Alice Ratterree | Children's Book Illustrator

Tag: illustrated map

  • Yosemite National Park and THE WOLF KEEPERS

    Yosemite National Park and THE WOLF KEEPERS

    Today marks the release of THE WOLF KEEPERS, my most recent illustration project by author Elise Broach, published by Henry Holt and Co. You can read more about the book and see some sample interior illustrations in my last blog post, “THE WOLF KEEPERS: Book Release”.

    One of the most enjoyable moments I had bringing this book to life was creating the setting of Yosemite National Park. This was a vital element to the cover. In addition to representing Yosemite on the cover and in key moments of the story, we all agreed that a map of the valley – where Lizzie and Tyler experience their adventure – was definitely in order for the endpapers:

    Wolf Keepers Yosemite map Broach Ratterree
    Illustrated Map of Yosemite Valley, The Wolf Keepers (Broach)

    And as seen on the end papers:

    ratterree_wolfkeepers-endpaper

    I love creating maps, and it definitely was a humbling and challenging task to represent one of the most beautiful landmarks in the world. To view my other maps check out the editorial tab at the top of this page. If you’d like to read more about how I create digital maps from hand drawings, check out my blog post “How to illustrate a map in a hand-drawn style”.

    If you’d like to plan your visit to Yosemite or any national park, visit the Mountain IQ at https://www.mountainiq.com/. These two have done their homework and are a great resource to help you prepare for your next mountain experience.

    (For their take on the best way to trek Yosemite, navigate to https://www.mountainiq.com/guides/america/yosemite/)

    Happy Trails,
    aR+

  • How to illustrate a map in a hand-drawn style

    How to illustrate a map in a hand-drawn style

    Recent editorial work for Town Magazine involved an illustrated map of the Swamp Rabbit Trail.

    ratterree_townmagazine

    The process, while brand new to me, proved to be very rewarding. It began with a conversation with the editor, in which she provided the key places along the trail that would be highlighted. Initial (messy) notes:

    ratterree_SRTnotes

    To start, a soft-green base was laid in Photoshop using the paint tools.

    ratterree_greenfield

    Each location needed a special icon that represented its unique services and attributes. Time is always a constraint with editorial turn around, so I didn’t have the luxury of personally seeing places I wasn’t already familiar with. But it was a lot of fun virtually “visiting” each enterprise’s web site and discovering what it had to offer. I wanted each location’s icon to have a very hand-made look to it, so instead of drawing directly onto the computer, each icon was free-handed (just on plain printer paper- one of my most used and favorite sketching surfaces!) scanned it in, and then traced over it in Photoshop with the paint tool (as a separate layer – that way, the original drawing could be deleted). The result was something like this:

    ratterree_sandwich

     

    ratterree_groceries

     

    ratterree_lake

    And so on…..

    Next task was to add the actual trail. It needed to be accurate, but also a hand-made representation. Thanks to Greenville County Rec‘s interactive map of the trail, the perfect model presented:

    ratterree_GRmap

     

    I liked the way the bright purple stood out against the earth tones, so I picked a similar bright purple to work against the green foundation I had chosen. The trail had to be simplified somewhat but still have those organic angles. This was traced and simplified in Illustrator then imported as a smart object into Photoshop:

    ratterree_trail

    Each icon had been created in its own layer, which allowed me to move them around individually. The interactive map had a feature that allowed me to type in the address of each location and view it in relation to the trail. That gave me the basic vicinity for placement.

    ratterree_map

    The next layer was choosing typeface. Thanks to MyFonts I chose one that represented the hand-letter quality to work with the image….

    ratterree_SRTmap_April2014issue

    Along this topic, Laura Coyle has written this excellent blog post about how she designs and illustrates maps, which is a specialty of hers.

    Illustrator of the day: Laura Coyle!