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2 days ago | Advertorial | Harriet Pembury

“After 40 years of drawing other people’s homes, I’m putting my pen down.” – Why a 74-year-old architect in Sussex is selling his last light paintings at a special price

Ambrose Tillyard, 74, draws little rooms by hand and puts a light behind them, so the sun comes in when you switch them on. Now he is stopping for good.

Lewes, October. The little shed at the bottom of Ambrose’s garden smells of ink, sawdust and strong tea. The walls are pinned with sketches: sitting rooms, reading corners, a seaside flat with tall windows. On the long drafting table lie fine pens, a steel rule, a soldering iron and a box of tiny warm-white lights. Half-finished frames lean against the wall, some still empty, some already holding a drawing. Ambrose bends over one of his last pictures, the way he has done every morning since he retired. But this autumn is different. It is his last.

“I’m seventy-four,” he says quietly, and holds up his right hand. It trembles, ever so slightly. “For an architect, that’s the end of the road. I can’t draw a straight line any more.” He puts the pen down. “And it isn’t only my hand. Nobody draws by hand now. Everything comes out of a machine somewhere. The way I work is slowly disappearing.”

40 years, 1,100 houses – a life spent drawing where the sun falls

Ambrose has done the sums. In forty years as an architect in Brighton, most of them spent restoring Georgian terraces, he drew close to 1,100 houses. And in every one of them, before he drew a single wall, he drew one thing first: where the four o’clock sun would fall across the sitting room floor. “Clients didn’t remember the floor plans,” he says. “They remembered that drawing. People don’t fall in love with a house. They fall in love with the light in it.”

When he retired in 2017, he carried on drawing rooms, just for himself. Then one January evening he put a small light behind one of the drawings to see what would happen. “The sun came in,” he says. “In the middle of a grey Sussex winter, in a little drawing, the sun came in.” Since then he has made more than 2,000 of them, sold at the Lewes farmers’ market, at craft fairs along the coast and to people whose houses he once restored.

What makes Ambrose’s light paintings so special

It isn’t only the drawing itself. It is the way each one is built: like a tiny room you can switch on.

In daylight it looks like a fine black ink sketch in a simple light wood frame. Switch it on, and the light comes from behind the drawing, exactly where Ambrose has put it: through the tall windows, across the floorboards, over the arm of a chair. The rest of the room stays a cool blue-grey, just like a real room on a sunny afternoon. There are three kinds of light, a cool morning, a bright afternoon and a warm golden sunset, and nine brightness levels, all on a little switch on the cable. It plugs into any USB plug, extension lead or laptop, and it stands on a shelf or hangs on the wall. Each picture is 23 by 17 centimetres, about the size of a hardback book.

The result is more than a lamp. It turns a dark corner into a sunny room, at any time of day and in any season.

“Some of my clients have had their little room on the windowsill for eight years”

Ambrose lifts an old toffee tin down from the shelf above the drafting table. Inside are hundreds of letters and cards. “Thank-you notes,” he says. “Some of these people have written to me every Christmas.” He takes out a card dated 2019. It reads: “Dear Mr Tillyard, my husband is in a care home in Eastbourne now and his room looks out over the car park. I put your little seaside room on his windowsill. Every afternoon at four the carers switch it on, and he tells them the sun is out.”

There is a simple reason for this: care instead of speed. A factory turns out thousands of light-up frames a day. Ambrose makes one at a time, from the first pencil line to the ink, the frame, the light and the final check. A single picture takes him about six hours, a full working day at his age.

The end of an era – and one last chance

Just before Christmas, Ambrose will close his studio for good. “There’s no one to take over. Nobody wants to spend ten years learning to draw light by hand.” Around 412 light paintings are still stacked on his shelves, in three rooms: the seaside room he drew after holidays in Torquay, where palm trees line the English Riviera, the reading corner of his own shed with the chestnut tree outside, and a family sitting room with a dog asleep in the sun. His life’s work. The last collection that will ever pass through his hands.

To make sure they go to good homes before the studio closes, he has made an unusual decision: one clear special price on every picture, £39 instead of £78. “It’s not about the money any more. I want them on bedside tables and bookshelves where somebody switches them on every evening,” Ambrose says. “My grandchildren Poppy (24) and Alfie (27) are selling them online for me. At my age I haven’t the faintest idea how the internet works,” he adds with a laugh.

Alfie also came up with the name. “That first winter he came down the garden, saw the little rooms glowing on the shelf and said: Grandad, you’re painting with light. So they became light paintings.” The name stuck. And for many customers, a simple picture has become an evening ritual: switch it on, sit down, and watch the sun come into a little room while it is dark outside.

What sets Ambrose’s light paintings apart:

• Made in Ambrose’s studio: Every picture is drawn, framed, wired and checked by Ambrose himself, one at a time, with no production line.
• Sunlight you can switch on: The light falls exactly where an architect would put it: through the windows, across the floor, over the furniture.
• Built to last: A sturdy natural wood frame, a solid cable with its own switch and long-life LEDs, made for years of evenings.
• Three moods instead of one harsh glare: Cool morning, bright afternoon or warm sunset, dimmable in nine steps. Ideal as an evening light, night light or background light.
• Simple to use: Plug the USB cable into any plug, extension lead or laptop, press the switch, done. It stands on its own or hangs on the wall.
• Limited: Only around 412 light paintings are left from Ambrose’s final collection. When they’re gone, there will be no more.

What real customers say about Ambrose’s light paintings

“The perfect present for the people you really love”

His customer Philippa M. (52) from Guildford agrees: “I gave my mum the seaside room for her bedside table a fortnight ago. She spent every summer in Devon with my dad, and she can’t travel any more. She had tears in her eyes, not because of the picture itself, but because she could feel straight away how much care had gone into it. Now she switches it on every evening and says: there’s my seaside.”

Where can you buy Ambrose’s light paintings?

Ambrose’s light paintings are only available through Cedar & Tin, an online shop for real handwork from selected makers. His grandchildren Poppy and Alfie run Ambrose’s own little corner of the shop there. Only there will you get the original light paintings from his studio. Similar-looking light-up frames from mass production have started to appear on Amazon and other big sites. At first glance they may look alike, but they have nothing to do with Ambrose’s work.

Only this winter – then it’s over

Ambrose plans to close his studio for good just before Christmas. “By then I’d like every picture to have found a good home. After that, it really is the end,” he says quietly, and gives a small smile. “Forty years of houses. It’s been a good life.”

If you would like one of the original light paintings from Ambrose’s final collection, don’t leave it too long. Poppy and Alfie will keep sending them out after the studio closes for as long as pictures are left on the shelves, until 31 December at the latest. But with the special price and this much interest, the remaining 412 are not expected to last.

It is the last chance to bring a piece of real handwork into your home, before Ambrose’s little sunny rooms are gone for good.

The verdict

Ambrose’s light painting is the little picture people fall in love with. It is made by hand in his studio and feels like a small window of sunshine for your home, with warm light that makes a bedside table, a bookshelf or a reading chair instantly cosier.

A feel-good piece with real heart: carefully drawn, well made, thought through. And every evening a small moment of magic when the sun comes into a little drawn room. Thank you, Ambrose!

The internet loves Ambrose’s light paintings