Australia - in the style of 17th century maps

[nopkin]

Hello, friends!

I hope you are all doing well!

After several months of cartographic inactivity, I finally managed to sit down and do another map. Lately, I've been fascinated with the 17th century maps - in particular Atlas Maior of 1665, by Joan Blaeu - so I wanted to try my hand at this style and see whether I can achieve on paper what they did by engraving wood or copper back then. So, here's an A4 map of Australia, entirely hand made, ink and watercolor on paper.



All in all, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Of course there's plenty of room for improvement, and I plan to do some more maps in this style. I'm still struggling to find the best ink and paper combination. This one was done on 300 gsm Arches hot pressed, which is very good for watercolor, but I wasn't really happy with how it handled the ink (or maybe it was the ink, I don't know...).

Also, I've tried several brands of ink on the map, and although all of them were supposed to be water resistant when dry, I still got some bleeding here and there. Anyway, if anyone knows an ink and paper combination that also handles watercolor well, please share your findings.

As always, I'd love to know what you guys think. Any comments and critiques are highly appreciated.

Thanks!

[MistyBeee]

Great map, Nopkin, and I'm super glad to see you back at map making and in the forum !
Your calligraphy is great, as usual, and I especially love yourtiny trees ^^

I can't help with paper as all my watercolors are made in my Hahnemühle sketchbook only, but did you tried the Noodler's Black Ink ? It's one of the most water resistant ink I ever used and it never betrayed me so far

[elboe]

Nice map! I can't help with choosing inks, papers, etc. and the style works very well. Your lettering is so well done, very impressed. One thing I noticed is your hatching could be tighter. By this I don't mean spacing but just ending on the edge line, working to get slightly straighter, consistent spacing, etc. And this is only for improvement, I think it looks good the way it is. But I know you want to spend even more time drawing tiny little perfect lines.

[Ilanthar]

Very nice map, Nopkin! Very authentic and such a great handwriting!

[Robulous]

That's beautiful - always have huge admiration for people who actually draw by hand!

[nopkin]

Thanks, everyone!

I can't help with paper as all my watercolors are made in my Hahnemühle sketchbook only, but did you tried the Noodler's Black Ink ? It's one of the most water resistant ink I ever used and it never betrayed me so far

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try to find the Noodler's ink (though I've never seen it in the art shops around here) and give it a go.

Nice map! I can't help with choosing inks, papers, etc. and the style works very well. Your lettering is so well done, very impressed. One thing I noticed is your hatching could be tighter. By this I don't mean spacing but just ending on the edge line, working to get slightly straighter, consistent spacing, etc. And this is only for improvement, I think it looks good the way it is. But I know you want to spend even more time drawing tiny little perfect lines.

Totally agree on the lines. Part of the reason for the sloppiness is that our house gets very hot in the summer and the ink was drying very quickly on the nib and made it really hard to work with. I was too lazy to clean the nib every few minutes, so I kept pushing even though I wasn't happy with how the hatching looked. But, yeah, you are right, I do want to spend more time drawing tiny little perfect lines, so I plan to enter the August challenge with a map in a similar style

[Neyasha]

The Atlas Blaeu is indeed fascinating and I love your map done in this style. Although it shows some of your ink troubles your lettering looks very good - especially the lettering of the oceans.

[Kellerica]

Rejoice in the Guild halls, nopkin is back with another beauty! This is truly a gorgeous piece of cartography. Your penmanship is beyond brilliant, and I just love the lettering on this. Beautiful work, truly. Glad to have you back!

[François-Xavier Alarie]

Wow, wow, WOOOOW! You're map could figure in a history book for sure, it is well draw and the details are astonishingly similars to a real map of the 1600. Nice work pal

[nopkin]

The Atlas Blaeu is indeed fascinating and I love your map done in this style. Although it shows some of your ink troubles your lettering looks very good - especially the lettering of the oceans.

Thank you!

Rejoice in the Guild halls, nopkin is back with another beauty! This is truly a gorgeous piece of cartography. Your penmanship is beyond brilliant, and I just love the lettering on this. Beautiful work, truly. Glad to have you back!

Thanks, Kelleri! I appreciate your warm welcome and kind words! And the rep too

Wow, wow, WOOOOW! You're map could figure in a history book for sure, it is well draw and the details are astonishingly similars to a real map of the 1600. Nice work pal

Thanks a lot, glad you like it.