Rebecca Clitheroe

With a genuine interest in our heritage and an incessant need to completely understand my subject matter, by a process of research, use of pictorial findings and applying a layering technique to my work, the Hidden Histories concept was created.

Faced with the challenge of not only producing an accurate art work, I set myself the task of ‘building in’ the story of the history by firstly sketching out the original landmark, then pasting down black and white images of historical reference over the sketch and finally applying a layer of pastel and pencil crayon over both. The finished result provides the picture with a depth and uniqueness which invites the viewer to look deeper into the illustration in order to find the concealed black and white images, namely, the 'Hidden Histories'.

On completion of the art work, each Hidden History is listed along with a short written explanation as to its relevance to the particular illustration, together with a 'before and after' picture of the art work showing the sketch with the Hidden Histories in place and the finished piece. These documents are printed out and packaged with all products as a valued addition to the art work.