Meet the Makers: The Art of Colour and Decoration

Historic craftsmanship is not only about how things were built. It is also about how people made their surroundings beautiful.

From the colours that filled medieval churches and manuscripts to the carefully painted lettering that appeared above shops and businesses, decoration has long required its own specialist craftspeople. Behind every pigment, painted letter and gilded surface lies knowledge of materials, design and techniques developed over generations.

In the third of our Meet the Makers series for our Made by Hand event on 26-27 September, we meet two makers whose work explores this more colourful side of traditional craftsmanship: Sophie Woodhouse, who works with historic pigments, inks, gilding and medieval art, and Wayne Osborne of Osborne Signs, a traditional signwriter.

Their crafts are very different, but both demonstrate the skill involved in creating colour and decoration by hand.

 

Sophie Woodhouse – Historic Pigments, Gilding and Medieval Art

For Sophie Woodhouse of Polychromery, colour is much more than simply choosing a shade of paint.

Her work encompasses historic pigments, ink making, egg tempera, gilding, screen-printing and medieval art. At its heart is a fascination with where colours come from, how they were made and what they can tell us about people in the past.

Sophie’s journey began with an art foundation course followed by an illustration degree. She then spent decades working as a decorative surfaces conservator, specialising in historic pigments. “After an art foundation course and illustration degree I worked for decades as a decorative surfaces conservator,” she explains, “specialising in historic pigments, and teaching polychromy, gilding and gilt-wood restoration.”

It is a career that has allowed Sophie to explore not only how historic objects were decorated, but also the materials craftspeople used to create their colours. Today, we can walk into a shop and choose from an enormous selection of ready-made paints and inks. Historically, producing colour could be a craft in itself. For Sophie, understanding those materials is part of understanding the finished artwork.

She particularly enjoys investigating “which pigments might have been used in historic settings, the origins of pigments, symbolism of colour and fashions in painting and costume.” The natural world is an especially important source of inspiration. “I’m fascinated by pigments and dyes obtained from the natural world and how they can be used in modern art disciplines such as screen-printing,” Sophie says.

This combination of historic knowledge and contemporary creativity is an important part of her work. Traditional materials and techniques do not necessarily have to remain confined to the past. By understanding how they were produced and used, makers can continue experimenting with them today. Sophie’s career in conservation has also allowed her to work directly with remarkable pieces of historic craftsmanship.

Among the projects of which she is particularly proud is the restoration of the 15th-century wooden figures, known as jacks, which strike the bell at Wells Cathedral. She has also conserved early 16th-century figures on Radley College’s carved altarpiece. These objects offer a reminder of just how colourful the historic world could be. Surviving medieval woodwork, manuscripts and other objects can give us a window into a world in which colour and decoration carried meaning as well as providing visual impact.

There is also a more unusual side to Sophie’s interest in medieval art. “I love introducing people to the delightfully bizarre world of medieval manuscript marginalia.” For anyone who has explored a medieval manuscript, those margins can contain a wonderfully strange collection of images alongside the main text. For Sophie, introducing people to this world is another way of bringing historic art and craftsmanship to life.

Today she regularly teaches, works on commissions and exhibits when she can. Through both practical making and teaching, Sophie continues to explore the materials and methods that have been used to create colour for centuries. 

 

Wayne Osborne – Traditional Signwriting

Our second maker works with another form of decoration that was once an everyday sight on Britain’s streets: traditional hand-painted signwriting.

Before printed and digitally produced signs became commonplace, businesses relied on skilled signwriters to create the lettering that appeared on shopfronts, vehicles and signs. Rather than applying computer-cut lettering, the signwriter creates the design by hand. For Wayne Osborne of Osborne Signs, that combination of lettering, drawing and practical skill became a career.

Wayne’s interest grew from a lifelong enthusiasm for art, drawing and lettering, eventually leading him into training and professional signwriting. He has been making his living from the craft since 1993. 

Traditional signwriting occupies an interesting position somewhere between a trade and an art. The finished lettering needs to serve a clear practical purpose – people need to be able to read it – but its appearance also matters enormously. A skilled signwriter therefore needs an eye for proportion, spacing, shape and overall design, as well as the practical ability to produce the finished work by hand. And that handmade element is what separates the craft from many of the signs we encounter today.

Where modern technology can reproduce the same lettering again and again, traditional signwriting retains a direct connection between the maker and the finished piece. Each painted letter is the result of the signwriter’s own hand, judgement and experience. For visitors to Made by Hand, Wayne’s work provides an opportunity to discover a craft that can easily be overlooked precisely because lettering is so familiar to us. We see signs every day, but rarely stop to think about the specialist craft that once stood behind their creation.

Traditional signwriting reminds us that even something as ordinary as the name above a shop could be an opportunity for skilled craftsmanship and individual design.

 

Bringing Colour to the Past

Sophie Woodhouse and Wayne Osborne approach their work from different directions, but both demonstrate the importance of the decorative crafts.

Sophie’s work takes us into the world of historic pigments, medieval art and gilded surfaces, exploring how craftspeople created and used colour. Wayne’s traditional signwriting demonstrates how the seemingly simple act of painting words requires a combination of artistic judgement and practical skill. Their work also challenges the idea that historic craftsmanship was purely functional.

People in the past did not simply make things that worked. They decorated them. They painted them. They gilded them. They developed lettering, patterns and imagery. They used colour to communicate, identify, celebrate and beautify. And behind all of that were craftspeople.

At Made by Hand, visitors can meet makers keeping traditional skills alive and discover the knowledge and experience behind work created by hand.

From the colours of medieval art to the carefully painted letters of a traditional sign, Sophie and Wayne show that sometimes it is the finishing touches that give our material heritage its character.