The Making of Mark Hearld’s Wren wallpaper
Our publication, Mark Hearld’s Raucous Invention - The Joy of Making, includes a chapter on the making of Mark’s Wren wallpaper for St Jude’s, one of Mark’s growing range of fabrics and wallpapers.
Mark cut the original design as a lino block which we then used to create both our screen printed fabric and the three colourways of traditionally surface printed wallpaper.
“I cut the lino block for ‘Wren’ after a trip to Paris - inspired in part by the wonderfully flamboyant patterns found in ‘Papiers Dominotés Français’ from the eighteenth century. The combination of natural forms and decorative arabesques is full of brio and elan. In my repeat pattern, the serpentine movement of ribbon and plant stems is punctuated with birds that perch and peck from within the verdure.”
“Surface print is a terrifically satisfying process – Wren was printed on machines that are 140 years old, which were developed to come as close to hand blocked wallpaper as possible. I made a fully resolved repeating pattern, but because I’m not a machine, and actually my modus operandi is spontaneous rather than highly meticulous, inevitably there may be the odd little mistake during that process.”
Painter/printmaker Mark Hearld designs a range of fabrics and wallpapers for St. Jude's - all produced in the UK.
Born in 1974, Mark studied illustration at Glasgow College of Art and then completed an MA in Natural History Illustration at the Royal College of Art.
Taking his inspiration from the flora and fauna of the British countryside, Mark works across a number of mediums, producing limited edition lithographic and linocut prints, unique paintings, collages and hand-painted ceramics. We share Mark’s admiration for artist/designers such as Bawden, Piper, Nash – artists well regarded for their forays into the world of commercial design.
In 2022, we published a book dedicated to Mark's work, Raucous Invention - The Joy of Making. Find out more over at our online gallery.
