In conversation with Dr Peter Wakelin.
Louise Lockhart has built a huge audience for her bright, whimsical illustrations and distinctive children’s books, cards, prints, textiles and wallpapers. On Instagram, where she is known as The Printed Peanut, she has 300,000 followers. Originally from Yorkshire, Louise graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2009. After working in a stylish stationery shop in Vancouver, Canada, she returned to the UK and converted an old mill into a home and studio in Todmorden. Two years ago, she moved with her young family to a farm at Llanvetherine alongside three other creative households.
Her distinctive designs have been commissioned by Liberty, Boden and M&S, among others. In 2015, Design for Today published Up My Street, her concertina-book homage to Eric Ravilious’s High Street. More recently, Louise has been moving towards work as an artist. Her exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2026 showed 60 original artworks that explored a range of printmaking techniques and celebrated some of her favourite subjects, including fairgrounds, flea markets and shopfronts.
Peter Wakelin chairs the Board of Cadw and is President of the Contemporary Art Society for Wales. His books include Hidden Histories: Discovering the Heritage of Wales, Hill-rhythms: David Jones + Capel-y-ffin, Refuge and Renewal: Migration and British Art and several artist monographs.
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