Hello, Guild! I have been super busy lately with a job search and my free time has been kind of eaten up. As a result, I haven't had too much mapping activity. But, I've not been totally abstaining from maps. Here is something I just did over the last month or so.

My best friend recently got married, and while listening to all the toasts I started to think, hmm, I can put this together into something... So I got out my superfine pen nib and some sumi ink, and put together a cartographical representation of the bride and groom's lives, before and after they met. I tried to be somewhat oblique in all the references such that they would know exactly what I was pointing out, but one has to know them to really understand where everything came from. I think it's a good addition to my portfolio, so I'm posting it up here for you all to see.

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I really like this super-traditional pen approach, because it lets me make such tiny and precise features. I think the lines are even smaller than what I do with a Pigma Micron or Copic Multiliner, but maybe that's just my imagination. It's also kind of fun to see how the little wiggles and variations of my hand come out in the final product, whether I meant them to or not. It's been a while since I did a dip pen piece, and wow, do I love working with this ink!

For this, you're also seeing me try a new border style (complete with mistakes! spot 'em all ), a new forest style, and a new way to represent cities. The whole thing is 8x10" on paper.

Hopefully I will be posting up some new works in progress soon. I've doing a bunch of traveling and moving over the next couple months, though...