admiration for this modernist, experimental, flamboyant, intellectual, and downright beautiful treasure trove of the decorative arts is evident in each of the three colours she developed: Firle, a fresh zesty and crisp green inspired by the distempered wall in Clive Bell’s study; Rodmell, the dusty, damson purple of the fireplace in the Studio at Charleston Farmhouse, where guests of Virginia Woolf and Roger Fry would discuss the arts and philosophy after a day of creative pursuits; and Tilton, a deep, bright mustard inspired by the buttery golden sunshine shapes on Vanessa Bell’s bedroom wardrobe.

Part of the exhilaration that people visiting the Charleston now experience comes from the sense of confidence and fearlessness these artists had. A symphony of rude lines and sudden gentle shading hurtles off its every surface, making their home itself an uninhibited, irreverent work of art.

Annie's style champions the exuberance of the Charleston Farmhouse and the hand-painted aesthetic that adorns the place. Style-driven, colour confident and practical, our one-off workshop with Annie, taking place on 11 & 12 June 2022, will be a unique experience to gain-first hand knowledge, helpful tips and creative passion from one of the world's authorities in paint, colour and style.

Find out how to book the workshop here: