Bd James Strepar part 3

It's been a few weeks since I had an update on my latest print, but those have been two very busy weeks.  That period of time included my last week of classes and calculating all my final semester grades, always an ordeal.  We had a Mother's Day in there, which meant multiple special meals, including some cooking for one of them.  Now that the weather has warmed up, the grass needs to be cut at least once a week, and it's finally the time of year to get the vegetables into the ground.  Today I even had a work shift at the Belmar Arts Council, but in this case it meant I could get back to making some art.

Today I was gallery sitting, which also means answering the phones and other building stuff.  However, I know from experience that there isn't that much to do, and it's important to bring along something to keep myself busy.  I haven't had time to work on the latest saint lately, but I've had a bit of time to think about it and the things brought up at the last critique.  To emphasize the journey concept, someone had suggested adding some ships or sea monsters around the map, as in the one above.  The big problem there is that the territory in question is completely landlocked, but I can see where others may have been confused- with no color yet or details around my Galicia border, it did kind of look like an island.  Simple solution- continue the nations map beyond the borders of the country in focus.  But I did find a way to add some other elements.  The map above and below are from yet another old calendar in my collection, this one featuring images from a 1665 atlas by Joan Blaeu.  The middle of an Aftrica map includes small drawings of some of the wildlife one might expect to find there, probably not a bad thing for an explorer to know about.  Elephants and tigers wouldn't make much sense in my image, so I substituted to common predators in that part of the world in those days, a brown bear to the north (Russia) and a wolf to the south.

Taking another idea from the ancient map, I started marking in some mountains along the southern border (the Carpathians) and gave the name of the territory or more vintage font.  The other significant change I made was to move the compass from the right side of the block to the left, and in its old place, started sketching in a piece of a canteen, the one other most obvious thing one would take on a hike.  My plans for the day were slightly thwarted by the arrival shortly into my shift by a couple of guys working on installing the new air conditioner,  Besides taking over my workspace, they spent at least 15 minutes pounding the aluminum ducts with hammers, creating a racket that was probable heard a few towns away.  I had to give up answering some questions from gallery visitors during this time.  When my shift ended, the block now looked like what you see below.

Still a long way to go here, lots of things to be fixed, but I think it's better, and the composition is more complete.  I'll fix some flaws in the coming days, and get back to cutting it soon.