I’m Merritt Baynes! I’m the artist, surface designer, and lover of color behind Scarlet Soleil Design.

While I’ve spent most my life in Virginia, I have crafted a creative life that’s unfolded across coasts and continents. I studied landscape architecture at Virginia Tech, tucked in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where I first learned the essentials of everyday design as well as how design could influence how people feel in a space. Those understandings continue to guide my design work today, whether I’m painting florals, shaping clay, or designing prints for everyday spaces.

I’ve lived in Florida and the Southwest (New Mexico), soaking up each place’s unique ways and rhythms. I also spent a season in Paris, which left its mark too, not through formal training, but in the slower way I began to see culture, detail, and beauty in the everyday.

Now based near Charlottesville, Virginia, I create from my home studio surrounded by rolling hills, garden blooms, and the kind of quiet that lets ideas grow (the way I like it!) My work blends hand drawn charm, rich color, and heartfelt imperfection. Whether it’s a pattern, a piece of pottery, or something yet to be imagined, my hope is always the same, to leave the world a little prettier and a little lighter.