How I Started Painting on Lampshades

I began painting on lampshades about 10 years ago purely out of boredom.  I had a plain lampshade sitting around in my studio and I wondered what would happen if I painted on it with some acrylic paint.  A few fun hours followed and I posted the end result on my Instagram account to an audience of about 100 followers.  To my astonishment I received a message from the mother of one of my daughter's friends asking if she could buy it.  I politely told her it was not for sale at that stage, but thanked her for her interest and asked her what she would have considered a reasonable price.  To my astonishment she said £120 to £140!  

Fast forward several more years during which I focussed on printmaking in between being a full time mum and housewife to three daughters and a never present hard working husband in the City and we moved to Shropshire for a new life that would enable us to focus on being creative - myself as an artist and my husband (a lawyer) as a writer.  

A totally different adventure followed, all documented on Instagram on my account @ex_tenants_of_morville_hall which is a story with more ups and downs than a rollercoaster and with about as much adrenaline to go with it, I won't bore you with the detail here, but its worth a read if you want to know how NOT to go about making your life more fulfilling.

Suffice to say, my creative dreams did not really go to plan and I found myself firefighting an enormous overgrown garden belonging to the National Trust and trying to create a home in a superb, but pretty much uninhabitable, Grade I listed house.  

It wasn't until four years after our move that I began to paint on lampshades again.  I had rented a small set of shelves in the fabulous Nina & Co shop in Ludlow and had very little to sell.  I churned out a collection of pretty basic lampshades and block printed with potatoes on some fabric to make some cushions.  To my delight they began to sell.  But not at £120, more like £30-£40, which I convinced myself was fine.  I was really churning out Bloomsbury rip offs in colours that showed little respect to the glorious palettes of the Bloomsbury artists, but in my mind at the time they were ok enough to share with a small audience in Shropshire.

In 2022 we moved from the National Trust house to another rental and another two years of utter upheaval and misery, include the tragic loss of my niece at just 21 years old.  Creativity in times of grief and stress was not good and my creative dream was still largely on pause.  Yet another house move followed a year later to a small flat in Shrewsbury that needed total refurbishment.  My husband and I spent the better part of 9 months living apart whilst I lived in town with two of our daughters to get rid of the three hour daily school run we had found ourselves saddled with after the move from the National Trust house.  

During this time, with no pets or husband to look after and next to no housework or gardening chores in the flat, I found myself with space, peace and quiet and surge of creative energy to make art.  I bought a collection of lampshades and began painting and sharing them on Instagram and listed them on Etsy.  So my little business began.  The lampshades sold - still for modest prices that didn't come close to the price suggested for my first ever shade, but enough to justify me spending my days enjoying the process.

With each lampshade I painted came a new desire to create different designs and create new ways of painting on the shades.  Basic repeating patterns were left behind in favour of painting Staffordshire greyhound figures.  These in turn became more elaborate with ever increasingly complicated patterns around them.  

The challenge of painting on a circular object with no flat surfaces is one that I really enjoy.  I have pushed myself more and more and began to paint highly detailed images of monkeys inspired by 18th century engravings.  The joy of watching a shade take shape means I never tire of the process.  

My prices are slowly starting to creep up to match the time it takes me to paint a shade.  I am nearly at the point of charging what I was offered 10 years ago!  The quality of my output is however way higher and I am proud of what I create and delighted beyond belief when I hear a ping on my phone to tell me a shade has sold!

Yet another house move beckons in 2026.  Away from the small flat in Shrewsbury and hopefully, if all goes to plan, to a townhouse in a Shropshire market town that will provide me with an amazing light filled studio space, where I can create in a dedicated space.  I have so many ideas for new ways of making lampshades that will take me forward from merely painting on ready made shades.  I am bursting with inspiration and a desire to elevate what I already do, to another level and decorate shades using methods that I have yet to find anyone else doing, which combines the various artistic skills and processes that I have been acquiring through my adult life.

Stay with me if you enjoy what you see - there is no pressure to buy from me, I purely enjoy the process of sharing the outcome.  Obviously if you do make a purchase, then you will be making one lady in Shropshire very happy indeed!

Bye for now and thanks for reading,

Melanie