Map Art Lab: 52 Exciting Art Explorations in Map Making, Imagination, and Travel

By Jill K. Berry and Linden McNeilly

Explore the world of cartography with this collection of creative map-related projects—for artists of all ages and experience levels.

This fun and creative book features fifty-two map-related activities set into weekly exercises, beginning with legends and lines, moving through types and styles, and then creating personalized maps that allow you to journey to new worlds. Authors Jill K. Berry and Linden McNeilly guide you through useful concepts while exploring colorful, eye-catching graphics.

Maps are beautiful and fascinating, they teach you things, and they show you where you are, places you long to go, and places you dare to imagine. The labs can be used as singular projects or to build up to a year of hands-on creative experiences. Map Art Lab is the perfect book for map lovers and DIY-inspired designers. Artists of all ages and experience levels can use this book to explore enjoyable and engaging exercises.

“Learn about cartography, topography, legends, compasses, and more in this adventurous DIY map book.” —Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine

“Every art teacher should have a copy of this book.” —Katharine Harmon, author of The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781627880312

Book preview

Unit No 01

MAP BASICS

Welcome to the world of hand-crafted maps! In this chapter you will learn about and play with the tools of the trade, based on age-old tradition combined with new methods.

Historical mapmakers did more than record land and sea. They used maps to fool, educate, steer, advertise, remember, romanticize, influence, and warn. To add great appeal to their maps (and therefore their agendas), they added elaborate cartouches (decorative frames), neatlines (borders), legends, and flora and fauna. Maps are often exquisite to look at because of these visual elements.

Here are some easy ways to make cartographic components to decorate and illustrate your maps, without time-traveling to Queen Isabella’s Cartography Court for training. You can use stamps, clip art, and upcycled ephemera—all the things our predecessors would have used had they had access to our supplies.

Let’s journey to the land of artful cartography!

Lab 01: Orient Yourself

MATERIALS

Paper

Pencil

The orientation of a map is the direction the map points compared to the compass or reality. This gives you the relative location of the mapped area and helps you locate where you are.

It is now common for a map to be oriented to the north, but it was not always that way. Before magnetic north was discovered (between the years 1200 and 1500, depending on who you talk to) maps were oriented in nearly every direction. Religious maps were oriented toward the east, where paradise was believed to be and where the sun rose. Chinese maps were oriented towards the south because this is where the sun reaches its highest point in the sky during the summer solstice. This ancient cosmological view is what translates to feng shui in modern times. Polar maps are necessarily oriented toward the center of the map, with all cardinal directions equidistant from the pole.

In other words, the orientation is up to the maker of the map, and the tradition is to map oneself at the top or center of the map.

INSTRUCTIONS

Make sketches of your map in different orientations to see which one might show all that you want to include on your map. If there is a lake you like to fish to the south of your house, you might want to have a southern orientation. If you hike in the mountains to the west, turn the map a little and have it face northwest to show the mountains.

Historically, maps were oriented in many directions

Lab 02: Compass Rose

MATERIALS

Paper

Compass or protractor

Ruler

Ink pen

Watercolor pencils

Clip art (optional)

Ink stamps (optional)

Stencils (optional)

The compass rose is both beautiful and functional, indicating the four cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west, and sometimes their intermediaries. It is based on the degrees of a circle. The compass rose is essential to a map holder to orient the land on the map. Original roses on maps were called wind roses, and they indicated the thirty-two directions of the prevailing winds. When magnetic north was discovered, the rose became a compass rose and began to consistently point to the north on maps.

This compass rose was from a vintage map of Ireland.

HISTORY TIDBIT

Traditionally, red, blue, black, and green were common colors used in the compass rose (left). Prior to the advent of efficient lighting, these colors were the easiest to distinguish by the dim light of oil lamps and candles.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Draw a circle with a compass or protractor. Divide the circle with perpendicular lines through the center. Divide it again on the diagonal until you have eight equal pieces.

2. A short distance out from the center, make tick marks evenly on the horizontal and vertical lines. Draw additional tick marks a short distance from the edge of the circle on the diagonal lines. (Fig. 1)

Fig. 1

3. Create points by connecting the tick marks at the circle edge to those near the center. (Fig. 2) Continue this on all four sides. (Fig. 3)

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

4. Make shorter lines for the intercardinal directions by starting those points a short distance in from the circle. (Fig. 4)

Fig. 4

5. With the watercolor pencils, color each directional point with two tones. Add watercolor sprinkled with salt for texture. (See the finished art, opposite.)

6. Add circles, faces, or other objects you fancy at the center. A compass rose can be made in many other ways. Clip art figures make good foundations for the compass rose. Just add the four directions. (Fig. 5)

Fig. 5

Symmetrical rubber stamps make excellent compass roses. Use letter stamps for the cardinal directions. (Fig. 6)

Fig. 6

This last compass rose was made with a stencil. (Fig. 7)

Fig. 7

Lab 03: Legends

MATERIALS

Clip art or other images related to your map

Sketch paper

Pencil

Colored pens or pencils

Map legends are also known as keys and contain symbols used to depict items on the map. These can include landforms, human made objects like buildings, or resources like minerals. A legend explains the pictorial language of the map, known as its symbology. Icons can be representational or symbolic. Legends can be contained within a cartouche (refer to page 22) or placed anywhere on the map.