WHILE most people are still gearing up for the Tour de France Grand Depart in Yorkshire on July 5 and 6, one Harrogate artist has cut a swathe through the Yorkshire scenery already.

Anita Bowerman, of the Dove Tree Art Studio, Back Granville Road, has painstakingly recreated the Stage 1 route from Leeds-Harrogate as a paper cut, chiselled from one piece of paper.

The image measures 72cm x 62cm and took Anita five months to create.

To the uninitiated, her intricate map looks like a gigantic doily of all the highlights along the 118.6mile course. It is, of course, much more inspiring than a cut-out pattern, deserving a place on a grand wall somewhere.

Look closely and you will find tiny rabbits, sheep, cows, horses and chickens, birds and even a sheepdog. Her map Highlights such Yorkshire businesses as Theakston's Brewery, Wensleydsle Creamery and the Forbidden Corner.

Among the great and the grand of North Yorkshire's castles are Middleham, Bolton and Ripley; the abbeys of Bolton, Fountains and Jerveaux and landmarks such as Brimham Rocks, Almscliffe Crag, The Cow and Calf Rocks and Buttertubs Pass. Harewood House and Newby Hall feature too.

It took Anita two weeks to do the research for this work of art, driving the route, after Welcome to Yorkshire won the bid for the county to host the opening two stages of Le Tour.

"I love Yorkshire and wanted to create something really special to mark the occasion," she says.

"I was born in Leeds and had a very happy childhood there. My brothers and I spent many hours in the countryside having breakfast on a little stove with our father; playing by rivers, flying kites, running through the fields strewn with wild flowers, exploring with Bertie our Beagle."

She has been a professional artist for 20 years, although Anita originally was a retail buyer working for Liberty London. So what price would give her Tour de Yorkshire paper cut? "It's something you can't put a price on. All I can say is that I'm open to sensible offers," she says.

In order to achieve a true representation of the buildings on the map, she approached owners or managers to ask which view was the most accurate. She then made sketches of the countryside, ranging from the endless dry stone walls and barns in Coverdale to the sweeping landscape of Nidderdale and Wharfedale.

Back at her studio in Harrogate, she chose a large piece of turquoise paper for the map: a colour that most people love and one which works well with yellow, the official Tour de France colour.

Then began the process of laying the map on to paper. "I love tiny details and telling a story, so began to sketch the map with relish on the reverse of my large piece of paper. For instance at Middleham Castle, I included Richard III. This was his childhood home," she says.

"I added tiny cyclists around the route starting at Leeds Town Hall and the map includes the four winners' jerseys on the riders, which I hand painted. The yellow jersey can be seen at the finishing line opposite Hotel du Vin, in West Park Stray, Harrogate, being greeted by flag-waving crowds."

To begin with, everything in the map is drawn in reverse. So all buildings and writing are backwards way round. Not until the cut-out is finished does Anita turn over the paper. The cutting-out process is entirely by hand using a tiny sharp blade and it took more than 200 hours and 100 blades.

The original is now framed and on display at Anita's gallery and working studio, and Anita's map can be seen at the Art Harrogate fair at Harrogate International Centre in a showcase of 12 artists from Saturday to July 5 for Le Grand DÉepart. Prints of the map are on display in Harrogate at Weetons, on West Park, and James Brindley, on James Street, and at Leeds Grammar School.

Limited-edition giclee prints are available in A3 and the original size in and a limited-edition laser cut is being produced too. Visit anitabowerman.co.uk for more details and for the Dove Tree opening times; alternatively, phone 07760 157046.

Anita has created a Tour wheel cut-out of The World's Greatest Race too. "I'm looking into getting the wheel design made into steel, as I did with my Angel of the North design," she says. "I can’t believe how different my work looks on steel, so I can’t wait to see it."