About

I love tea...

I love to drink tea from a delicate china cup, so in 2017 I decided to create my own limited edition fine bone china cup, featuring some of my signature fashion sketches. The cups were fired up in a small family run business in Cornwall and my designs were screen printed onto them.

Pretty Packaging

All cards, prints and original drawings are presented in vintage inspired gift wrap and ribbons. As a stationery lover, I take pride in my presentation.

My Story

Gillian Monaghan Designs was established in the summer of 2016. Following the loss of our son in 2015 I decided I wanted to spend more time at home with my family. I took a career break from teaching and threw myself back into drawing & creating. It was a form of therapy and the idea of a business came about by accident when I sent some of my own fashion inspired Christmas cards that year. The response to the cards was amazing and the seed of an idea to set up a fashion art business was sewn. Two of those original cards are still our best sellers, more than three years on.

Now I combine family life & looking after our two girls running a small business from my studio in Glasnevin, near the Botanic Gardens.

I enjoy taking art courses in the Hugh Lane Gallery and art history modules in Trinity College. I also have plans to study in the V&A in London in the summer of 2019, having been inspired by the Christian Dior exhibit in Paris.

How I work...

I like to use a mixed media approach to my sketches and I work using pens, inks, marker, watercolour and pencil. I am inspired by old Hollywood glamour, classic style icons and elegant periods in fashion history. One of my favourite artists is Edgar Dégas and his oil pastel drawings of Ballerinas. I adore the illustration work of René Grau and one of my main fashion design influences is Christian Dior. Living near the Botanic Gardens I like to include floral motifs in my work and in 2017 I created a Secret Garden Collection of fashion drawings.

I love to send a card...

Sending a hand written note or card through the post is something I love to do. I wanted to create a collection of classical and contemporary cards, that I myself would buy. They are blank on the inside but are suitable for birthdays, thank yous, congratulations, debs or just to let somebody know that you are thinking of them.

I now have a range of elegant fashion cards with greetings as Gaeilge.

Prints make a lovely gift for anybody who has an interest in art or fashion. They can be given as birthday gifts, house warming gifts, Christmas gifts or just because. Please see my 'Downton' inspired illustration below. I will be releasing a very limited edition, fine art print of this sketch very soon. Please fill out the contact form if you 'd like to be notified of the date for this.

Hat Lover

I love to wear hats and love to sketch them. This is a sketch I did in 2018 for a hat rental business run by Jennifer Mullally of Jennifer's Hat Emporium. It was such a fun illustration to do.