With the start of the 4 month-long Festival of Britain celebration at the Southbank, one Royal Knees-Up down and Union Jacks still flying uncharacteristically high, CultureLabel is embarking on its very own celebration of British talent with a summer long series of Best of British interviews with some of the most inspiring artists & designer-makers working today…

Donald Short is a painter based in the UK with an interest in architecture, particularly modernism. He has recently completed a set of unique Blue Prints celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Festival of Britain, using images of Hidalgo Moya’s Skylon, Ernest Race’s ‘Antelope’ chair, Abram Games’ Britannia festival emblem and the Festival titling by Phillip Boydell.

Tell us a little more about your background as an artist?
I studied Fine Art Painting at Camberwell School of Art and Crafts at the gloomy end of the 80s. More recently I completed an MA at the University of the Arts, Bournemouth and was also briefly at Winchester School of Art.

What inspired the Blue Print series currently available on CultureLabel?
I was looking for an appropriate outlet for my ideas with regards to architecture and design when I happened upon the Cyanotype process that is used to make the Blue Prints: some things don’t make good paintings but they do make great prints. From there, I set out to develop an affordable product that was also economic to make. I brought in a friend on the design of the packaging, labels etc; he also created my website www.donaldshort.co.uk, while I set about creating the various Blue Print images. It took about a year and a half to get the whole thing perfected. It’s a commercial venture and unlike my paintings, I consider Blue Print as a product.

Are you excited about the forthcoming celebration of The Festival of Britain in London?
I have been excited about the Festival of Britain for 25 years and was, during my long spell in London, a frequent visitor to the South Bank. I originally offered the idea of the Festival of Britain Blue Prints to the Southbank, but they weren’t interested.

The SouthBank say that their programme of events will celebrate the Best of British culture today… what do you deem as the best of British culture today?
My only engagement with today’s culture is through my children and my pupils, which is to say removed. It’s not so much about getting old as getting wise. I have no time for the latest e-fads such as Facebook and Twitter and have narrowed my play list to one artist, who died in 1750.

Any plans for the future?
I have begun a new series of paintings, which will be on my site in the autumn. I will also be creating some larger Blue Prints in the autumn which should be available by Christmas.

What do you most like about CultureLabel?
It is a marketplace for artists otherwise disenfranchised by art world nepotism.

You can browse Donald Short’s Blue Print Collection in full at CultureLabel.