everyone loves to doodle and colour things in…………..
6th August 2015
Last summer a group from a watercolour class asked if they could come and spend a day at the Mill and paint. Sometimes when you work somewhere every day you forget just how beautiful your surroundings are and it takes a request like this to remind you. It was lovely to see easels scattered about the grounds and people just whiling a day away doing something they love. There is one spot in the Mill that reminds me of a Monet, a bridge, some lilies and beautiful trees, its the kind of landscape any artist would be excited to paint.
So we decided the Mill would be the perfect place to sell a few little artists bits and bobs and materials, not too many just a select few items that will suit all ages. I found it quite a difficult task as I didn’t want to offer anything too mainstream, but then again I didn’t want the materials to be too gifty and not the real thing. So I settled on getting the very best pastels and watercolours, Sennelier is a french brand famous for their hand selected pigments and have been in business since 1887, it was the place Picasso, Cezanne and Gaugin would buy their pastels and pigments. They are not cheap but I have chosen little boxes with just a small selection, perfect for holidays and days out. I went to The Conran shop a few weeks ago and they had a box of 200 Sennelier pastels in a wooden box, totally beautiful and every colour imaginable but I think it was over a £1,000!! ours are between £25 and £50.
I also wanted some calligraphy sets, people love to try their hand at fancy handwriting, especially kiddies. So we have some really cute little boxes with selections of nibs, a nib holder and some beautiful coloured inks. These products are by J.Herbin, a company established in 1670 by a sailor and the oldest name in Ink production in the world. He produced a black ink for the sole use of Victor Hugo and it is with this ink he wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables. We also stock J. Herbins delightful little sealing wax sets, originating from when he sailed to India to bring back formulas. I don’t know if they had bright pink sealing wax then but that’s what we have here at the Mill, history and quality but with a splash of pink, perfect, I can’t wait to try it out.
We also have lovely selection of sketch books, simple but classy and worth keeping after you have filled them with a mixture of doodles and things to be proud of!!
I love Rotring pens, so we have little packs of these, simple black ink pens so fine they are lovely to draw and sketch with. Some nice packs of pencils and crayons and then of course some proper sets of felt pens, not just for kids but for grown ups too, everyone loves to open a new set and try out all the colours.
So that completes our newest range here at the Mill, a little capsule collection that I hope will appeal to lots of people, artists or just for fun.
Coming to Cotes Mill to look at kitchens can be more than just a design process, you can wander around the showrooms, pick up some unusual and interesting bits for your home, get a few presents and even spend an hour or two sketching by the river. I suppose we are biased but where else can you do that whilst buying a kitchen!! Just look at these colours!!
