The Resort Studio

posted by Robyn Pitts July 14, 2020

The Resort Studio was created with it’s founder Susie Sharman-Hayles’ love of tropical plant life, and bold, colourful architecture at it’s heart. After travelling to destinations such as Morocco and India, she had an abundance of inspiration that she wanted to utilise, but was unsure of which avenue to pursue. Reflecting her love for painting and digital design, Susie decided to experiment with creating bold prints to brighten up peoples’ interiors. “I wanted to create prints nostalgic of travel and being somewhere exotic; to create a sense of escapism through art” describes the printmaker. The Resort Studio’s collection, which is now available on Department Store, is a range of Giclée digital prints, printed on 330gsm Somerset Enhanced Velvet paper.

Susie developed her passion for painting whilst studying a foundation degree in Art and Design. She then went on to study Textile Design for Fashion and Interiors at Bath Spa University. This course allowed her to explore all disciplines within textile design, however it was wet and digital print that she enjoyed the most. Here Susie learnt the fundamentals of screen printing, as well as digital design, and knew that it was this field that she wanted to pursue a career in. She fell in love with the process of screen printing and the very methodical, technical way of achieving beautiful artwork, and it from this that she adopted a similar style of painting.

Since graduating two years ago, Susie has been working in fashion print design. Working in the industry has pushed her to continue to develop her digital skills, and thus provided the opportunity to tailor a design process perfectly suited for the style of artwork she wants to achieve. The Resort Studio is her personal creative outlet, and the lockdown period has given Susie more time to reflect and work on the project. She states; “I feel it has taken me a few years of working within industry to figure out what my true style is and what I want to present as ‘my work’, which of course is still evolving“.

The inspiration behind her prints comes from bold colours, architecture, nature, and travelling. The collection reflects trips that Susie has taken to Morocco and India, and the colours that she witnessed still continue to inspire her work. “I am largely drawn to the warm sandy tones and beautiful plant life in Morocco, and I am currently working on a series of true Morocco prints using an amalgamation of imagery I have collected” explains Susie.

Her current artworks are predominantly a combination of Posca pen and digitally drawn elements. Susie often draws the more organic elements by hand, and then digitally composes the rest. “I absolutely love the way you can tweak colours, backgrounds and play around with composition digitally” describes the artist. Posca pens have been a “game changer” for her artworks; speeding up the design process by producing a flat colour that can usually only be achieved with acrylic.

The Resort Studio is still in its early days, and Susie hopes to use it to continue learning and developing as a designer. Going forward, she aims to collaborate with photographers and other artists, bring out a collection of limited edition screen prints, and work on some larger scale pieces. Susie has also been working on a lockdown series where she has been creating illustrations from photos taken during the pandemic of her home in London; “I feel this would be quite a nice contrast to the more tropical feel of most of my artworks“. When things return to some level of normality, she will resume her travels of the world, concluding; “each trip is such a great chance to gather more inspiration and help me to continue to refine and challenge my style“.