The Alnwick Garden and Castle Visitor Maps

Project Background

One of my very first map commissions, and pretty terrifying!

A few years back I took part in a Network Artists exhibition at the Garden. The Duchess of Northumberland (pardon the name drop) saw my work and asked if I’d like to have a go at the Alnwick Garden and Castle visitor maps.

This was one of my very first visitor maps, and the deadline was extremely tight, so it was quite a challenge! They asked for a summer and winter map which could be printed in full colour on A3 sheets which would then fold up.

I worked with Fiona Mitcheson, the marketing manager. She was very kind and everything went pretty smoothly in the end. I don’t have the preliminary sketches but I can show you some of the details. I think the winter map was my favourite, as the coloured lights, the Christmas market and the arrival of Santa and Mrs. Claus were fun to paint.

Here’s the whole map…

….and here’s the summer map

It felt strangely thrilling to walk through the Garden and see people using my maps, and I tried not to be downhearted when I saw one screwed up in the bin! They were in use until last year so they had a good run of nearly ten years. Since then, I have sold them as giclee prints and the Alnwick Garden have reproduced the images on everything from bookmarks to chopping boards. However my favourite product is the 1000 piece jigsaw. They have proved very popular and it’s made me wonder whether I could have some of my other maps made into jigsaws. Quite a few people have suggested it to me, so I think I’ll give it a go.

Then it was time to paint the Alnwick Castle visitor map. This had it’s own challenges (it took several attempts to get the paths right) but it was great fun drawing the Knight’s Quest, the Broomstick-flying School and even Hagrid himself taking a lesson.