Glasgow artist's maps turn city streets and landmarks into art

Natalie Tweedie’s beautiful bespoke artworks highlight famous city landmarks and thoroughfares, and her prints, teatowels and tote bags have been snapped up by Glaswegians at home and abroad.

“I’ve had such a lovely response – I mentioned them on social media recently and I was really taken aback by how many orders and positive messages I received, but it was great,” she smiles.

Natalie, who lives in Shawlands, studied printed textile design at Galshiels School of Textiles and Design, before moving down to London in 2001.

“I was always drawing when I was a child, so I think I knew I’d do something arty when I grew up,” Natalie explains. “After graduating, it was hard to get a job. It was really tough in London – the only work you could get was unpaid internships, so I moved back to Glasgow, got a job in the public sector and had a family.”

She smiles: “Art was always in the background though. I did it whenever I could, to keep me sane.”

Around 2017, she made her first illustrated map, of Shawlands. The response was instant, and people loved it so much, suddenly orders “mushroomed”, she explains.

“Because people always have a connection with the place they are from, or grew up in, or the building they got married in, there was quite an emotional response to the maps, and especially because I include things like notable buildings and streets, they really meant something to people,” she says.

“So it was a really positive response, and it just grew from there.”

Natalie’s business trades as Nebo Peklo, the Slovakian name for a paper fortune-teller – the little folded cube that opens to reveal “fortunes” when you choose words or numbers written on each section – and it means “heaven and hell”.

“I used to write a blog, back in the early 2000s and I just liked the phrase,” she says. “It’s unusual.”

Now, orders come from all over the world.

“I recently got a message from someone in America who wanted to come and meet me in ‘my shop’,” she laughs. “I literally work in my living room, so that made me laugh.

“He was keen to get an illustration of Ingram Street with Hutchesons’ Hall on it, because he was descended from the brothers who built it. He was so delighted with it he sent me a photo of himself holding the framed print  – it was really lovely. That sort of thing does give you a buzz, when you know you have made someone happy.”

There has been the odd hiccup, she adds. “I often add little cars, cyclists or buses on the maps, and recently, I did one of Strathaven in Lanarkshire. I took a lot of stick because I’d added a bus on to a street people said would NEVER have had buses going up it,” she sighs.

“So I am really, really careful in my research now.”

Natalie says making the maps has also helped her understand much more about her home city.

“Because I live on the south side, I naturally knew more about this area as it was so familiar, but it’s been really interesting learning about other parts of the city,” she says.

“I’m working on a Maryhill map just now and I was amazed to find out there are so many fascinating, historic buildings there. The area is always the starting point, then I look at maps online and speak to people who live there to get suggestions for important streets and landmarks.

“I have my own colour scheme I’m happy with now - as a lifelong lover of mid-century design, I like to incorporate the style of that era into my work.”

Now, Natalie is branching out into other parts of Scotland.

She explains: “The next focus for me is to work on other cities, like Edinburgh and Dundee, and I’m also looking at Arran and some of the other Scottish islands.”

She adds, with a laugh: “I will need to spend some time travelling around the country to get to know these areas – which is not a bad thing to have to do.”

In addition to the illustrated maps, Natalie creates beautiful architectural and botanical prints, and has produced a stunning 2023 calendar, full of illustrations of Glasgow buildings, including the Provand’s Lordship, Scotland Street School, Glasgow University and the GFT.

Natalie’s “day job” is in project management for the Scottish Qualifications Agency, and she juggles work and art with bringing up her children, Astrid, 14, and Evan, 10.

“It is a busy life,” she says, smiling. “People ask me how I find time to draw, but drawing is my downtime, it is the thing I find most relaxing to do.

“ I’d much rather pick up a pencil than sit and watch television.”

Find out more about Natalie’s work at nebo-peklo.co.uk