COMPETITION: Win signed Shakespeare map artwork

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON-born artist Jane Tomlinson has created three illustrated maps in praise of William Shakespeare.

Jane started drawing maps just as a doodle six years ago, her early maps being in black and white.

Her first was of a tiny village in Oxfordshire and then she mapped Woodstock, where her mother lives.

Last year, she painted the whole county of Oxfordshire, which has won a commendation for the British Cartographic Society’s John C Bartholomew Award for schematic mapping.

But now the artist is turning her attentions to Stratford’s famous playwright.

Jane says: “I began with the simple idea of showing all the plays in their rough geographical position. But so many of the plays are set in the British Isles and Italy, I realised that each of those places deserved a painting in its own right.”

Shakespeare’s British Plays took just two weeks to complete, and was immediately followed by Shakespeare’s Italian Plays.

Jane added: “I’m so proud of my Stratford roots that these Shakespeare paintings were inevitable. It was such fun to research them, I learned loads. When I started, I had no idea that I’d end up with three paintings. It’s been a lot of work, but fascinating to discover more about all those lovers and fighters, heroes and villains. I guess what drove me on was sheer force of Will Power.”

To see the paintings in more detail go to: www.janetomlinson.com/artworks/shakespeare-map/ or call in at the Montpellier Gallery in Chapel Street, Stratford, where the three original watercolours are now on show until early May.

To find out how to enter for your chance to win one of six signed prints, see the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald of Thursday, 28th April.