Recently, I was asked to make some additional pieces for the Great North Museum’s school interactive workshops collection. In the past I have made all sorts of weird and wonderful things for them including a full sized Egyptian mummy to be used to show the process of mummification, to a large Triceratops head, squirrels tails to run around the gallery in and large interactive map of South America to show the effects of deforestation.
Large canvas map of Ancient Egypt.
I was asked to make replacement maps for the paper versions they had been using for sometime and continually needed replacing. The maps were to be for their workshops about Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. I choose to hand paint the maps on lovely, heavy cotton canvas which gives the appearance and texture of an old map. The maps were to be kept quite simple in design, as they were to be used with children from all Key Sages.
To ensure that the maps received the best care when used by school groups, I decided to finish them off as though they were a prized object from their ancient collection and finished them with a tie ribbon and a bag which looked and felt like it was made from soft suede. Hopefully, this will help to bring longevity to the pieces – as many of the pieces I have made for the GNM are now over 10 years old and been used by tens of thousands of school children.
Hand painted canvas map of Ancient Greece.
Louise Underwood @OBSESIVCREATIV 