My Illustrations

When I began the research for my first book I planned to hire an artist to do the illustrations. I quickly realized that I was probably the only person crazy enough to undertake such a huge task and any professional illustrator worth their salt would cost me a fortune. I decided to bite the bullet and go at it on my own. It took me 9 months to finish almost 3000 drawings.

Step #1 - Rough pencil sketch

Step #2 - Black and White Line Drawing

Step #3 - Full Color Rendering

It sounds easier than it is - there are actually more like 8 steps. One of the most difficult tasks is deciding on the color scheme for each design. By the time you have done about 200 or 300 color renderings you have seriously run out of new color options! I bought every set of colored pencils available on the market today (about 875 pencils) and I still ran out of colors pretty quickly.

A year and a half ago I began writing - and more to the point, drawing, for my clients a collection of window treatments that I had designed over my 20 years as a designer. Long story short, to my amazement within 3 months I had a book contract and began the process of producing 600 pages and 3000 illustrations of window treatments. Hence the description of myself as an "accidental author".


I am now writing and drawing the second volume of this series which will include thousands of options for soft furnishings for the boudoir! Needless to say I have a somewhat obsessive love for all things fabric. It began at an early age and still rages within me to this day. I have tapped into this obsession to create a vast visual directory of design inspiration for anyone interested in soft treatment design.


Over the past year and a half my career has been subject to some radical changes - many of them I will share with you on this blog. Becoming an "author" is a very surreal experience (that word is so serious, I am actually a terrible writer - worse speller and an absolutely non-functional typist - thank goodness for spell check). I think it is sort of like getting an honorary doctorate from the university you never graduated from. You get to call yourself doctor of whatever but you would always be worried someone would figure out you are faking it. Oh well, you know what they say, "Fake it till you make it"!

I hope you will check back with me to see what I am drawing next and find out what super secret tricks of the trade I will be disclosing. If you have any really cool window treatment or bedding ideas please share them with me. I love to see what other fabric junkies are working on ( I usually say fabric ho's but I am not sure if that is acceptable blog etiquette).