Recreating the Catalan Map Panels 3 & 4

The Map Penciled In

I occasionally flip back and forth between this image and the original so that I can see how all the pieces are lining up.

Freshly Inked

I applied the first stage of inking using my glass pen and India ink.

About the Cryptids

Metrosaurus of Lake Ontario

The metrosaurus is a Canadian lake monster living in Lake Ontario that has gone by many names, including gassyendietha, the metrosaurus, the Kingstie from Kingston. All of the descriptions of this creature describe it as being a long, eel-like monster.

Lake Erie Monster

Much like its relative, the Metrosaurus of Lake Ontario, the Lake Erie Monster has been seen lurking the area Sandusky, Ohio. Some described the creature as being copper in color, others have stated that it is covered in silver scales.

I misunderstood the description of the creature and instead of making it all copper and silver, I just made the fins copper in color.

I also ended up drawing it like the Loch Ness monster because Bessie = Nessie, plus the example drawing looked like the Loch Ness Monster.

The Hobgoblin of Fort Niagra

This was a really hard one for me to draw because there was no description of this creature. The news agency, WGRZ-TV ran a special on the Hobgoblin of Fort Niagra, and the expert on it described it as "imagine a regular goblin, then think of one that's just a little hobbier."

Say, what?

You can watch the YouTube video here.

You can read more about it here.

Placing the Escarbuncle

This step was actually really, really hard. This was hard because of how the kingdom of AEthelmearc lies on the map. It's a kingdom that's irregularly shaped because it's north-south measurement is much longer than its west-east measurement. It is also a challenge because of how it falls in the illustration itself. I played around with the idea of putting it slightly more east, but it just kept getting clipped off, and it would cover up some of the places that were important to the recipient. I also didn't want to put it where that line in the middle was because that was a "fold" on the page.

Taking a Step Back and Looking at It

At this stage, I took a step back from the piece and stared at it from across the room. I went back in to fill in areas that caught my eye as being "out of place."

Gilding It

After staring at the image for a good, long time, I decided that it would only be proper to gild the entire thing. By this point, I'm now running low on gold. Good thing I have another packet of gold on hand.

Right now, I'm trying to decide how I should apply the red to this piece. Should I do a shield? Should I do a swirl? Maybe make all the lands of AEthelmearc red?

I can't decide.

Gilding Shots Taken from Different Angles to Maximize the Shiny!

Applied the Napthinol Red to the Parchment in Splotches

I was applying the red to the piece, but it ended up coming off of my brush in dried chunks because I got too distracted while watching TV. So it went down on my page in splotches.

The scratches you see are from my scalpel as I scrape off the excess blobs.

Scraping off the Splotches

More scraping to get rid of the blobs and splotches.

In progress shot

I took a step back and looked at it.

I downloaded a topographic map of Pennsylvania and the area. I realized I forgot to draw in the mountain ranges.

Oops.

Cue in the topographic map of the United States here.

Added more cryptids

This part was fun, I got to jump off to research more cryptids. I found these two cryptids and I thought they were the cutest things ever.

Extant 16th Century Chinese

An anonymous 16th century Portuguese watercolour depicting the Chinese, from the Códice Casanatense or Casanata Codex. The inscription reads: "People of the land of China; they're called Chinas; their law (religion) is that of gentiles; this land of China is very rich but sailing to it is very dangerous, and many ships are lost"

A Drawing of Me

The award recipient made a specific request for me to draw myself somewhere in the scroll, holding a parasol. But he also said that he didn't want me to wear what the extant was wearing. he wanted me to wear "my clothes" aka clothes that I already have.

My neck is also super long, but the extant does have a long neck too. I feel like a swan.

So I showed him a photo of me wearing an almost similar dress to the extant, except I haven't finished sewing up my red doublet yet. It's still in pieces.

I'm holding a parasol in my in my heraldic colors: gold and purple.

I'm also wearing my blue cadet scarf on my left arm.

I'm also a protégé and an apprentice. This means I also have a yellow belt and a green belt.

My two scrub Pelicans, in their unending piety, never gave me a physical belt. One gave me a loaner belt, and the other is on a long-term IOU.

I do have a green apprentice belt, but my dress is already green. I tried different ways to draw myself a green belt, but it didn't quite look right because my green belt is a woven early period belt that I only wear with my early period garb.

I'm currently in the process of making a persona-appropriate belt.

