A Wedding Gift
Project Background
This map was commissioned by the bride’s parents, and they asked for it to include the bride and groom’s favourite haunts in the North East, their travels together, their engagement in Ireland and their beloved Saluki hound, Star. It was given to them on their wedding day (the map not the dog).
The challenge here was to include not only places in the North East of England, but parts of America, Ireland and Europe. Some crafty inserts were in order…
The process
I begin every map with a rough sketch, plotting where everything will go. There is a lot of rubbing out and starting again, until I come up with something I’m happy with. After it’s been approved, I draw a simple grid (you can see the lines here) which helps me make a much more detailed pencil drawing on my watercolour paper. This is followed by an ink drawing over the top. Finally, I get my watercolours out!
Some details
From the photos, Star looks like a happy, sleepy dog, whose overbite gives her a permanent smile. One photo showed her asleep with her tail dangling over the edge of the sofa, so I decided to transfer her to the top of the Christmas market insert. It’s fun to play around with scale and placement when making a map. If you are the map-maker you can make up your own rules.
Possibly my favourite challenge was the giant snow globe which forms part of the Durham Lumiere installations. As usual, it needed to be tiny on my map. It took several layers of black, then smoky grey, then points of pink and white with my finest brush. The blob of white is what gives the globe its glossy sheen. I was really happy with how it turned out. Unusual features like this really help to make a map unique.
This insert will be a reminder of not only an amazing holiday in America, but also the pandemic! I checked that it was Ok to leave Bekah and David’s masks in place, and the consensus was that it was all part of the story.
There is a classic view of Low Newton which I’m hoping to paint one day. Here it is in miniature form, along with the fabulous Barter Books, another favourite haunt.
It’s always nice to be able to use photos actually taken by the family, and the bride and groom had a favourite photo of Durham Cathedral with an amazing sunset behind it. I’ve hinted at it here.
The most important part of the map was the wedding venue itself, this beautiful old building in the wilds of the College Valley. Apparently the weather was perfect so it might have looked something like this.
The finished map
