Plant Girl IRIS

I’m up to all sorts of randomness as per usual. Story of my life & career! If it’s to do with creativity or learning then I have a thing with a lot of serendipitous occurrences following me around.

To cut a long story short, I’ve been drawing plants & nature for my job for over 13 years now & many years prior to that whilst studying. About 5 years ago I seriously fell out of love with flowers! I’d drawn so many & rebelled but a couple of years ago my passion for all things plant related came back largely due to the fact that my own garden was about to go through a major re-design & renovation & from various trips to the NYC High Line.

This year I’ve really enjoyed gardening so much & it’s such a stress release for me & I can lose hours in the pure enjoyment of it all. I’m no expert & I’m learning every day but it’s inspired my design work a lot. I was going to book on a course to learn more but I randomly got myself a bit of a flower girl job at Arley Hall one day a week (by accidentally bumping into the head gardener & chatterboxing away)! So from now on for just one day a week I’ll go under the name of IRIS! I wanted a pretty plant name & it was also pointed out to me that Iris is the Greek goddess of rainbows (very apt considering my new nickname is Rainbow Rachael!) Wish me luck…

I’m just going to say this out loud (well, online); I want to have a little attachment at Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny, he’s an artist that I’ve always truly loved so to look after the beautiful garden that he lovingly painted is my kind of heaven. Maybe one day…

You can follow #plantgirliris or follow me on Instagram to see what I’m up to! For now you can read below for some little updates:

Just back from a fab 1st day at Arley Hall Gardens. Such lovely people, beautiful views & plant heaven. Turns out the head gardener’s last job was being the head gardener for Sting! As in the singer Sting! Oh my! I grilled him all afternoon, then weirdly Sting was being interviewed on Radio 1 as I got back in the van. I have a van full of of dried flowers for an upcoming magazine photoshoot too. Excited for my 2nd day next week! I like being Iris…

Thank you so much for the love on all my new plant based designs & drawings lately. I’ve realised this week that I’m easily pleased, give me some gardening dungarees, fresh air & a load of dried plants to take home & I’m happy & instantly inspired.

I’m off to be Iris for the day again tomorrow. I just loved my first day & everything about this new little role of mine is influencing my studio & Make it in Design work. It’s my kind of heaven too! I have treated myself to some new gloves & a tool belt & a couple of bright tops to wear with my dungarees. Got to inject a bit of fun & colour into these gardening outfits!