Peterborough boundaries

I couldn't believe it when I opened my emails today and saw the word for the latest Illustration Friday brief: Boundaries. Nine times out of ten I will create something from scratch in a response to the given word, but this week I have been working on an idea for a cushion design and it fits perfectly with the brief.


I live in Peterborough, UK, as some of you may know, and just lately I have had the urge to create art that is themed around my home city. I moved to Peterborough when I was 7, my parents returned there after having lived in north London for some time. They are both Peterborians, and made the move back up here just before my younger brother arrived on the scene. Only the other day we were reminiscing about the drive up: Mum heavily pregnant and driving a packed car, which included two cats that kept wriggling out of the baskets to snuggle up on the back parcel shelf...
Sometimes it's easy to be negative about where you live. I can be guilty of it, and at least once a week someone at work will make a dry remark about Peterborough's many faults. Ironically when I came back here after university I was desperate to leave as soon as possible. That was a while ago now...
I decided I wanted to make some art that showed Peterborough as a good place to be. This is a cushion cover design which I may send to Spoonflower and get made. (If you've never visited Spoonflower, take a look, the idea behind the site is ingenious.) 
To finish: Five facts you may not know about Peterborough:

1. A small snippet of the James Bond film Octopussy was filmed there (at the beginning when the clown falls into the water? That's Orton Mere).
2. Catherine of Aragon is buried here.
3. At least two novels are set in Peterborough - A Small History Of Tractors In Ukrainian by  Marina Lewycka, and A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon.
4. Peterborough Cathedral is featured in the frieze that runs around the top of the Albert Hall in London.
5. What's thought to be the oldest wheel in Britain was found at Peterborough.

Bet you weren't expecting to trawl through all this when you clicked on the I.F. link, were you?

Don't forget to come back on Monday for my interview with Michele Webber, artist, a very talented lady who kindly allowed me to delve into her life for this blog...