-
Pollinators Choice

Walking through the garden on a pollinator survey I noticed that PURPLE is the bloom color where most bees were foraging – making Purple the subject this week!
-
Finding North

Finding North became the focus this week as I was researching the history of the compass rose. First a little background. North on a map is a human construction that took hold in the early 1600s. Maps have always shown an up ‘direction’ but there have been variations – early Egyptian maps show South as…
-
Art of Map Color

Color on maps has history ranging from aesthetic to symbolic, from decorative to the complex color theorems started in the 1800s to distinguish countries, states and bodies of water. In the 19th century before complexity set in and before maps were printed with color it was a popular hobby for society ladies to hand color…
-
The Color of Maps

The next few posts are going to include how color was introduced to the genre of maps and charts. The earliest maps were used for storytelling and wayfinding on land and at sea. Military planning and plant hunting were specialized areas using early colored maps. In the 1780s the profession of ‘topographic artist’ was introduced.…