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FeaturesSeptember 28, 2019

Hand-crafted is popular these days, and many home decorators are looking for unique textiles and other furnishings featuring the look of hand-drawn art. Items like the eclectic, playful wallpapers of Brooklyn-based artist Aimee Wilder, who designed for brands like DwellStudio, Martha Stewart and Vans before starting her own studio. ...

By KIM COOK ~ Associated Press
This photo provided by Betsy Olmsted Design Studio shows some of the Saratoga Springs, New York-based artist and designer's designs.
This photo provided by Betsy Olmsted Design Studio shows some of the Saratoga Springs, New York-based artist and designer's designs.Elizabeth Pedinotti Haynes/Betsy Olmsted Design Studio

Hand-crafted is popular these days, and many home decorators are looking for unique textiles and other furnishings featuring the look of hand-drawn art.

Items like the eclectic, playful wallpapers of Brooklyn-based artist Aimee Wilder, who designed for brands like DwellStudio, Martha Stewart and Vans before starting her own studio. She's expanded the line beyond wallpaper to include rugs, pillows, fabrics and poufs, and collaborates with prominent design brands on showroom design and installations.

"I've been making graphic pieces since the early 2000s and I knew I wanted my own brand way back then," Wilder recalls. "I just knew that my work was a good fit for home textiles, maybe filling a hole, since back then most interior stuff was pretty traditional or more globally inspired."

In her Eudaimonia collection, named after a Greek word meaning happiness, she was interested in exploring how celestial bodies influence us. The moon's phases are rendered in pastels and neutrals in the Earthlight pattern, while Pyramid du Soleil is named after Mexico's Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan.

Fantastic sea creatures make their way to and fro across her Mystic Lagoon wallpaper, an idea that came out of a trek through the Scottish Highlands. A trip to Indonesia was the jumping-off point for Bungalow, with exotic fruits and flora. And a line drawing Wilder received as a gift while collaborating with Los Angeles surf brand Mowgli Surf inspired her jaunty Swell wave print.

This photo provided by Betsy Olmsted Design Studio shows some of the Saratoga Springs, N.Y.-based artist and designer's designs. Betsy Olmstead planned to become a naturalist. Now she translates that early passion for living things into a delightful collection of watercolor, gouache and ink drawings for table linens, pillows, wallpaper and fabric by the yard. There are woodland creatures like foxes, hedgehogs and turkeys on offer as tea towels, for example, as well as an intriguing wallpaper pattern called Curio on which glass cloches hold beautifully-rendered mushrooms, coral, antlers and moths as well as fungi and flora.
This photo provided by Betsy Olmsted Design Studio shows some of the Saratoga Springs, N.Y.-based artist and designer's designs. Betsy Olmstead planned to become a naturalist. Now she translates that early passion for living things into a delightful collection of watercolor, gouache and ink drawings for table linens, pillows, wallpaper and fabric by the yard. There are woodland creatures like foxes, hedgehogs and turkeys on offer as tea towels, for example, as well as an intriguing wallpaper pattern called Curio on which glass cloches hold beautifully-rendered mushrooms, coral, antlers and moths as well as fungi and flora.Associated Press
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Another artist, Anna Bond of Winter Park, Florida, co-founded Rifle Paper Co., known for floral illustrations on stationery, wallpaper, home decor and fashion accessories. Bond's made a series of gouache paintings of destinations around the U.S., including Chicago, New York and San Francisco.

Betsy Olmsted had planned to become a naturalist, but after majoring in art, studying in India, and getting a master's degree in textile design, she translated that early passion for living things into a career as a designer with her own studio in Saratoga Springs, New York.

In her lighthearted watercolor, gouache and ink drawings, a menagerie of foxes, hedgehogs, turkeys and other woodland creatures share the canvas with smatterings of flowers and leaves. She sells table linens, pillows, wallpaper and fabric by the yard. One of her unusual wallpaper patterns: Curio, on which glass cloches hold beautifully rendered mushrooms, coral, antlers and moths, all surrounded by fungi and flora detailed with a delicate touch. It resembles a naturalist's notebook writ large, and one can imagine it in a nursery.

The founders of The Farmhouse Project, artists Shawn Lang and Kris Prepelica in Hortonville, New York, create detailed drawings of vegetables and botanicals, which are printed on stonewashed linen table goods. The napery has an authentic, historical charm that's right on trend.

Fishs Eddy also offers dishtowels illustrated with pen and ink drawings, here of New York City bridges and tunnels.

This photo provided by artist Aimee Wilder shows one of her wallpaper designs. Wilder's Eudaimonia collection was named after a Greek word meaning happiness. She was interested in exploring how the celestial bodies over Earth influence us, and the moon's phases are depicted in this Earthlight pattern from the collection. Available in a range of pastels and neutrals, the simple yet artfully-drawn pattern is evocative and compelling, part of the eternal charm of illustrated prints.
This photo provided by artist Aimee Wilder shows one of her wallpaper designs. Wilder's Eudaimonia collection was named after a Greek word meaning happiness. She was interested in exploring how the celestial bodies over Earth influence us, and the moon's phases are depicted in this Earthlight pattern from the collection. Available in a range of pastels and neutrals, the simple yet artfully-drawn pattern is evocative and compelling, part of the eternal charm of illustrated prints.Associated Press

And Brooklyn artist Claudia Pearson, whose work has appeared in children's books and The New Yorker, has done a collection of tea towels available at West Elm featuring her quirky take on maps of cities all over the country.

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