I am an artist and designer specialising in hand painted textiles and watercolours. I have a BA in Printed Textiles from Winchester School of Art but was born and brought up in central London.


At college I was introduced to disperse dyes and sublimation printing and have used them ever since. It intrigues and fascinates me to be able to produce an instant full colour painting - on fabric!


When painting on paper the colours look muddy and dull but are transformed when printed onto fabric - vibrant, clear, and totally colourfast in an infinite range of tones. I use watercolour paper to make a detailed drawing and paint using only magenta, ultramarine, yellow and black dyes then print using a heat press (at 135-165 degrees) adjusting temperature and pressure according to the fabric used - often a synthetic satin as I love the sheen. The anticipation of lifting the press to reveal the painting and see if it is as envisaged continues to excite me every single time!


After college, working as a freelance designer for Indesign and producing a collection for London Fashion Week, I took on a studio above Dingwall’s Dancehall in Camden Lock to form Rose Elliott Design. There I worked on commissions, often in the form of one-off paintings and still using the sublimating dyes, designed as a garment, and wrapped around the client as a continuous image - ‘Wearable Art’. Work sold to various shops in London, such as Wardrobe in Bond Street, Libertys, shops in South Molton Street plus Bloomingdales in New York and an outlet in Rodeo Drive, L.A. Individual clients included Chris Farlowe, Matthew Kelly, Mayor Gallery in Cork Street, Jeremy Beadle, and designer Bill Gibb, amongst others. Alongside this work I designed and produced a range of silk clothing to sell during the busy market weekends, hand dyeing each piece individually, matching colour samples and tailoring garments as requested. I opened a second shop in ‘89 and the two ran concurrently.


My second daughter was born in ‘97 and it was time to stop working all hours. We moved to Devon in 2004. I still use disperse dyes but now primarily as a framed visual art form, sometimes adding a 3D element - the fin of a fish or a petal, maybe a bee’s wing. My subjects are usually inspired by nature: shells, animals, flowers. Also, during the pandemic, I have produced almost 400 masks in partnership with Kristina Coles. I regard these as mini paintings - a return to ‘Wearable Art’ - and they’re useful, which I love.


Recently I have also been painting silk direct, treating it as a huge watercolour painting, to produce delicate tops and scarves - more Art to Wear. It’s liberating but scary as each mark is there forever!
Within each process I love manipulating the paint or dye on wet paper or fabric to form hard edges next to soft fluid areas creating form and texture, highlight and shade. Alongside textiles and to further explore scale, I have been experimenting with traditional watercolours. I treat the paint much as the dyes as neither have white and I always work on a wet ground, except I can see the colours as I work which is so much easier! Within this medium I can work on much larger pieces without the constraints of the press dimensions. I plan to do more and expand my portfolio further.