The Making of a Campus Map

The last time I painted a map
was in 2021.
I painted a map of West Virginia
with the goal 
of turning it into a jigsaw puzzle.

In March 2021 I wrote about it: 
The Making of a Puzzle
and in May, Rick and I traveled to 
Kansas City, MO to pick up
2000 puzzles.

In June 2021 I wrote this:
One Month of Puzzle Adventures

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Well...
when I saw the campus maps by artists online
I decided to take on my next map challenge:
A campus map of Marshall University!
Instead of acrylic paint on canvas,
I wanted to do this one in watercolor 
in a loose sketchy style.
I started practicing
in my sketchbook...

I soon realized this sketch was way too big!
I needed to practice much smaller sketches
 from 1"x 1" to about 3"x 2".
In between photo trips to campus,
I practiced.

I started transferring my sketches
 to little squares of tracing paper.

When I had several sketches
 I attached them with a repositionable gluestick
to a large sheet of tracing paper
 the size of my watercolor paper.
In this photo, 
they're all attached!

The next step was transferring all those sketches
to the watercolor paper
with my homemade lightbox.
I layered the watercolor paper 
on top of the sketches on tracing paper,
and put them on top of my light box.

To sketch each building accurately,
I used my original sketch in my sketchbook (on the top left),
the traced image I could see using the light box,
and a photo on my laptop.
Three days later, all my sketches 
had been transferred onto the watercolor paper.

I had it photographed at this point,
in order to later sell prints 
for coloring or painting.

I painted each little sketch one at a time
 again using a photo from my laptop and my practice sketch
for references.
When I finished...

David at Mayne Frame
photographed it for me,
and I started working on
plans for the reproductions I would make
or have made
to sell to benefit students
in our area
through the
Cabell County Schools Foundation.

Thanks for following along,
Linda