Mapping It Out

During my frequent perusings of wedding blogs and shops I couldn't help but notice the adorableness that are hand-drawn wedding maps. Just look at this amazing map by Stephannie Barba of Couture Maps:

Or this one by the aptly named "Hand Drawn Maps":

But by far the cutest maps come from the studio of Laura Condouris: Trial by Cupcakes:

I mean come on! The Adirondack chairs? The light house? The happy little whale?! Friggen adorable.

Now, few people know this, but I actually aspired to be an art teacher once upon a time. I took art lessons for years and years from a painter the street over, and have lots of good memories of mid-summer sketch fests in gardens around Lincoln. So when I saw the hand-drawn maps, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to use all of those art skillz that have been lying dormant all these years. 

It seemed easy enough to begin with; all I had to do was print off some google maps, trace them, and voila! There's a map! But I realized very quickly that things were not so simple. To begin with, google maps were never in the dimensions I need (11" x 5.5") and, duh, you can't trace a map through nice watercolor paper. So how did I manage? First I printed off a map of the Chicagoland area and cut out the shoreline and traced that onto my pre-cut watercolor paper. Then I simply started free-hand sketching the major roadways into/around Chicagoland, being careful to include both airports. 

Since our church and reception are so near to each other, it made perfect sense to include a close-up of the neighborhood as well to give people a rough guide of where the venues sit in the city. Drawing out the streets took a little while, but the biggest challenge was drawing the venues themselves. It took several tries for me to remember all the tricks to nailing dimension properly, but in the end I think I succeeded. Once the essential info was there, I started adding little embellishments (the loop, the train, etc), and then traced all of my pencil lines in ink. Finally came the fun part: painting! I ultimately decided to use watercolor, which is the medium used by Trial by Cupcakes, and I'm so glad I did. I finished the map tonight and I'm really pleased with the results! Check it out:

Click the picture for a larger image.

I now have my very own personalized, hand-drawn wedding map. It certainly isn't anything overly fancy, but that suits me and my non-fancy wedding just fine. :)