Shipping Forecast – great gifts or just treat yourself!
Read moreThe words “And now the Shipping Forecast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency…” mean something magical to so many of us. And sometimes having art on your walls just isn’t enough… so Jane just had to make it the centrepiece of her new venture into offering beautiful and useful items for the home.
How to make paper mache birds
Read moreThe 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.
The suicide of Vincent van Gogh – 29 July 1890
Read moreOn 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’.
Europeans discover Easter Island – 5 April 1722
Read moreThe 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
The death of Carl Linnaeus – 10 January 1778
Read moreThe 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
In praise of iguanas!
Read moreGreen iguanas, Galapagos land iguanas and marine iguanas all have their own exquisite beauty, evolved over millions of years if you stop to take a closer look.
Galapagos: all the fun of the fish market
Read moreThere is so much fun to be had watching wildlife at the fish market in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz, Galapagos: pelicans, sea lions, frigatebirds.
British Rock Music Painting
Read moreMy 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’
Robert FitzRoy: Captain Fantastic
Read moreEveryone 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.
How I made my painting of the shipping forecast
Read moreDiscover 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.
Shipping forecast wins award!
Read moreTo my utter surprise and delight, my shipping forecast painting, ‘Attention All Shipping’ has won a British Cartographic Society award!
The Eynsham tea towel
Read moreA 100% cotton souvenir tea towel of Eynsham, a beautiful village in west Oxfordshire, designed in Eynsham and made in Britain.
The death of Jane Digby – 11 August 1881
Read moreHere’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
The death of Frida Kahlo – 13 July 1954
Read more“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….
Scilly Automatic
Read moreWhere is Scilly Automatic? In June we had a lovely holiday in the Isles of Scilly. You can read about the trip in ‘The Isles of Scilly‘ blog, but while we were there enjoying the peace and the nature, Jane had a special project on the go. Having painted her map of the Shipping Forecast ‘Attention all shipping’ last year,
Speaking at the Charlbury Beer Festival
Read moreJane astonishes herself by speaking in public! Last weekend Jane appeared as a guest speaker at the wonderful Charlbury Beer Festival in their Culture Club tent, as part of ‘a programme of mind-expanding talks’. Her subject was ‘Maps, Shakespeare and me’ to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and the completion of her maps and paintings of Shakespeare.