Thursday, November 22, 2012

AEDM2012: Days 19-21

Happy Thanksgiving! Today I am thankful that we are not tied to hard-and-fast traditions and can make the holiday work for us instead of the other way around. To that end, we had a lazy morning, the kids are watching the parade, I'll be serving dinner at regular dinner time (because my kids really don't like having their large meal in the middle of the day, holiday or no), and I didn't have to do any extra cooking or cleaning. It's just the five of us, having a relaxing low-key day together at home. Thankfully! (Some years I'm game for a busier holiday. This is not one of those years.)

So I'm catching up here with the pieces created Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. This simple Life Map uses watercolored circles glued onto a watercolor background. The radiating spokes (written thoughts about each life stage) were just off the top of my head, and the path ends where I am now: parenting children (not babies any longer).


On Tuesday, I created a map of Monday.

I charted the day by the hour. It's hard to see in the scan, but I used grey watercolor to shade the nighttime hours and yellow to shade the daylight hours, although to be accurate I would have used grey for the day (no sun that day) and black for the night (but then you wouldn't be able to see my handwriting). You can see that particular day began at 2 am when my four-year-old showed up at our bedside, upset over a dream. Of course she spent the rest of the night with us, poor girl. The day ended around 11 when I finally went to bed. (No, I don't get enough sleep.)

On Wednesday, I used a grey watercolor pencil to make a sketch of a sea serpent, inspired by the old maps that purported to chart even the sea monsters.


I found this guy on an endpaper map from a library book about the Parthenon (we're moving into Ancient Greece in our homeschool), but that map was clearly inspired by early maps.

I'm hitting a wall, though, when it comes to mapping and map-inspired ideas. What might you like to see me map? Suggestions welcome. And it's funny, I keep coming across maps at home--such as a postcard with a bedrock map of Connecticut that I picked up at a CT state park over the summer purely because I liked the visual effect. Funny brain.

6 comments:

Helen said...

a nice quiet thanksgiving like you're having sounds lovely. There should be more of it.

Why don't you try mapping your mood for a day? Find a way to capture the ups and downs of a day. I imagine that would be interesting!

Karen Isaacson said...

map the road to insanity?
or the road not taken.
treasure maps, hiding places.

10 unusual map websites:
http://suziecat7.hubpages.com/hub/10-Unusual-Map-Websites

and now I think I want to read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Maps-Atlas-Cartographic-Curiosities/dp/0142005258

amy said...

Love these ideas, thank you. The road not taken is intriguing, and mapping/graphing moods is, too. I think a mind map may be on the list, too. However Thanksgiving itself may be an aedm loss, since wine + tryptophan is doing me in. :)

Carolyn said...

Your sea serpent is incredible, I love that you're tapping into this artistic talent that you have. No ideas for mapping, but artistically, I'd love to see you design a compass rose!

Michelle said...

Amazing sketch!!! Maps, maps, maps hmm ... I have a story you can map. :) That's the only place my mind will go at this point.

I love that you were able to have a quiet day at home. I unexpectedly did the same, and it was a nice change of pace.

Donna Lee said...

Maps are fascinating. I love to look at them and look at place names and "here there be dragons" kind of indicators.

I think the Mood Map or a Map of your brain might be an interesting one to tackle.