Right now, in my home studio, there's gold leaf catching the light on a piece that's recently been finished. A jar of paintbrushes sits next to what’s left of the tissue paper after I cut some into the shape of petals. This is what the week before a launch looks like for me: equal parts excitement and last, careful details.
I wanted to let you in on some of that before the full collection reveals itself on the 26th September 2026 (or the day before if you have your VIP invite).
Layer upon layer
Nothing in this collection is flat. Every piece is built up in layers, sometimes acrylic paint alone, sometimes acrylic combined with tissue, wire, pastel, oil pastel, pen or even wire and finished with gold leaf. That combination is deliberate. A single layer of paint can capture a flower's colour, but it can't capture the full extent of a fuchsia's petals flinging outward like dancing arms, or the way Lamb's Ear looks like you could reach out and stroke it. Building up texture, layer by layer, is how I try to get closer to how these plants actually feel, not just how they look.
Why gold leaf
Gold leaf has become something of a signature in this collection, and there's a reason it appears in almost every piece. It doesn't sit still the way paint does. As the light moves through a room across the day, the gold catches it differently, so a piece never looks quite the same twice. It felt right for a collection about memory, since memories shift and catch the light differently too, depending on when you look back at them.
A closer look: building a flower in 3D
Two of the pieces in this collection aren’t just painted, they’re built. The petals on ‘Dancing Fuchsia’ are constructed from tissue paper, shaped and layered by hand, and the stamen are made from wire, bent and positioned to catch that mid twirl movement flowers have in the breeze. It's a slower way of working than painting alone, but it's how I got that sense of movement, of a flower caught mid dance, onto the wall.
A detail you might not spot straight away
Not every choice in this collection is about technique. Some are about memory. One piece has a sun in it that's deliberately simple: a plain yellow circle, the kind almost anyone would have drawn as a child. It's not a mistake or a shortcut. It's there on purpose, because that's exactly how I remember drawing the sun as a little girl, and I wanted that piece of pure childhood to sit right there on the canvas alongside everything else.
What's still to come
I can't show you the full collection yet, that's what the 25th is for. But I will say there's one piece I've been especially excited for you to see in person. It's bigger, bolder, and has more going on in it than almost anything else I've made for this collection.
If you'd like to be there to see it first, along with the rest of The Childhood Garden, you can get your invite via the Collectors’ List. If you're not on my mailing list yet, join below so you don't miss anything before the big day.
