Sian Appleyard
Sian Appleyard was an established fine art printmaker creating beautiful hand inked images in small editions. Her highly textured collagraph printing plates were created by both cutting away and adding to the surface layer using anything from porridge oats to sand collected while walking on the beach. Richly coloured oil based inks are applied using rollers, cloth and paint brushes allowing for wonderful “happy accidents”. This also means that although prints are similar across a print run, each one is unique in various ways. Her work features scenes and landscapes of the south coasts and the New Forest area. At Chalks we enjoyed many years working with Sian. After her sad passing in 2023, we continue to stock Sian’s work at her request, with proceeds going to Oakhaven Hospice.
Mike Braisher
Mike is a self-taught ceramicist from Lyndhurst in the New Forest. Since taking early retirement from teaching many years ago this has become his main occupation. He enjoys making very large, hand thrown stoneware storage vessels, chargers, bowls and pitchers and jugs with beautiful luxurious glazes. He spends several months each year in New Zealand whenever possible, visiting potters groups and numerous potter friends. He has done many demonstrations around the country and spent time as an Artist in Residence at Driving Creek Railway and Potteries in the Coromandel. He is a Life Member of Southern Ceramic Group and is also an Academician of the South West Academy of Fine and Applied Arts.
Lindsay Buck
Lindsay Buck is the artist behind Slumbermonkey Designs and is based in rural North Dorset, where she works from her little garden studio. Originally from Norfolk she moved to Dorset eight years ago and she designs and makes a wide range of work which always incorporates colour, pattern and quirky details. Inspiration comes from the countryside around her, the birds, flowers, animals and plants that can be glimpsed in the garden and beyond. Also evident is a love of the Mid-Century aesthetic. Lindsay’s work aims to make you smile, to brighten your day and instil a sense of childlike curiosity and wonder.
Szilvia Burrows
Szilvia is the textile designer behind Knitluxe Studio, a British design studio, creating sophisticated yet playful winter accessories, gifts and homeware, using ethically sourced luxurious Merino Lambswool. Szilvia aims to challenge and transform the perception of knitted textiles while retaining craftsmanship, traditional techniques mixed with modern contemporary knitwear designs. Every piece is created by hand on a 12gg vintage hand flat knitting machine by Szilvia in her home studio in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. At all stages of the production, she is committed to sustainability and only selecting traceable luxury yarns to encourage ethical practice and lifestyle and to ensure exceptional quality.
Jo Cheer
Jo Cheer is an artist printmaker and designer living and working near Winchester and the South Downs in Hampshire. This Beautiful area, the coast and the Isle of Wight have all inspired her work along with her love of nature, structure and bright, bold colours. Her focus is on the design and production of very detailed reduction lino cut prints. These depict intricate delicate features, textures and the myriad of colours found in her subject matter. She also produces fabric block printed fabrics and textile designs using fabric paints, pastels, coloured crayons, watercolour and gouache paints. She is a member of the Sorting Office Studios Creative Community and Cowprint Artists Group.
Gillian Connor
A walk along the beach is not just a walk along the beach for Gillian Connor. It is a treasure hunt! She never knows what she may find or what it will eventually become. She has worked from her Hampshire studio since 2001 where she is surrounded by piles of driftwood, boxes of plastic, glass, rusty metal, old rope and fishing floats. These are all materials that inspire her to create all kinds of boats and some very strange sea creatures! She does it because she loves it, its eco friendly and makes people smile! Her hand tools become an extension of her imagination and she can spend endless hours looking for that perfect piece of glass or just the right rusty nail. Her work has been in many galleries and exhibitions.
CStar Design
CStar Design is a sister duo, Cathy Roberts and Lisa Davidson, who together design and create original fusion glass pieces. They are based in Winchester and have been working with glass since 2005. Through their glass work, they explore the colour vibrancy and translucency that glass gives in certain lights and include natural lines and forms from within nature. Their ‘Kaleidoscope’ range reminisces childhood memories of sunny days and the magic images created with a kaleidoscope. In the same way a kaleidoscope forever changes its unique forms and colour patterns, they have developed a technique for creating this in each of their glass creations. No two creations will ever have the same colours and shapes in the same way a kaleidoscope will never recreate the same pattern once changed. The pieces are created using a range of glass fusion techniques, creating layers and embellishments within the work.
