Blogs

Read on!

  • The Life and Works of Vincent van Gogh

    Map of Vincent van Gogh – a painting of the places Vincent lived and worked

    On this hand-painted map of Vincent, discover where van Gogh lived and worked, and where some of his paintings were created.

    Read more
  • Paper mache birds by Jane Tomlinson

    How to make paper mache birds

    The paper mache birds I’ve been making this year are more ‘folk art’ than ‘fine art’. People have asked me how I make them. There’s no precise recipe, I’m afraid, but this is roughly how I do it.

    Read more
  • The suicide of Vincent van Gogh – 29 July 1890

    On 27 July 1890, Vincent van Gogh, an unkempt, unknown 37-year-old Dutchman, walked out of his lodgings in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, just north of Paris, where he had been living and working since May. That day instead of his usual easel and paints, he carried a handgun he had perhaps borrowed from a farmer ‘to scare away the crows’.

    Read more
  • Easter Island statues by William Hodges, 1775

    Europeans discover Easter Island – 5 April 1722

    The rise and fall of Easter Island is a parable for our times; a warning from history of what happens when humans doesn’t pay close attention to every detail of Planet Three’s precious natural resources. On Easter Sunday 1722 Dutch sailor Jacob Roggeveen landed on a speck of volcanic land 12 miles long and 6 miles wide in the vast expanse

    Read more
  • Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus

    The death of Carl Linnaeus – 10 January 1778

    The Bible, Genesis 2:20, states: “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field”. But actually it wasn’t Adam. It was a Swedish botanist: Carl Linnaeus. My dad was also a botanist, so since I was knee high to an orthoptera, I was aware that everything had a

    Read more
  • Galapagos: all the fun of the fish market

    There is so much fun to be had watching wildlife at the fish market in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz, Galapagos: pelicans, sea lions, frigatebirds.

    Read more
  • British Rock Music painting

    British Rock Music Painting

    My British Rock Music painting is pure Pop Art! My life has always been accompanied by music, much of it British, much of it rock. So what could be more natural to a British music-loving artist who has been having fun painting maps than a British Rock Music painting? 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles’

    Read more
  • Robert FitzRoy: Captain Fantastic

    Everyone knows what a weather forecast is, most people have heard of Charles Darwin’s Voyage of HMS Beagle, and most British people have heard of the shipping forecast. So it’s very sad to think that more people don’t know about Robert FitzRoy who made all these things possible.

    Read more
  • Shipping forecast painting in progress

    How I made my painting of the shipping forecast

    Discover how I made my painting of the UK shipping forecast, ‘Attention All Shipping’ in this blog which includes lots of photos of the work in progress.

    Read more
  • Photo of Jane collecting her award

    Shipping forecast wins award!

    To my utter surprise and delight, my shipping forecast painting, ‘Attention All Shipping’ has won a British Cartographic Society award!

    Read more
  • The death of Jane Digby – 11 August 1881

    Here’s a bodice-ripping love story of sex and adventure: the story of Jane Elizabeth Digby, Lady Ellenborough. She died on this day 1881. I celebrate her as a woman who did her own thing, when doing one’s own thing was very much not what women did. During the course of her lifetime, today’s average British woman will have sexual contact

    Read more
  • Frida Kahlo

    The death of Frida Kahlo – 13 July 1954

    “They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.”

    Artist Frida Kahlo was born in 1907, the daughter of Hungarian Jewish father and indigenous Mexican mother….

    Read more
  • Heavens Above - a map of the stars

    Constellations of the Northern sky

    Read about Jane’s painting ‘Heavens Above’ a map painted in watercolour of the constellations of the Northern sky.

    Read more
  • A Shakespeare triptych

    The Shakespeare triptych

    Three paintings in praise of Shakespeare: 1 a map of Europe with the plays shown in their approximate location, 2. the British plays, and 3 the Italian plays.

    Read more
  • The death of Mary Leakey – 9 December 1996

    No matter who we are and what we think, the beautiful truth is that we are all children of Africa. It was in no small part the painstaking work of Mary Leakey that revealed this. For more than 50 years under hot African skies, archaeologist Mary grubbed around in the earth searching doggedly for clues that would reveal the truth

    Read more
  • Shakespeare map painting

    All the plays of Shakespeare

    A painting of all the plays of Shakespeare as a map with the plays shown in their approximate location.

    Read more