There are quite a few ‘easy wins’ that I’ve already made to try to ensure that the making of my art is having a minimal impact on the environment, including around the sketchbooks I use as well as my media. I’m planning to make 2024 the year I pay even more attention to my supplies and materials and I’m hoping to start experimenting with making my own botanical inks and pigments.

I really love giving people presents - both bought and handmade. In fact, I used to spend hours and hours on Christmas boxes for people, trying to create the perfect mix of handmade goodies (usually edible, but sometimes sewn or knitted) and little things I’d bought over a period of months. By gifting in this way, I could also be 100% sure of what something was made from and it also meant that I could reduce the environmental impact of the gifts themselves, as well as the wrapping and packing. A couple of big life events have made spending that much time on Christmas gifting unfeasible over the last few years. So I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve been doing more recently to try to ensure that my Christmas gifting continues to be as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible.

I love to illustrate simple steps that people can take to live a more environmentally-friendly and sustainable life and incorporate this into my repeat pattern design.