Blondie Howden tells us the amazing story of how her accidental artistic beginnings have led to creating murals internationally

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When Charlotte Howden, better known in street-art circles simply as Blondie, picked up a spray can for the first time, it probably wasn’t how she had imagined it.

After a friend of a friend mistakenly took her time at art school - where she studied fashion - as a confirmation she could paint, Blondie (@blondie_howden ) was booked in to create an impactful mural for Maidstone Borough Council.

She recalls, laughing: “My friend was like ‘Oh well, it’s booked in now’. And neither of us want to look silly, so if it turns out really bad, we’ll just say it’s abstract and won’t sign it.”

It didn’t turn out badly. In fact, that accidental commission became the beginning of a career she’d secretly wanted but never believed she could have.

“I’d always really wanted to do fine art at uni, but I never thought I was good enough at it,” she says. Instead, she studied fashion at UCA, having sewn from childhood under the creative encouragement of her seamstress mother. But the fashion world quickly left her uneasy: “The more I learned about the fashion industry, the less I wanted, morally, to have anything to do with it. It’s not very good for the environment, lots of people are very underpaid and I wanted to make more of a social impact.”

A two-week residency in an empty unit inside Maidstone Mall gave her the time and space to figure things out.

“They wanted it to be sort of graffiti-themed because it was for a youth group,” she explains. “So I had to just kind of work out how to do it.” The unveiling went off without a hitch and by the time she walked out she had three more commissions. “And then those jobs have turned into more bookings and it’s rolled on from there!”

Brick by Brick

That first mural was less than two years ago. Since then, Blondie has set her mind to perfecting her art.

“I’ve really put my heart and soul and full brain into it… because I just thought I was so lucky that I’d been given the opportunity to do it.”

Completely self-taught, Blondie’s methods of conveying her art are her own.

“It depends on the space,” she says. “If it’s a brick wall, you can work out the scale by counting the lines of bricks up, and then it becomes a bit of a maths paint-by-numbers game.”

Sometimes she sketches, sometimes she collages images on her iPad. Every wall is different.

But mural work brings a psychological challenge as well as a technical one. “Socially, it’s an anxious job to go and do,” she says. “Especially at the beginning because most of them are outdoors in public places, so you’ve got the view of absolutely everyone… and you’ve got no idea what it looks like until you’re finished.

“You can be up in the air so you can’t see it, but you’re also really aware that everyone else can see it.”

Her style has evolved significantly. She began with graphic, cartoonish pieces inspired by her first exhibition, Everything I Never Watched in the 90s.

“It was about the way my mum parented me… she never let me or my brother sit in front of the TV for ages because she wanted to teach us how to do stuff.” Art and sewing were woven into her childhood. “I wouldn’t have any sort of an interest in art if I’d have been brought up by anyone else. She was always very encouraging of my creative side and I am very grateful for it.”

Realism came later. “I think it was a bit of a confidence thing… It’s quite scary to go off into the wild with your own style,” she says. “But I gradually worked my way up.”

For an artist whose career began with an unplanned ‘yes’, going off into the wild seems to be precisely where Blondie thrives.

Her work at Edinburgh’s Quality Yard pushed her further, producing a beautifully realistic set of eyes behind a fringe.

“Everyone had the same-sized board… someone from Mexico, someone from Italy, a couple of artists from Scotland,” she says. “I felt like the competition was running quite high with that one, so I really tried my best.”

But perhaps her most dramatic scale jump came at Platform 26, the new padel club in Chatham. Initially, they wanted simple signwriting. She convinced them otherwise. “I talked them into having a mural instead… it’s a lot more visually impactful than what we originally discussed.”

It was bigger than she expected - much bigger. “I originally thought it was about the size of a train station wall and I took a step ladder,” she says. “And then I went to view the wall and I knew this ladder was not going to be big enough. Blondie painted the 20-foot wall entirely from an A-frame ladder.

Though commissions continue to pour in from gyms, boxing clubs and businesses, she’s careful about what she agrees to paint. “I really try to steer away from people asking for specific things,” she says. “The ideas are normally generated by other artists’ work... and you’ll end up creating an imitation.” For her, that’s creatively dangerous. “It strays away from your specialism and what you really want to convey.”

Instead, she studies the space itself with “a bit of an interior design hat on” and returns to the style she feels most connected to. “I really like doing portraiture… people find it more emotionally engaging to look at a piece that’s got a face on it.”

While one signature detail that now appears in every finished wall - her baby daughter’s footprint, stamped discreetly into the paint - if there is a single thread running through Blondie’s early career, it’s Maidstone.

“I’ve very much used Maidstone as my portfolio. And it is my favourite town on Earth. No one loves Maidstone as much as I do,” she says with the fervour of someone who means it.

Why Maidstone? Its eclecticism, she says. “It’s just such a mixed bag of people… culturally, socially and age ranges as well.” She even praises its humour. “I think people in Maidstone are funnier than any other town in Kent as well. The Maidstone Matters Group is my favourite thing to go on in the evening.”

Some of her most recognisable works stand here, including her huge Lockmeadow mural - a portrait of local musician and friend Holly Henderson. “Me and Holly both went to Maidstone UCA together… We’ve got very similar views about Maidstone. That’s why I thought I’d paint her.”

While travel fuels her work, too, with trips to Amsterdam for mural commissions allowing her to collect street posters for collage pieces, there’s no place like home.

“I’ve become an artist in Maidstone,” she says. “I have got such a soft spot for it.”

INSTA: @blondie_howden