Historical Illustration

Picturing the past produces clear and easy to understand images, giving context and meaning to:
• heritage sites and historic buildings
• museum collections, artefacts and costumes
Observation, evidence and research are the foundations underpinning the illustrations.

We work with traditional techniques of drawing and watercolour. We can also offer 3-dimensional constructions to enliven investigation of stories from the past. This might be a story-box, fold-out visual journey or paper theatre. All interactives can be constructed from museum grade, safe and durable materials.

We run creative workshops at heritage sites, with a focus on collections to engage people in their past. We can develop these for specific audiences with differentiated approaches. We plan to meet objectives and outcomes for example, for health and wellbeing, with achievable outputs.

Contact us to discuss ideas, a brief, project development or artwork commission.

Visual literacy festive scene

Visual literacy festive scene

Beyond Words create word-free picture stories designed for people who find pictures easier than written words. Their book series is co-created with the people who benefit from them, including disabled people, refugees and children. The charity has commissioned...

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Understanding Trauma and Dissociation

Understanding Trauma and Dissociation

Images work together with words to communicate a challenging subject. Understanding Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a Storybook and Guidebook set introducing and explaining the life changing impact of trauma. Written by consultant psychotherapist Lindsay...

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Then and Now Norwich

Then and Now Norwich

Industrial riverside activity recreated at Colman’s Mustard and Flour works. A visual reconstruction showing the industrial red brick building by the River Wensum in the 1880s, including the activity around it. Carts and wherries can be seen in the process of...

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Pennoyer Illustrations

Pennoyer Illustrations

People at work in a Medieval building and later in time, during the Victorian period. A visual reconstruction fills in a missing east wall, combining it with features still existing today. We see the former chapel of the Hatters Guild, where the piscine is used to...

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Lady of the Stars

Lady of the Stars

A visual and 3D interactive storybox to explore a character in the history of science. The Storybox opens out to show Caroline Herschel, a woman actively contributing to science, a male-dominated profession in the 1880s. There is no visual record of her from that...

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That Old House

That Old House

Music House then and now. Folded activity cards encourage exploration of its past. 3D fold-out illustrated ‘history detective’ cards bring the past to life.  ‘That Old House’ was created as a drop-in activity for visitors to the Music House. The card reveals...

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Maritime and Transport

Maritime and Transport

Visual reconstruction of Maritime and Transport Heritage vehicles and vessels captures a sense of action or function. Transport and travel are pictured through the ages - on the water, roads and rail and in the air - with people in associated activity and period...

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Finds Drawings

Finds Drawings

Scaled drawings give clear visual communication and information. Accurate scale drawings from site finds, artefacts or collections objects. Images are created for easy study and interpretation. Principles of the illustration of site finds are applied with careful...

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Picturing the Past

Picturing the Past

Creative Workshops for adults to engage creatively in local history through visual storytelling. Picturing the past workshops provide creative opportunities for adults to explore and present their local or personal history. They are devised and delivered with...

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Save the Species

Save the Species

Natural Heritage: Colouring and games to raise awareness. Natural Heritage: Book with games raise awareness of species at risk. Endangered Animal Colouring Book – UK Amphibians and Reptiles: Pictures reference species' natural habit and lifecycle. Short text...

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Artwork

Artwork

Painting our heritage: watercolour commissions. Evidence of our past heritage is all around us, but often caught-up in change and development.   A watercolour image holds a moment in time. It records what remains with us today…that may be saved or gone tomorrow. It...

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Natural Heritage – Swallows

Natural Heritage – Swallows

A visual story tracks the swallows’ journey between Africa and Britain each year. A year-in-the-life, sprinkled with facts about the bird and our impact on its natural environment. Artwork originally produced as a concertina book to open out, explore, fold again and...

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