London Map, 2016

Enjoy walking? Chances are you used a map, or maybe and app on your phone but there's nothing like old paper and linen maps. Maps are fascinating, aren’t they? London Maps was started with a trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum and a fascination with some old maps of London. It re-ignited my desire to do some map painting. I've always found maps intriguing as they are a snapshot in time. Seeing how places change with use, reflecting the era they were made, is part of the appeal. Railways, roads and buildings lend an air of permanence to our cities, but look at an old map and you see it wasn't always so. What we think of as always being there was once a new development.
I've been wanting to use old maps in my art since painting on them in the past. Starting with an image of Big Ben and an underground sign, I superimposed a copy of the old London map I saw on top. Enlarging the map so that the river ran through the centre and all you could see was River T. The photo was a bit fuzzy and the names are unclear so some of the details have morphed. It also looked a bit cluttered with the names, so I decided to leave them out as well, adding to the anonymity. Like the continually changing city.

All copyrights are retained by the artist, and that the artwork cannot be reproduced without consent from Cathy Read.
The picture was initially drawn with pencil onto watercolour paper. These lines were then drawn over using masking fluid and then painted using watercolour paint and acrylic ink. Salt was also used in the process and some of the ink blown around using a straw. Once the painting was dry the masking fluid was removed to reveal the finished painting. The picture is 59cm high by 78.5cm wide and was created in England in 2016.