Oakleaf Calligraphy

12/06/2025

I love doing the trees for Who Do You Think You Are. They're done a long time before the show airs and I never know what will get used, so it's nice to see what appears.
There is always a tight deadline (for filming), so a printed tree rather than handwritten is the right choice, but it's nice to give them a hand written look.

11/06/2022

I've a few family trees in the latest series of Who Do You Think You Are. Here's one showing Richard Osman's long family history in Brighton. (Secret snippet... for the original tree I submitted, the producer asked for an image reminiscent of Brighton on it, so I included a seagull! Sadly the seagull didn't stay!)

15/05/2022

06/05/2022

Want to see 150+ amazing pieces of calligraphy? The SSI Centenary Exhibition is currently in Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery, and is in Swansea in August. Seeing the work in real life is completely different to seeing catalogues / images on screen - really worth the trip. I have two pieces included, one of which is a copy of the Danny Dyer family tree I wrote for his episode of Who Do You Think You Are.

02/12/2020

A little feature about the interest in creating family trees - in this week's Country Life, no less!

16/08/2020

Sometimes you just need to try out all your sparkly paints for no particular reason (although let’s call it “research” shall we?!)

10/07/2020

What a pleasure it was teaching my first live online class this morning. We did “removing the guesswork from foundational’ - and I think it worked well! I only knocked my phone off it’s rickety stand once, and WiFi didn’t let me down - I really enjoyed it! Here’s the aftermath.... not too bad!
I’m thinking I might offer something similar to anyone who is interested.... do please let me know if that might be you (or forward this on).

07/06/2020

I loved creating this large piece on canvas (for good friends). It suffered an accident (a hammer got dropped on it 😬) I couldn’t fix it, so I did a second piece for them. Not really sure why I put the ripped one in the loft for 5 years.... did I think it would magically heal itself?!

02/02/2020

A little commission for a birthday falling on today’s special palindrome date

17/12/2019

Yesterday I visited ‘lettering :art and illusion” at Ruthin craft centre (http://ruthincraftcentre.org./whats-on/gallery-1/). What a treat to see work from amazing letterers in a beautiful space.... and get as close to the pieces as I wanted! I know Ruthin might be quite a step for some, but if you can visit, please do - calligraphy exhibitions of this calibre don’t come along very often. (All you people in the North West - it’s not too far at all for you!). Exhibition is on until 12th January.

12/12/2019

Here’s a snippet of what the bright coloured playing became... all bundled up and on its way to the commissioner...

10/12/2019