AEDM2012: Playing Catch Up

Today's the 13th and it's not over yet, and by my count I have 11 pieces, so I'm only one day behind. That's because on Friday night I went to a friend's house instead of into the basement to create something, but getting out of the house was a good thing. We were juggling cars last week, so Friday, which is usually a long day because it's our homeschool co-op day, was even longer. Anyway, enough of my excuses. I have three maps to share today.

I drew this one on Saturday, using watercolor pencils. It's inspired by game boards, and again, I don't get too personal here, but this is drawn from my own experiences over decades, and is only meant to reflect my own experiences, and obviously in general terms because the map isn't that detailed.

As always, clicking makes it a little bigger.

This next one was drawn Sunday. I only used pencil, so I tried to adjust the scan digitally a bit so it shows up a little better. I tried, anyway. As I mentioned last time, I discovered USGS topographical maps are available as free downloads. Bliss! I love topo maps. Of course they're much smaller than the originals, if you print them out, although I already printed a 1958 map of Rhode Island and portions of the bordering states using the poster setting, so I have 12 sheets of paper to piece together to make the whole map. This pencil sketch used an 1899 map of my town as inspiration--it's not meant to be an exact copy.

And then on Monday, I drew one in color.

I didn't use pencil at all for this. I'm trying to gain confidence in just setting down the lines in a permanent way, and it worked out fine. I stuck to the colors of the map--blue for water and marshland (still pretty marshy around where I live, hurrah for wetlands, I say), brown for contour lines, roads, and railroad tracks. But hmm, I think I feel a multi-colored one of these coming on, just to play. But I like the blue and brown too, for an authentic old-time map feel. And I like the Zig milennium markers and the way they feel drawing line after line onto the paper. Very soothing.

I have no idea what today's map might look like. Thirty map-inspired pieces! Can I ever just take on a challenge at face value without making it more complicated for myself? Yeesh.