Bringing you up to date on my daily map project. Earlier I wrote about
drawing maps of imaginary places. I'm also using my sketchbook to make maps of real places. Sometimes I print out an actual map and use it as a template; other times I'll look at a real map and draw it by eye.
I may label interesting things that I saw along the way -- on this map, I found a penny in the alley and saw two toilets set out at the curb for the junk pickup.
Frequently I'll map my travels of the day, or draw the neighborhoods where I lived as a kid.
Or I'll copy a map of a faraway city or country.
Sometimes I try to be very accurate --
other times I'll do a "mind map," where I just draw without consulting a source. Often that works out OK, but just not exactly to scale. But sometimes I realize that my mind doesn't map very well. I can drive or walk from Point A to Point B and back with total confidence, but if I start drawing from both points simultaneously they sometimes don't meet in the middle. I label that as the time-space warp.
I think this kind of spatial awareness is really important - both in terms of corresponding to the reality of a measured map, and in terms of corresponding to perceived space in things we remember. For instance, now that I walk around town I'm creating a different sort of map than when I was confined to bus routes and "the underground". Through trying new routes, new streets appear and at first could be anywhere, then they settle down to their "proper" placed, connection Here and There.
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