PROJECT #010: SHIRE MAP(S)
Anyone who’s opened up the Lord of the Rings books will know the famous map of Middle Earth. Back in 2001 I was reading these books for the first time, and in my English workbook I was drawing a simpler version of the map as it is today. Growing up in the Shire of Yarra Ranges, both the hobbit homeland and my old stomping ground having the title of “The Shire” in common, was enough of a trigger for me in creating this map.
Beyond the title though, something about that part of the world feels very “Shire-like”, the geography. While Middle Earth was a dramatic and diverse landscape, The Shire represented a miniaturised version of the world around it. The Shire of Yarra Ranges is quite geographically diverse in nature with it’s extinct volcanoes, open fields full of produce, rivers, caves and villages dotting the landscape.
I continued to draw outwards from Mt Evelyn.
(The first day of drawing)
About 15 years later, the idea to re-create the map entered my head. At this point I had no idea what scale I’d make the map, or even what to do with it once it was finished. As of August 2020, it’s been around 3 years of drawing, whenever I have some time and creative energy to spare. I’m hoping to have it “finished” sometime in 2022. The local versions were never really going to happen, but it turned out a good way to keep on track with progress, and let people take home a more local slice of the map.
(Early version)
The process of drawing these areas is actually quite complex, but with the initial laying down of the geography it was snipping some aerial imagery in a graphics program to get an idea of mountains, forest, roads and creeks, then comparing with some topographic maps, locations of quarries, wineries, and other areas of interest. The drawing is done on a tablet with a stylus that acts very similarly to a real pencil, it has a pressure-sensitive tip that allows different thickness in the strokes. All of the lettering, roads, trees, rivers, everything on the map is hand-drawn. In the graphics program there are actually 4 separate files that I stitch together for the full map, because they are just so huge, and it takes up a lot of memory on the PC. Every time I look at the map though there’s something I go back and change, the whole process has been a learning one, and sometimes it’s necessary to fix up something from 3 years ago.
Additionally my good friend Liz Pearson has created illustrations of dragons, ents and local flora which has been used in the local versions of the maps, which act as borders, and look amazing.
The finished product will end up being around 2.5 metres long, and cover the entire Shire of Yarra Ranges and some small nearby patches including Cockatoo, Kinglake, Marysville and Woods Point. I’m not really sure if I’ll have a wall large enough for it, or how much a frame for it will cost. But more than that it’ll be a relief and a bit of sadness once it’s finished from a personal level. My hope is that when people look at this map they’ll trace an adventure on the map with their finger, and imagine a version of the Shire that’s full of wonder and amazement.
LINKS TO ARTICLES:
https://ferntreegullynews.com/2020/05/28/hobbits-in-the-gully/