My new Chalk Paint® Workbook

My son Felix and I have been working together again to create a really useful Chalk Paint® Workbook, grouped into sections, with handy pockets for storing pictures torn from magazines, fabric swatches or even paint charts. The first Work Book I created (published in 2013) had hints and tips on how you may develop your creative side, but this new one is more of a practical guide to working with the different key styles from my book Room Recipes for Style and Colour. In some sections, we’ve combined different but complementary looks; Bohemian and Floral Vintage or Modern Retro with Warehouse, with suggestions on how to make them work together and plenty of beautiful colour photographs in each section to inspire you. Room Recipes had step-by-step guides and plenty of how-tos – with the Chalk Paint® Workbook it’s over to you. 

I’m never without a workbook to jot down ideas, sketch out designs that have caught my eye or try for myself colour combinations that have inspired me. I’ve been using them for my designs since art school, but even as a child I loved filling a scrap book with bits and pieces that I thought were pretty or interesting and wanted to keep with me. Much as I love Pinterest (and I do love Pinterest!), nothing replaces having something in my bag, or by my bedside table so that I can actually draw out designs, or – importantly – use my paints to see how the colours will work (colours can get subtley distorted on the internet, and even in print).

But! I don’t want to be prescriptive – no-one will be marking you on this. Don’t get caught up in thinking you can’t draw, or worry that your ideas may not be good enough, just put them on the page, play around with them and see what you come up with. I’ve added plenty of tips and some of my own doodles on each page, to guide you through. Think of the book as a place where you can explore your ideas and let your imagination run riot. You may have a very fixed idea of what you want to do when you start a project, but I often find it best not to be too rigid with myself. I’ll have something in mind, but once I get started I can find myself changing direction – using a different colour, adding some stencilling.

Remember – it’s your book, I’m just there offering some advice! Please let me know how you end up using it.

Yours, Annie

*Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint® Workbook is published by CICO and available in selected book stores as well as through Annie Sloan Stockists around the world.

Introducing my latest book

I’m thrilled to announce that my new book, Annie Sloan's Room Recipes for Style and Colour, is officially launched next week…

With 300 inspirational photographs, I really hope you'll enjoy tucking into its 192 pages. The book examines several key interior design styles and features stunning photography from Christopher Drake (who I've had the honour of working with on all my most recent books!). 

Christopher Drake on our shoot for the Neoclassical chapter

My publishers (CICO Books) have done a cracking job in the production and printing and it looks good enough to eat (well, it is called ‘Recipes’). Seriously, it’s probably the book that comes closest to epitomising what I have been about for over 30 years and I feel tremendously proud of the finished result.

Felix Sloan, my son & co-author

That pride also comes about because this is the first book my son, Felix, and I have written together. As a graphic designer and skilled painter, Felix has been instrumental in helping me put together my last 4 books, assisting on photoshoots and helping me with painting behind the scenes. 

He was especially hands-on in the design of the Annie Sloan Work Book. Now my middle son has turned his talents to co-writing and I think the results speak volumes.

Sources of inspiration

It’s been something of a journey of discovery* for Felix and I, not just in putting the book together but in sourcing the 9 styles featured in the book. Along the way, we met a group of very generous and supportive homeowners who opened their doors to reveal some stunning room recipes. A big thank you to furniture designer Tim Gosling for his refined Neoclassical apartment, to the caretakers at Stola Herrgård, the epitome of Traditional Swedish, designer Virginia Armstrong and her ever-so-stylish Modern Retro London home, interior painter and photographer Janice Issitt and her so Boho Bucks Cottage, vintage fair collector Madeline Tomlinson and her rose-revived Vintage Floral cottage, oil painter Alex Rusell Flint and his très chic French Elegance schoolhouse, antique collectors and dealers Rob and Jane Slater for their truly Rustic Country abode in the Peak District, photographer Paul Massey and his wife Jules and their Coastal Cornish cottage, and Emily Gray and her fab Amsterdam Warehouse apartment. 






More than a coffee table book

And as a special treat, Felix and I filmed this short video to introduce the book to you all. You might recognise the backdrop from the cover of the book. Enjoy!

Yours, Annie

PS * One among many interesting discoveries in the book: The attic featured in Vintage Floral was once the studio of distinctive English landscape and portrait artist Graham Sutherland.