Map Play

Have you ever tried to draw/make a map?  I have made some pretty primitive maps in my time, but I decided I wanted to make a map that I could stand to look at... an artistic rendering if you will.  Well, not an easy task!
I found a roll of construction tyvek at the YSM, and it has a lovely feel to it so I thought it would make a great base for a map.  It could be folded many times with out it wearing out, ya know?

So I cut a piece about 2.5 ft by 2 foot for my map.  I drew a black line in from the edge aprox 2 in.  From that line out to the cut edge I gave the white tyvek a wash with the hard to pronounce and worst to spell golden acrylic... the yellowish/goldish color, with a bit of black mixed in to age it.  (Thanks Micheal DeMeng)  Then I added a curvy black line to the edge of the paint.  Then I added a gold line with a metallic marker.  Then I added a black and white checkered line like you see on maps.

The next step was to make some land.  My land!  I had no idea what I was getting into, lol.  I cut up some more tyvek to practice on.  I decided I would make my "land" out of liquid inks because I wanted the land to be light colored so I could add details with pens later.  So, on the first piece I just dropped random ink around with an eyedropper to see what would occur.  I smooched the ink about and played with it.  Here is my results:

I liked this okay but decided to gesso a sheet and try again

So, maybe two colors would be better?

Or, maybe one color but instead of smooshing the ink around I decided to pick up all the corners to make a pocket, dump in the ink, then crumple and play with the bag of ink to see what happened.

Okay, maybe a bit darker, eh?

Or lighter...nooo, I did not like the yellow so I smooshed some color after it dried.

Better!

After the tests dried, I used a damp piece of old toweling to add the water around the lands.

So, now, I could go back to my real map and make some land, having a good idea about what to do.

First I masked off the border I had already colored.  Then I made two rectangles our of masking tape to put on the map for the legend and the compass rose to reside in.  I also put a strip of the two inch tape between the rectangles so I could add a name, once I discover what the name is going to be!

A suggestion... if you are playing with liquid inks, put on a pair of gloves... my hands look pretty darn UGLY tonight!