mapping

Dart map, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

Here's a map of Dartmoor in the 14th century, at the time of the Black Death. It's for Deborah Harvey's novel Dart, due to be published this year. It was fun to draw, once I'd worked out how to go about it- something vaguely in the style of a mediaeval map, and those brightly coloured postcard maps that you used to get in the 60s.

A useful tool for getting the perspective right was Google Earth, and a fun by-product of using Google Earth is goofing around on the flight simulator that's available in the tools options. Flying under the Saltash Bridge in an F16 is great fun, and one unattended by the risk of a knock at the door from the CAA. Very unmediaeval!

Dart

I've just finished this picture, for the cover of Deborah Harvey's new novel, Dart. That's Hound Tor, on Dartmoor, in the background.

I quite like this picture. It would have been nice to have done it all on one piece of paper, but that would have been impossible, applying washes over the rather intricate foliage of the border, given the limitations of masking fluid. Still, Paint Shop Pro (which is what I use for digital manipulation) is as much a part of my toolbox as the paintbrushes, dip pens and assorted paraphernalia of a more traditional kind.

Here are the two components of the picture, before I layered them up on screen...