Artist Alison Hardcastle sets up shop from home

ARTIST Alison Hardcastle's best-known work is a word map of the British Isles with hand-drawn text making up the shape of the UK. It was a collaboration with Angus McArthur, of Snowhome on Gillygate, York.

Angus came up with the words and roughed out their location ('Pudding' for Yorkshire; 'Minster' for York; 'Dracula' for Whitby... you get the picture), and Alison painstakingly hand-painted each one using a tiny paintbrush and a pot of Indian ink. "It took 40 hours to do and we printed it in three different colours," said Alison.

It was such a hit, that she has gone on to make one of London, the USA and also a gourmet map of Europe. Prints of the original GB map are now on sale at John Lewis. "It's nice to think that it is all over the place. It's been brilliant for my profile."

It's the commercial breakthrough many artists can only dream of, but is only one part of the story.

The bulk of Alison's work is card-making, with her products on sale at quality retailers such as Selfridges, Waterstones, Paperchase and the V&A shop. Her distinctive designs, where images and words merge together in a harmony of tasteful colours, reveal her background as a book illustrator.

"I use a lot of type as part of the image and try to make them work together. Through my screen printing, everything is built up in layers, so it ends up looking quite graphic. The aim is to reflect what the type is saying through the image," explains the 35-year-old who lives in the Yorkshire Wolds.

A good example of this is a print she made last year, Whatever The Weather. It features eight panels, four on top of four, each one focusing on a different element of the climate. Hence we have the ends of a scarf with the words ' Bit Gusty' next to a bright pink ice lolly emblazoned with 'Not a cloud in the sky'.

This weekend, Alison will be opening the doors of her garden studio at her home at Nunburnholme, near Pocklington, to show off her work and sell her wares in a pop-up shop.

Visitors will be able to snap up Christmas cards as well as other items from her catalogue (she has 150 card designs alone). Two new screen prints will be on sale too, A4 in size, alongside other prints from her collection.

Also new for this season will be a year planner for 2015, a first for Alison, and an example of her branching out. In a separate venture, Alison has made her debut in the world of fashion, designing a print for a T-shirt for Johnnie B, of the Boden fold.

In May, she attended a trade fair in New York, seeking to expand her international sales (she already sells in the States, Canada and Australia).

All the while, she is coming up with new ideas for cards, prints and other stationery products – fitting the business around her busy home life where she is wife to Tim, a local farmer, and their five-year-old daughter Martha.

Alison grew up near Market Weighton and she and Tim have been together since they were teenagers. She studied at art school in Edinburgh and Brighton, before settling back in Yorkshire.

The family home reflects her artistic tastes: the interior is awash in muddy greens and blues, with highlights of bright green and yellow, similar to the shades in her cards and prints. There is some furniture from the 1950s and 1970s as well as collections of glassware and ceramics too from that period. A Denby coffee set in muted grey-green takes pride of place in a glass cupboard in the kitchen.

Alison would like to expand into interiors, making textiles and wallpaper.

Meanwhile there's the small matter of Christmas to attend to. And we're not talking about this Christmas.

"I'm having to work on Christmas designs for next year," says Alison. "Paperchase want the samples in by February 1."

• Alison Hardcastle's Open Studio and Pop Up Xmas Shop, November 15 and 16 from 10am to 4pm at Honeysuckle House, Nunburnholme, YO42 1QY. Find out more at alisonhardcastle.com

Tea and cake will be available as will work by York-based card and stationery designer Dear Prudence.