Eve Dawson
Hampshire artist Eve Dawson draws inspiration from her surroundings painting in acrylics, building a harmonious base with smooth layers of paint. The true dynamism emerges through her energetic brushstrokes, unveiling vibrant layers beneath. In the final stages, she introduces graphite and oil pastel, enhancing depth and texture. This artistic fusion invites viewers to deeply connect with the multifaceted subject matter, exploring the interplay of light and dark, certainty and uncertainty. Through this visual narrative, Eve seeks to encapsulate the essence of the natural world, reflecting the complexities and contradictions of the human experience, aiming to evoke an emotional connection within the viewer.
Jackie Denham
Jackie Denham is the designer and maker behind Ruby and Jack Design. She studied three-dimensional design at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham and graduated in 2010. Her work combines sterling silver, copper wire and anodised aluminium to produce colourful and often unconventional jewellery and sculpture. Her jewellery is made up of simple forms with graphic prints of flowers, seedpods and geometric shapes and her sculptures resemble meadow grasses, flowers, birds and fish. Her designs are influenced by her walks in the Wiltshire countryside and she’s constantly in awe of the visual treasures that nature has to offer.
Hazel Gibbs
Hazel is the designer behind Colville & Gibbs and is based in Romsey, Hampshire. She produces individually designed, handcrafted notebooks, journals and sketchbooks. All items are unique and are created with craftsmanship to produce luxurious and tactile products Hazel uses offcuts of upholstery or handbag leather together with recycled and surplus print run paper whenever possible, therefore landfill and waste is kept to a minimum. Hazel trained at the St Bride’s Foundation, London in 2016 and has undertaken subsequent courses with renowned bookbinders Mark Cockram and Dominic Riley. She is a member of The Wessex Guild of Bookbinders, the Society of Bookbinders and The Artful Collective.
Pete Gilbert
Pete Gilbert has lived a busy life with many career changes including advertising, restaurateur and night club owner, but has always found the time to paint, exploring and developing his own style. His style and approach ranges from the very precise skills needed as an airbrush artist and illustrator to the strong brush strokes and bold colours of his New Forest landscapes. He now makes his living as an artist, painting mainly contemporary landscapes of the New Forest or the Coast from Cornwall to the Scottish Western Isles.
Sheila Goodman
Sheila is an artist from Ringwood in Hampshire working in paint and pastels. She has worked mainly in pastel for over 30 years and was elected to The Pastel Society in 2011. She enjoys the immediacy, colour consistency and textures pastels can give. It has a softness yet can be very powerful. She likes to experiment and spends time thinking about the general colour and tone of the landscape working initially on location, using water soluble pastel, which can provide washes of colour and a tonal underpainting. Time in the studio is more relaxed and a thoughtful process can begin. Sheila likes to emphasise contrasts, colour and shapes which can create atmosphere and lead to unpredictable results.
Helen Harrison
Helen studied Art and Design at Loughborough College of Art, specialising in ceramics and gaining a B.A. Honours. Her studies continued at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1995 with a Degree of Master of Arts. Living and working in Devon Helen widely exhibits throughout the UK. making pieces which can be used and enjoyed every day. Forms are hand-thrown on a potter’s wheel in porcelain and the surfaces treated with layered oxides, decals, slips and imprints to create a landscape effect. Each piece is finished with clear and coloured food-safe glazes, creating pieces which can be used and enjoyed every day.
Christine Hayes
Christine Hayes is a Lymington based textile artist. She discovered the emerging art form of watercolour batik from an enduring fascination for watercolour and experimentation. She is intrigued by the beauty and possibilities of this ancient art form, on translucent Ginwashi rice paper - replacing cottons, silks and dyes. Fine Ginwashi paper is textured with luminous kozo fibres, which can be seen in the deckled edges. These fibres carry the paint unpredictably, and hot melted wax is applied to mask and crack. Only after the final cracking process and removal of all the wax has been achieved, can the painting be, for the first time, and in anticipation, revealed.
