madi.

her apprenticeship started under raf at his old shop and carried on here when she joined the team — the second artist at shade he's taught.

she works small and detailed. linework does most of the job, with stipple shading or a small hit of colour only where it earns its place — a red splatter, three flowers, nothing beyond what the piece actually needs. small work is less forgiving than people expect: there's no room to fix a line once it's down, so the drawing stage matters more for her than for artists working at a bigger scale.

gothic and illustrative subjects mostly — dragons, moths, folding fans, dark portraits, the odd figure in a gas mask or a crumbling archway. she's currently training, which at shade means working under close guidance on placement and scale rather than being newer at the drawing itself; the linework is already exact, the training is about everything around it — sizing, positioning, reading how a design will sit once it's actually on someone rather than on paper.

a session with her is precise and quiet — small-scale linework demands total concentration, and she'd rather take a short break mid-piece than push through a line she's not confident in. colour, when it appears at all, goes in last and sparingly, so the linework underneath stays the thing doing most of the work.

she's taking on larger projects now, which is the natural next step when the small work is already this tight — if you've got a bigger idea and like what you see in her smaller pieces, that's exactly the direction she's moving.

currently taking bookings.

see madi's work in fine line and blackwork.