Hand-Painted Paper Foxgloves for Studio Tolstoy
Oleg Tolstoy commissioned three paper foxgloves for his house — a kitchen counter, next to a mirrored wall and a painting. He wanted them tall, roughly 80cm, white, and not too loaded with blossom. The reference images he sent showed real foxgloves at their most sculptural: single stems reaching up rather than dense, packed spikes. That mattered more than anything else in how I approached them.
White foxgloves are deceptive to make in crepe paper. They look simple until you're the one painting the throat markings, and then you realise the "plain" version is doing more work than the coloured ones. No pink or purple to hide behind — just the speckling, which is what actually reads as foxglove rather than any other white bell-shaped flower.
Working from Reference
Foxgloves are a strange flower to work from paper — the bells hang at an angle that shifts as they go up the spike, so no two are quite the same shape. I worked from a mix of Oleg's reference photos and a botanical reference book, the two open side by side on the desk the whole time I was making these. The book had foxglove on the same spread as dogwood, filed under "gesture" — which was useful, since gesture was closer to what I needed than exact botanical detail. Real foxgloves, especially the white ones, aren't uniform. The bells at the top are barely open, still furled and greenish, while the ones lower down have opened out fully and started to droop under their own weight.
That variation is what makes a foxglove read as alive rather than decorative, and it's the first thing I tried to get right before touching paint.
Making the Foxgloves
Each bell is painted before it's shaped, no templates. The speckled throat is painted flat first, bell by bell — which is why the markings never repeat exactly the same way twice on any one stem, and never match between the three. Only once the paint's dry does each bell get shaped and curved.
The leaves got the same attention as the flowers. I hand-painted each one rather than leaving them a flat green, since real foxglove leaves are never uniform — they pick up rust, yellowing, deeper shadow toward the base. I wanted the leaves to hold as much character as the blooms themselves, not just sit underneath them as a backdrop.
The bells lower down the stem are larger and more open; the ones near the top are smaller, still closed. Assembly is the slow part. Each bell gets wired onto the main stem in sequence, working from the base up, adjusting the angle of each one so the whole spike curves the way a real foxglove does under its own weight rather than sitting stiff and symmetrical. With three stems at 80cm, getting the scale right without overloading the blossom — as Oleg had asked — meant leaving space between the bells rather than packing them in for density.
At Studio Tolstoy
The three stems went to Studio Tolstoy, placed by the kitchen counter as planned — a mirrored wall behind them, doubling the height and letting the reflection carry half the arrangement. A painting sits just to the side, and the marble surface underneath does the same quiet work the reference images always suggested it would.
When I arrived to install them, the 80cm Oleg had specified turned out to be a little short for the space. I extended the wire stems slightly on site to compensate, which meant taking the leaves off and repositioning them to suit the new height. The arrangement helped too — the stems went into a glass vase with floral oasis and sand, which added height of its own. Between the two, the scale worked out. Though if I'm honest, I'd have made them taller from the start, given the choice.
120 individual flower parts across three stems, each one painted and shaped by hand. Worth every one.
In place at Studio Tolstoy. This is the bit that doesn't come across in studio photos — how the stems catch the light once they're actually standing in a room they were made for.
Commissions are open, and I've just added a candy striped foxglove to Made to Order. Same process as the pieces going to Studio Tolstoy — hand-painted, free-cut, no two petals quite the same — just in a different colourway. If you've got a space in mind, get in touch and we'll talk it through.
This is the one that caught the eye of the FT's How To Spend It. I can see why — it's not subtle. Red and white candy-striped bells cascade down a tall stem, with tiny cream buds clustered at the top, and the whole thing stands 60–70cm tall. It fills a room.
Each bell is hand-cut, painted and shaped individually from Italian crepe paper. The striping is hand-painted, so no two are exactly the same — the lines vary slightly, which is what makes it feel alive rather than printed.
It works on its own, which is how I'd display it. One tall vase, nothing else competing with it.
This exact piece won't be made again.
Single stem | Height: approx. 60–70cm
Hand-painted Italian crepe paper, wired stem, handcrafted leaves
One of a kind