'Handpainting my designs, I feel truly creative'

Flora Roberts is deep in concentration at her studio in rural Dorset.

- Flora Roberts

'Excuse me for being quiet for a few minutes,' she says. 'I must finish painting this flower head before it starts to droop.' The subject of Flora's quiet, intense focus is a postbox-red tulip, which is taped onto the outsized canvas she is working on. She paints the last petal, deftly capturing the subtle tones cast by the soft, warm morning light flooding through a huge north-facing window in her converted coach house studio. A thin scarlet thread props up the tulip's recalcitrant head.

The fact that Flora paints her floral wallpapers and artwork from life lends her working process an urgency. 'Flowers change from minute to minute, so I have to work intuitively,' she explains. 'There's no time for perfection, or to be precious. I work with my mistakes rather than try to correct them. If I didn't, I'd be here forever and would spend a fortune on flowers.' Looking around her studio, it's hard to imagine that any of the wallpapers strung across walls from bamboo poles have a single mistake in them. The portraits of English country gardens have such depth and texture, it's as if you could walk straight into them.

Born into an artistic family of writers, painters and designers, Flora graduated from art school and started her career as a clothing textile designer. But finding it hard to make a living, she turned to painting and wallpaper design in 2012. 'I found designing for the fast fashion world quite disheartening because you put your heart and soul into a piece and have no idea where it ends up. With wallpaper, I learn about its context: where it's going and who will use it.'