Thursday, July 7, 2011

Atlas Journaling: drawing hints from an eco artist

Sometimes a white blank canvas is so stark it almost stifles creativity and mark-making.
So I've binned the whole pristine visual journal concept and have replaced it with....the humble atlas.


Mine is the Road Atlas of Australia 7th Edition. It is circa 1980's -the kind of atlas I had at primary school. It was such an unloved book that it was in the "Free, please take" bin at a Rotary book sale (sniff).





These sketches are just observations with a sharpie and pencils. The lines of the roads in the background provide great distraction, omitting the need for perfection. The maps provide an additional layer of interpretation. 


I would try this style of drawing journal with a written book too, as text works wonderfully with illustration e.g my previous dragonfly work.


Dragonfly Project Link
A great benefit of atlas journaling is that any drawing can simply be torn out and framed. The other benefit is that you are recycling....yeah eco-art materials!


Incidentally, the works are from our recent holiday in the Bunya Mountains, a rainforest smack bang in the middle of country Queensland- who would have thought?



6 comments:

  1. Great map art! Thanks for visiting me & for the sweet note. I agree, everyone should have a birthday month!

    -caroline @ c.w.frosting

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  2. love your map art - I love maps -and this is a great idea to make maps art. Tone

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  3. This is such a cool idea! I'm not an artist, at ALL, but my daughter is. I'm going to show this to her, I'm sure she will love the idea.

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  4. These are just fabulous! I've just been looking through your blog and quite frankly everything here is just so fantastic and inspiring. Thanks so much for visiting my blog, Lynda - I'm so glad to have found yours :) Kx

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  5. I love what you have done with the maps. Your sketches are fabulous. I need to try something like this with my leftover maps! And that dragonfly is wonderful too!
    Thanks for visiting my blog - I'm so happy you did so I could find yours! Your blog is wonderful!

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  6. Wonderful what you've done with the map pages

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