Emma Hiles
Emma Hiles is a ceramic artist from Laverstoke, Hampshire but grew up in Christchurch Dorset surrounded by the sea and coastline. She has worked in design for nearly 20 years specialising in designing Holograms for brand and currency. 5 years ago she started a pottery class in her local town for a few hours a week and got completely hooked on clay. She finds that clay is an amazing medium for experimentation, and she has loved playing with clays and glazes over the last couple of years. Opening the kiln is always a surprise and a huge lesson in patience and resilience The glass used in the Bombay bowls is from Bombay Gin bottles from the distillery which is based a mile down the road from where she lives.
Deborah Hillyar
Deborah Hillyar is an artist and textiles designer from Lymington, who has spent a career designing knitwear for clothing companies worldwide. She is now exploring a different creative path combining her love of colour, pattern and nature. Her current work captures the beautiful forms of the botanical material that she gathers on walks. The process begins with mono-printing, creating images of leaves and flowers. Each artwork begins with laying down colours that work together and then the arrangement of botanical shapes, often in a geometric format, reflecting an interest of the repeating patterns found in textile design.
Annabelle Hulewicz
Annabelle Hulewicz studied Design Crafts at De Montfort University, Leicester, graduating in 2019. She is now based in Hampshire working as a teaching assistant at Loam Studio in Petersfield and a technician at The Farnham Pottery in Wrecclesham, as well as making her own work. Annabelle makes one-off thrown ceramic with hand decorated elements. Her work ranges from functional but unique homewares to larger bespoke art pieces. The surface textures on her collections are inspired by epiphytic plants such as moss, fungi and lichen.
Vikki Lafford-Garside
Growing up in rural Oxfordshire, Vikki had an appreciation for the countryside and a fascination with nature and wildlife. This love of nature combined with a passion for art and textiles led her to achieve a degree in Embroidery, followed by a Master’s degree in Textile design in 2006. Since then, she has worked as a designer-maker of wearable art, textile jewellery and accessories and she continues to be inspired by exquisite beauty found in nature. Vikki works from her studio in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. Using machine and hand embroidery, cutwork, heat manipulation and hand painting techniques, she transforms simple fabrics and thread into unique and entirely wearable, decorative and colourful accessories to wear and treasure.
Sarah Maddison
Sarah Maddison is a textile artist, producing unique pictures, jewellery, purses and greetings cards. She takes a very fluid approach to her mixed media work, combining painting, free-motion machine embroidery, traditional hand stitching techniques and beading. She is constantly inspired by the ancient landscapes near her home on the Hampshire/Wiltshire border and the spirituality and stories of those who have walked those paths before us. The animals that inhabit those landscapes are often also featured. She loves standing stones, hares and crows and the moon.
Briony Maple
Briony is a Dorset based glass artist creating pieces full of texture, light, and movement. After studying Contemporary Crafts at Falmouth University Briony returned to live and work in Dorset where her work is inspired by her material, its temperamental nature, and endless possibilities as well as her beautiful and iconic surroundings and water. Briony’s work is made using warm glass methods including combinations of fusing, slumping, draping and casting to capture texture and movement in each piece. Her work often includes copper elements to add colour and material contrasts using hand cut foils and copper clay sculptures.
Jo Milne
Jo Milne is the self-taught artist behind Sea Clay Studio. Always obsessed with the small details seen on her beloved coastal walks, Jo brings this inspiration into the design of her lightweight and versatile polymer clay jewellery and accessories. Carefully considering colour, texture, shape and pattern, she creates jewellery in cohesive collections, always with a subtly present coastal theme. Working from her attic studio in Hedge End, Southampton, Jo loves loosing herself in the world of polymer clay and finds this creative outlet calming and fulfilling: the perfect antidote to her busy life as a mum and part-time primary school teacher.
