Directions

Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.

I was visiting friends at their new house about 40 miles away and I got lost. My hubby doesn’t like asking for directions so we struggled. I could not find where the place was and I’d forgotten to bring the A to Z map, (before satnav which I still don’t have). After a couple of miles of confusion I pulled over to ask a random stranger. I had moved up from that county years ago and I remembered how helpful they are.

Oh yes dear, said the old man, I know where it is. You go down the road past the speedway track (that’s where I met my wife you know), turn left onto the main road past the church (oh we got married there). Right at the roundabout (where I took my driving test), left at the football ground (my team, I’ve supported them for years). Then it’s second on the left (you can’t miss it, the trees are in blossom down there), and you’re at the street…..

After that long conversation we found my friends house easily. I was happy we had stopped. It reminded me of the type of people in that area, always friendly and talkative, engaging and funny. It was a positive encounter.

North America

So yet again I didn’t know what to draw. I tried to remember the shape of the North American continent (including Canada) and to draw it from imagination. Then I remembered when our teacher would use a roller to print out the shape of the United Kingdom onto our school books for geography class. Maybe American children had something similar to use for history or geography? So that’s what this drawing is meant to be…#bandofsketchers prompt for Thursday.

Your face is a map

Ink bleeds through paper. Draw around those patches, lines and dots, and you get a patchwork ‘map’ that looks like roads and boulevards, streets and squares. A change of colour for city blocks. Villages line up on roads between fields. Some streets are tree lined, others are concrete. Does it show your age? Are you industrial or agrarian? Modern or ancient? Fortified? Or do you see veins, arteries and capillaries?

Is this a map?

OK, this was a doodle for a project in one of the weeks at college. We had five words chosen for us and had to create characters and situations for them to be in.

Mine were: copper, glasses, bedroom, sarcastic and star.

I’d made a crown earlier in the year for a virtual panto I was in. It was made of card covered in holographic stars. I finished the work, but now we are doing a project on creating a map. I was looking back on previous work and found this. It’s a map I think? It’s not what I’m doing for the project but it made me think about what a map is.

I would define a map as:

Describing a place pictorially with images, or using sound to give directions.

It can be imagined or realistic. Using icons or symbols to describe objects within the map. Indications of pathways or roads, ways to navigate the area. And rules to show whether places are only accessible in a certain way. Exits and entrances. Also is the map two or three dimensional, how is that represented. Lots to think about.

How do I draw a map?

I’m playing with different ideas. I held two pens together to try and get parallel lines, and I wanted to do something modern, a bit like graffiti for this. The writing says ‘walk this way to get to the treasure trove don’t get bitten on the way through the winding maze.’

There is a gaping mouth and a big staring eye. Big clawed feet and huge ears. The animals body is covered in flowers….fun..

Idea for a map?

Blurry old photo based on celtic art. I’m trying to decide what patterns and textures I can use to create a map for college. I’m thinking of using photoshop to turn something like this into a maze / map?

Next step will be to upload it and try and change the colours and sharpness. Also to work out a route and decide if there will be celtic or saxon patterns. Will there be a treasure trove of coins or ornamental armour?

Cat map?

I drew this years ago. A celtic style cat. I did a full colour acrylic painting afterwards but I don’t have a photo of that and I think my sister has it now.

I was trying to think of a subject for an illustrated map we have to do for college. I’ve been visiting a local lake recently and there is a hedge maze there. You cannot see the shape of it from the ground and it would be interesting in mapping it out, but I don’t own a drone camera! Then I thought the map might be based around ideas of the Staffordshire Hoard found in this area a few years ago. This was coins and gold sword ornaments and other pieces of treasure. I might base my map on these Saxon patterns. Then I did my original thesis on pre Christian celtic art, and that’s where the idea of a celtic cat came from.

Decisions…. What to draw…. Hmm

Corona virus going up again.

I hope I’m allowed to share this? Just watching the news and the amount of covid 19 is going up again in England. A second wave? The problem is across the nation and its passing up from younger people to older people.

So why has it happened? Was it because children went back to school, because more people were allowed to meet up? Because work places and pubs and restaurants opened up? Our government just has not got a grip on this. If we had kept the lockdown longer and tried using masks sooner maybe we wouldn’t be here.

Oh I despair of the people running things, not the NHS, they are still working so hard. But the bumbling idiot in charge of it all! I don’t mind being locked down again, but the government is against that…… Crazy…

Walking around and about.

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Don’t worry I said, I know where I’m going… We walked up one moorland fell and down into the valley of the next. Walking on tussock grass was hard on the legs, each lump was seperate from the next. The ground was springy with matted sphagnum moss as well.

The sun was getting lower in the sky. The path was hard to follow, and I was getting nervous. We hadn’t seen anyone in our travels and I could not see the road that led to our destination. Matt had parked his car next to a pub on the moorland road and we were heading vaguely west towards the setting sun.

It was then that Matt had the brilliant idea of looking at the map. He’d not bothered earlier, but now it was getting late and drinking time was running out. We all peered over the map, Matt muttered something as he looked over it. What did you say? I asked. Just follow the cat he laughed. There laid out in front of us was a dotted line, following the contours of the fells. Definitely cat shaped. And as I looked I could see the pub marked just where its up raised paw was swiping at the string, the line that indicated the road!

Matt laughed. We’ll be there in ten minutes. Cheers I said. Let’s go.