It all began when Julia Atkinson-Dunn, director of Studio Home NZ, got in touch while I was working on my new ceramics and paintings during the London summer earlier this year. She had an exciting proposition and invitation to make a series of limited edition works to exhibit in her Studio Home Art initiative in Christchurch alongside some really exciting NZ artists. I have been in touch with Julia for over 10 years now, she has written about my works on several occasions sharing my work with her audience and I was really excited to participate in an event that she was organising.
The resulting prints were shown at an event hosted by Julia and I could not be more excited about the resulting series which are all now available on Julia's site:
https://studiohomeart.co.nz/collections/annie-smits-sandano
I put together a series of three images: the serpent, a New Zealand crayfish and a botanical illustration piece. All three started off as free hand ink line drawings juxtaposed with loose layered ethereal washes of watercolour and gouache. These original works were then scanned in the highest resolution possible in a fine art digital works studio I use in Hoxton and then sent to be professionally printed in London in very small runs.
I chose a beautiful lush heavy cotton rag fine art paper with a bit of texture so that the reproductions would be as close to the original works as possible. I am beyond pleased with the final prints, I’ve never worked in the scale of the large works, the over-size prints are just so exciting to see, the change in scale making a big difference in how the work reads.
