Bright ideas

Feast your eyes on colourful new pieces inspired by everything from scarves to sweeties

BRINGING COLOUR INTO your home is a great mood booster, and various designers and makers are deploying cheerful brights in their work, drawing from the palette of spring blooms.

Artist Carol Bruton (carolbruton. com) produces ‘painting sculptures’ inspired by nature: her latest series takes on the pattern of raindrops, in an effort to draw attention to ‘the urgency of protecting this increasingly fragile resource’. Cold glass drops and raw pigments in bold tones are applied to canvas, giving a hypnotic effect as the light moves across the surface throughout the day. Bruton has donated one of her recent pieces, Raindrops Gold , to be auctioned online in support of The Prince’s Countryside Fund, which works to preserve the British countryside. Make a bid at givergy.com.

Another charity collaboration comes from the design studio One Nine Eight Five (onenineeightfive.co.uk), where creative director Eleanor Nadimi has drawn a vibrant floral motif for a velvet cushion in support of Marie Curie’s Great Daffodil Appeal. At least £40 from the sale of each cushion, which cost £70, will go to the charity (marie curie.org.uk/daffodil).

Art of a different nature – but in similarly striking hues – comes courtesy of Richard Allan, whose silk scarves were a mainstay of the 1960s Swinging London set. He closed his business and sold his archive in the early 1980s, but his daughter, Cate, has spent the past five years tracking down his original scarves, and reworking their patterns in contemporary colourways. The newly relaunched business, Richard Allan London, sells silk scarves, and limited-edition prints (richardallanlondon.co.uk).

Elsewhere, Andrew Martin (andrew martin.co.uk) is riding the wave of the current 1970s trend with his tables and stools inspired by retro sweets such as Liquorice Allsorts, with velvet-coloured swivel chairs and striped sofas. All of which is intended, no doubt, to raise a smile; and will certainly put a spring in your step as you walk into the room.

Clockwise from below Richard Allan prints; Andrew Martin’s Kapow chair in fuchsia fizz; a daffodil-motif cushion by Eleanor Nadimi, in aid of Marie Curie’s Great Daffodil Appeal; RaindropsGold by Carol Bruton