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Description

"If I say 'December', what pops into your mind?"

Winter and snow, Christmas and my birthday, my grand parents old house and the smell of Christmas cookies. It would be too long (and probably boring too ^^) to explain all the memories, but December is always special to me.
My grandparents had this old globe in their house. Not a precious one, just a school globe I loved a lot : the countries in different colors, the mysterious lines from the poles... I loved to look at it, imagine all the people living on all the countries, thinking about all the mysteries there, and when December came, the mystery, of course : how can the red guy distribute all the presents to all the children in the world in just one night ? Magic is the answer, of course, as we all know once we're adult, but as a kid, with millions of questions in my mind, I loved to imagine his travel all around the world on the old globe of my grandparents' house

And here we are. One more December, and with that old globe which is now in my office came to my mind the idea of this map.

So here is a page of the Book of the Gnomes, roughtly 1530, treasured in the North Pole Monument and still in use for every Christmas Eve. If you're a gnome, you know why, uh ?

If you're curious...
... here is the translation of the title : "A Chart showing the Meridians, Gnomic Hours, South-Directions and General Positions, and following the moves and elevations throughout the Christmas Night".
... the map is largely inspired by Jaques Devaulx's 16th century work (one of the pages of his book is used in the background for the "other side of the page" effect, 'cause I was too lazy to draw something myself ^^).
... the map was drawn for the December 2018 challenge on the Cartographer's Guild forum (and was the lucky winner !) and was a study around old manuscripts and illuminations on parchment, experiments on calligraphy, knots, gold effects, parchment transparency, etc.
... the map is full of personal easter eggs related to my December memories : some Tolkien references, some reminder of birthday gifs I got and birthday travels I made, the directions I imagined for my own fantasy world, a reference to a dear friend I lost a couple of weeks ago, my grandparent's globe, the Christmas tree, my grandfather disguised in Santa Claus, the bredele we use to eat, my father's old bell, something from an old children book I loved... and... and... oh, so many other things everywhere.

And if ever you're interested to support my work, the the Polar map is available as prints on my InPrnt here !

Description

"If I say 'December', what pops into your mind?"

Winter and snow, Christmas and my birthday, my grand parents old house and the smell of Christmas cookies. It would be too long (and probably boring too ^^) to explain all the memories, but December is always special to me.
My grandparents had this old globe in their house. Not a precious one, just a school globe I loved a lot : the countries in different colors, the mysterious lines from the poles... I loved to look at it, imagine all the people living on all the countries, thinking about all the mysteries there, and when December came, the mystery, of course : how can the red guy distribute all the presents to all the children in the world in just one night ? Magic is the answer, of course, as we all know once we're adult, but as a kid, with millions of questions in my mind, I loved to imagine his travel all around the world on the old globe of my grandparents' house

And here we are. One more December, and with that old globe which is now in my office came to my mind the idea of this map.

So here is a page of the Book of the Gnomes, roughtly 1530, treasured in the North Pole Monument and still in use for every Christmas Eve. If you're a gnome, you know why, uh ?

If you're curious...
... here is the translation of the title : "A Chart showing the Meridians, Gnomic Hours, South-Directions and General Positions, and following the moves and elevations throughout the Christmas Night".
... the map is largely inspired by Jaques Devaulx's 16th century work (one of the pages of his book is used in the background for the "other side of the page" effect, 'cause I was too lazy to draw something myself ^^).
... the map was drawn for the December 2018 challenge on the Cartographer's Guild forum (and was the lucky winner !) and was a study around old manuscripts and illuminations on parchment, experiments on calligraphy, knots, gold effects, parchment transparency, etc.
... the map is full of personal easter eggs related to my December memories : some Tolkien references, some reminder of birthday gifs I got and birthday travels I made, the directions I imagined for my own fantasy world, a reference to a dear friend I lost a couple of weeks ago, my grandparent's globe, the Christmas tree, my grandfather disguised in Santa Claus, the bredele we use to eat, my father's old bell, something from an old children book I loved... and... and... oh, so many other things everywhere.

And if ever you're interested to support my work, the the Polar map is available as prints on my InPrnt here !