Stock up! USA orders $85+ from the Supplies Shop ship free! →

Shop Now

  • Geography Art Finds Plus an Inspirational Printable

    by

    Lindsey Bugbee

    — 2 Comments

    ,

    (Download this original watercolor work as a 5″x7″ Geography Art Printable — yay!) I live in a constant state of having the travel bug. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no geography whiz (unless we’re talking Kansas, USA; then I can name off all sorts of obscure places and their locations) — butContinue…

    Geography Art Finds | The Postman's Knock

    (Download this original watercolor work as a 5″x7″ Geography Art Printable — yay!)

    I live in a constant state of having the travel bug. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no geography whiz (unless we’re talking Kansas, USA; then I can name off all sorts of obscure places and their locations) — but I love new places and the cultures that come with those new places. When I am not traveling, I love to be reminded of the places I have been and what I’ve seen: enter my love for geography art.

    I have some fun geography art finds today that I thought I would share with you. The first of these is Stamen maps. How cool is this?: Stamen, a design studio in San Francisco, has made watercolor maps available for you to print out and frame (or set as your desktop background — whatever you’d like). You just type in your desired locale and the site creates a watercolor map. For example, see the maps I generated for Boulder, CO and Lima, Peru:

    Geography Art Finds | The Postman's Knock

    Keep in mind that Stamen maps seems to work best for larger cities. I tried to generate my home town of Colby, Kansas, and it just came up with uninterrupted brown watercolor with two roads. Not that that’s too far off the mark … but still.

    If you’re wanting to get a bit more interactive than simply printing off a map, go to nationalatlas.gov’s Printed Maps and get any state outline you could possibly want. Then create something like my state art watercolor using my easy-peasy tutorial. If you are not from the United States, just Google something like “Peru outline” “Australia outline” “Ireland outline”, etc., and you should be able to create gorgeous geography art from there!

    State Art Watercolor Tutorial - The Postman's Knock by Lindsey Bugbee

    I looove this printable United States jigsaw puzzle. It would look incredible framed with a few flags or tabs to mark notable locations (or where you have traveled). Check it out on mrprintables.com!

    Geography Art Finds | The Postman's Knock

    Pinterest is abound with subway art (or at least it goes through its subway art phases). I’m not a fan of the cutesy subway art, but I do love subway art that names actual places. Check out I Am Momma Hear Me Roar’s tutorial on subway art — here’s a sneak peak:

    Geography Art Finds | The Postman's Knock

    In her blog post, she shows an example of a place-specific piece of subway art she made for her sister. That’s my favorite, and a piece of geography art I would definitely like to make for a friend or myself.

    If you like St. Augustine’s travel quotation with the Italy outline, enjoy the original printable, created by yours truly (but please don’t modify for commercial use or participate in similar shenanigans — it’s a gift from me to just you!). Happy travels!