Mark Munroe-Preston
Mark is an artist from East Sussex. His work coalesces photography, painting and collage to create atmospheric pictures inspired by his experiences in nature. Beginning with images drawn from his expansive collection of original landscape photographs, he transforms them, revealing subtleties of colour, texture, light and form, while evoking the natural beauty and drama of the scenes, blurring the boundaries of what is traditionally considered photography and painting. They are presented as limited edition prints on sheets of brushed aluminium, which gives the work a uniquely dynamic look, depth of colour and contemporary feel. Each of Mark’s works is titled with the GPS coordinates of where the original photograph was taken so they can be found on interactive maps, encouraging others to experience the locations in person.
Mell Oliver
Mell Oliver is the illustrator and bookmaker behind The Sunshine Bindery designing and creating delightfully joyful and Earth-kind stationery, journals and gifts. With a heart to uplift and encourage kindness to people and planet, all of her products are crafted using recycled, sustainable and locally sourced materials as much as possible, while choosing to champion plastic free and biodegradable packaging so as to lessen her impact on the environment where she can. Inspired by the beauty found in nature, the calming practice of creative journaling, and the joy of nurturing our unique self-expression, her work is a blend of warming tones, motivational lettering, botanical motifs and playful pattern design.
Miranda Peckitt
Miranda Peckitt is the jeweller behind ‘Very Colourful Jewellery’, a colourful contemporary collection of jewellery hand painted and handmade in her workshop in West Sussex. Inks and dyes are applied to anodised aluminium which are then formed into pieces of jewellery. Fundamental to her work is a pure and genuine passion to create beautiful, eye-catching pieces of wearable art that are a pleasure to wear and as individual as their owners. She maintains a free and spontaneous style to create a vibrant and original look and believes we are all drawn to colour in some shape or form, whether you’re a colour addict or just looking to brighten up an outfit.
Tony Palmer
Tony Palmer is a self-taught artist from Southampton who discovered a love for art in his 40's. His early work used acrylics, pastels and oils but his latest works exhibited at Chalk’s of semi-abstract landscapes, celebrate a more recent discovery of watercolour. Colour is the driving force which sets the mood for each painting. Once applied the paint is manipulated & manoeuvred allowing gravity & colour-mixing to work its magic. The finished work invites the viewer into the landscape to discover what they will.
Chad Powell
Chad Powell is an innovative photographer from the Isle of Wight. Starting off originally in Graphic Design, Chad soon found a passion for photography and discovering the stunning cliff walks and wild, rugged rock strewn bays of the Island. A childhood fascination with the universe and living in an area where the Island can boast some of the darkest skies in the UK, he was driven to try night sky photography. From the first time he captured the Milky Way from his back garden, he was captivated by the resulting images. Whilst everyone sleeps, in the darkest hours of the night, when the stars are out and the Milky Way stretches across the sky, Chad is capturing the magic. When combined with a fiery sunset or a backdrop of the night sky it creates a captivating, almost surreal image that seems like something taken from the imagination rather than reality.
Jo Richards
Jo is a jewellery designer that grew up within walking distance of the sea on the Dorset Coast. She now calls the city of Winchester home and enjoys the beautiful countryside, rolling hills and chalk streams that surround her. The sea, water, and natural world often feature in her work. You will also find designs inspired by travels with her family, visits to art galleries and organic architecture. Since 2006 Jo has specialised in working almost exclusively in Silver Clay – a product made from recycled silver. This medium has helped her develop the feminine, romantic, and organic style that she is now recognised for. Jo’s jewellery is not only unique and beautiful, but impeccably made; an enduring piece of wearable art that can be treasured and enjoyed for years to come.
Sparkletastic Glass
Sparkletastic glass is run by a husband and wife team based in Fordingbridge. Amanda makes dichroic glass cabochons by layering dichroic and bullseye glass and fusing it in her kiln. Some of the more complex pieces are then cut from mosaic glass slabs before they have a final fire polish in the kiln. Amanda and Mark also make many of the silver findings and setting using eco-silver (recycled sterling silver) and traditional silver-smithing techniques.
Richard Stapley
Richard is the artist behind LaymarCrafts. He is a self-taught Woodturner based in Hampshire producing a range of decorative and functional items using a variety of sustainable timbers from around the world, although his preference is to use native grown timber. He started turning in 1988, and over time developed a number of signature pieces, whilst continuing to explore new designs and techniques. English Oak and Yew are his preferred woods and a wide selection of items are available from these two timbers, but he also uses other English woods such as Ash, Laburnum, Sycamore and Cherry.
