A Painterly Glow: Hand-Painted Lampshades
I love the opportunity and creative possibilities these ubiquitous objects provide.
Almost anything in our spaces can serve as a canvas if we choose to see it that way. Right? Right! Case in point: an obsession of mine, hand-painted lampshades!
I won’t call it a trend because I honestly have no clue. I see tons on my Pinterest, but the little gremlins managing my Pinterest page know exactly what I like! During the stay-at-home days, I followed a New York Times tutorial for painting a lampshade. They invited the talented Cressida Bell to give a brief demo, and I loosely followed her instructions. She’s a massive talent and also a descendant of the famed Bloomsbury Group. I’ve long loved their work, and I love hers too.
But she’s not the only one!
This post features some of my favorite lampshade painters, as well as the few I made for our apartment, including a little workaround I came up with when I couldn’t find paper shades
The Bloomsbury Group has clearly inspired several contemporary artists working in this space. (And I can see why. It’s hard not to be inspired.) Bloomsbury Revisited, Chapel House Studio, and Feathers and Needles kept popping up during my browsing. Each of them makes stunning examples, and I especially love the loose, painterly style that echoes the Bloomsbury aesthetic.
Another approach that catches my eye leans more towards decorative and pattern-driven designs, such as repeating floral motifs reminiscent of wallpaper. Artists like Sarah Blomfield, Caitlin McGauley, and Melanie Lewis have created works in this style. Each approaches the form in a unique way, yet the results are beautiful and highly desirable.
One artist who caught my attention in a different way is Emma Kohlmann. I believe she mainly creates paintings, but a couple of years ago, she did a series of painted lampshades. I love them. Something about them reminds me of Eric Carle’s work, maybe it’s the color, or maybe I’ve just been thinking about him lately. Either way, there’s an incredible energy in these.
Below is one of the two painted lampshades I created for our bedroom. I used the small linen shades that came with this inexpensive plug-in wall sconce and painted them in a simple scallop style inspired by something I saw on Pinterest and to match our scallop folding screen I made around the same time.
Here’s the other one… the one I made while following the New York Times tutorial. I already had this shade on hand and didn’t want to buy a new one. Since it was made of linen (not paper), I applied a thin layer of matte medium first. I was worried the paint might bleed into the fabric. The matte medium definitely helped control the paint, so I used the same technique for the bedroom shades as well. They were linen too.
Finding an affordable paper shade in the U.S. proved surprisingly difficult. Even small ones often start at $45, which feels like a lot, especially for an experimental project. Do you know any good sources? I’d love to try painting on paper next!
It was hard to pick so few for this round-up! You can see more on my Pinterest board if you’d like to keep browsing.
Have you ever painted a lampshade, or would you like to? Would you opt for a repeating pattern, something expressive and freeform, or perhaps a portrait of your pet? I think it’s all so full of joy… so let me be the one to say: go for it. And if you know of other artists who paint lampshades, please send them my way. I’m always curious to discover more.
Thanks for being curious about craft with me!
Side note: Here's some good interneting, in case you need a boost.
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Oooh love the note on matte medium! A project on my list is to paint the sad cheap white blackout/roman shades going into my son's room...I read lots of suggestions to mix fabric softener or fabric medium, but I imagine matte medium would help in the areas with some pattern/detail. Thanks for sharing!
I am so glad you posted about this! I had wanted to paint a lampshade and tried. However, it was linen. I would’ve loved to have tried what you did. My paint bled into the fabric, and it didn’t turn out great. It was fortunately a lampshade I had thrifted.