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Katie and the National Gallery Adventure: a Trail for Children

This publication is a collaborative project between Mayhew and National Gallery, London 2012. Commissioned by the Education department, this was inspired by an earlier trail created for the National Galleries of Scotland.

Co-authored with art education expert Caroline Marcus, the trail was created to guide children around the gallery in an interactive manner, using the established book character of Katie, and five paintings from the world-famous collection. The paintings were carefully selected to avoid repetition with those used in the book series about Katie.

The trail had to pass through strict gallery guidelines, before it could go into production. It also needed to meet the requirements of the publisher of the Katie books, Orchard Books.

Research began with visits to the gallery to assess the collection and select a short list of paintings that could feature in the trail. This was then reduced to five pictures, once clearance had been given by the gallery. Only paintings that were on permanent view and not scheduled to be lent to other galleries, were considered.

The five paintings are not themselves reproduced in the trail. As the illustrator, Mayhew recreated elements which formed a puzzle in the trail: children had to follow visual and written clues to find the rooms and the paintings. Space was left in the design for the child to respond with their own drawings.

Some of the paintings – like Claude’s Echo and Narcissus – demanded research into mythology to create the necessary clues in the trail. It was illustrated in the same way as the Katie books, so that the character of Katie would be familiar to readers of the book series.

The trail was offered in either a physical printed form or as a downloadable file from the National Gallery website.

ISBN: 9781857095357