Faye Stevens
Faye is a ceramicist from Hook in Hampshire. Her pots are influenced by her love of nature. She hopes to provide the user with something that is both useful and beautiful in making functional items such as mugs, jugs, vases and dishes. She loves to develop new designs inspired by Hampshire’s many beautiful landscapes, including fields, trees, plants and wildlife. Faye’s pots are made on the wheel using white stoneware clay with clean lines to let the designs stand out. All her designs are created using coloured slips in a combination of techniques. These include sgraffito (scraping out a design), slip-trailing for more fluid decoration and painting for finer details.
Vicky Swift
Vicky Swift is the designer and maker behind Rescue and Revive. She is based in Fareham, Hampshire. She uses a combination of vintage cutlery, driftwood, broken china and reclaimed stained glass to create collections of unique eco friendly pieces. These include her range of handmade upcycled cutlery birds, fish and dolphins.
Gill Waller
Gill Waller is a ceramicist from Basingstoke in Hampshire. Having studied ceramics at Redruth School of Art, read a degree at the University of Leicester and worked as an Art teacher for 26 years, Gill built her ceramics studio at home where she loves to experiment with clays and construction techniques. Her pieces are slab-built pots made using earthenware clay. Gill likes to use a white clay body because it provides a great canvas for bold decoration. The Earthenware pots are a canvas for an explosion of line and colour, heavily influenced by twentieth Century painters. They are designed to raise the spirit with the colours of the rainbow.
Lauren Webb
Lauren Webb is the jewellery designer behind Comet and Moon. Based in Hampshire, between the forest and the coast, her jewellery is inspired by the outdoors and created for the adventure seekers and wild souls. She has a passion for escaping on spontaneous adventures to spend time in the mountains or enjoying salty sea dips. It is these moments and experiences that inspire her designs. She creates small batches of truly unique pieces which can be treasured forever.
Harriet Wesley
Harriet Wesley is inspired by the surrounding New Forest, archaeological finds and ancient ceramics. Her work has a textured and organic exterior; the inside is often, by contrast, smooth and glazed, as are the rims of vessels, making them fully functional items. She often creates work that bridges the gap between functionality and sculpture. Her current pieces are hand built stoneware, using a cross between coiling and slab building techniques and are decorated using a mixture of coloured clays and slips, stains, oxides, glazes and metal leaf.
Rosie Wesley
Rosie Wesley is a metalwork and jewellery designer based in the New Forest. With a focus on texture and form, her sculptural works and jewellery are individual, site-responsive pieces to locations in the New Forest and are made using burn-out casting techniques to create replica textures of tree bark or other natural materials. Rosie transforms her pieces into metal objects that you can keep forever and often works on commission pieces which are perfect for remembering loved ones, encapsulating unique experiences or commemorating special moments.
Bianca Williams
Bianca Williams is a textile designer from Sussex. Her love of photography of the surrounding area and changing seasons is a starting point for her designs, which are developed through drawing, painting and collage, combining traditional techniques with modern technology. The final results are joyful designs with bold colours. Sustainability is key for Bianca. She uses eco-friendly methods for producing her work and all her packaging is recyclable or biodegradable.
Gwyneth Williamson
Gwyneth is a jeweller from Wakefield in Yorkshire. She studied Illustration at Hull College of Art in 1987 and spent many years illustrating children’s books and cards. In 2012 she completed a jewellery making course and was hooked. She makes colourful statement jewellery, combining silver, copper and brass with hand painted and printed birch plywood. She loves to explore organic and geometric textures, shapes and patterns, either by hammering, stamping or embossing pattern onto the metal with a rolling mill. Using linocut patterns, she handprints patterns onto the plywood or hand paints wood and layers with print, creating pieces which are sometimes evocative of distressed paintwork or peeled back layers of wallpaper. She works in a very playful, intuitive way never really knowing what patterns and textures will emerge, leading to some unique pieces. Her lino-prints /illustrations spring from doodling and characters in her sketchbooks and her influences come from art, design and the world around her.