A Sqonk

A sqonk is a bizarre creature found in Pennsylvania that is considered to be the ugliest creature in the world. Sadly, the creature is also aware of how ugly it is, so it cries all the time.

In my drawing, the sqonk is crying a whole puddle, which later becomes the susquehanna river.

A Bigfoot

Everyone should know who and what a Big Foot is, so I'm not going to write a description in here. I colored this in with copper ink then outlined it with black India ink.

In period, it was called a Wodewose or a "wild man". Read about it here on Wikipedia.

Is it big foot, or is it Chewbacca... I don't really know yet.

In progress shot

I got self-conscious again about the red, so I went back in and scraped some splotches away, then I added some more color to produce a flatter color.

I still need to write in Philadelphia, and color in the Atlantic ocean.

Recoloring my parasol

I decided to write a bit more about recoloring my parasol because it's important.

Purples and violets are the hardest color to get to "lay" flat. In order to make the right purple you are looking for, you need to mix the right proportions of red to blue AND select the right kind of red and blue. There are reds that are more cool and reds that are more warm. The same goes for blue.

Because there are so many types of reds and blues, there will be so many types of purples you can create. The key is knowing what blue and red to grab in order to make the purple you are going for.

That's the reason why I've had to go back and re-paint the purple of my parasol. It's because the deep violet would look perfect on white paper, but on yellow-tinged parchment, it looks blah.

The Deep Violet has a red base, and the one that I ended up using was Ultramarine Violet. On white paper, the Deep Violet would look like the proper heraldic purple, but the Ultramarine violet would have looked more like a pastel purple with a touch of pink.

Starting point

The initial parasol in Deep Violet by Liquidex

After consulting with painting laurel, she advised me to repaint it with a thin layer of Deep Violet to see if it will make a difference. I still wasn't happy

I went back over with Ultramarine Violet by Amsterdam. This finally gave me the violet that I liked. I kept the other violet on top of the parasol for comparison

Finally happy...

I took this picture at another angle rather than straight on. The color is much smoother now. I took an Exacto blade and polished up the lines of my necklace around my neck. I also took a fine paint brush and added more details to the shadowing of my bodice.

Done, for now?

I'm done for the time being, or at least until I can take a look at it with the pieces lined up.

Both Sides Joined Together

I taped the two pieces together on a big piece of glass so I can see how it looks.

LOL. My one mountain range beside Big Foot looks like a potato. I don't know what I was thinking when I was illustrating that.

Departure from Period Practice

I added North American cryptids into the illustration
- Many of the cryptids used are modern creations aka post-17th century, but the process of adding fantastical and mythical creatures to scroll art is a period technique. I only used the North American versions
I used a satellite-generated, topographical map to tell me the locations of the mountains and bodies of water
- In period, this task would have been accomplished by using stories and other maps to help draw these locations
My water ripples for the bodies of water are tighter "crimps" than in the extant. The extant has more wavy lines. I made more of a wave because I felt that it looked nicer.
My shorelines around the Great Lakes are too smooth, the extant has them appearing like fluffy clouds instead of a smooth line. The smooth line is a more accurate, mundane representation of the current shoreline.
- After weighing out the pros and cons of either keeping the shorelines or scraping them out; I decided to keep it the way it was because it is too close to other art near and in the lakes themselves. I run the risk of accidentally damaging those parts. Risk > Benefit

Things I Learned

I got to learn way more about cryptids than I knew before
Drawing cryptids based on description is harder than it looks
Brown ink does not show up well on vellum, I ended up redoing the metrosaurus with copper-colored ink for more dimension
Laying the color red down is incredibly difficult, and I need to work on my painting technique a lot more
Check, and double check a topgraphical map
Different kinds of painter's tape have different adhesive qualities, and some hold down vellum better than others.
- I had to redo the taping of the scroll back down to my board using blue tape called Scotch Blue, originally the scroll was held in place using 3M Frog Tape and it kept curling
I just figured out on this scroll that the waves in the water are all in one direction, they're all in a top-to-bottom orientation.
I just figured out that the little lines around the city are marked out in red and green that alternate from the focal point. In the previous scroll, I did it in black because I didn't see it as being green and red until I was able to locate an ultra high quality photograph of the scroll.
I remembered to draw in the borders on the sides!
- I forgot to draw them in on the first scroll. They look like thin lines on the sides of the scroll that run from top to bottom.