Cartographer
Draw the world from sailors' reports in an Amsterdam map workshop. Where nobody has been yet, add a sea monster. Where you're not sure, add a compass rose.
c. 1500 – 2010About the role
When European ships began sailing around the world, someone had to turn their logbooks into maps. Workshops in Amsterdam produced the finest of them, engraved on copper and colored by hand. They were beautiful, expensive and occasionally wrong: for about a century, most maps showed California as an island.
In the Blaeu Workshop Replica, you'll work on one sheet of a new atlas. You'll read sailors' reports, plot coastlines, letter the place names in ink and color the finished print by hand. Where the reports run out, you'll decorate. That was always part of the job.
What you'll do
- Plot coastlines from captains' logbooks and sailors' sketches.
- Letter every place name by hand, in the right language, mostly.
- Color the printed sheets with watercolor, country by country.
- Fill the unknown parts of the ocean with ships, compass roses and sea monsters.
- Correct last year's mistakes. Leave California alone for now.
What we're looking for
- A neat hand and a good eye for detail.
- Patience with conflicting sources.
- Some skill with a brush.
- A healthy imagination, used responsibly.
Perks
- Your sheet, bound in the atlasSigned in the corner, in very small letters.
- A pair of brass dividersFor measuring distances. Also for looking like a cartographer.
- Sailors' storiesDelivered in person, at the workshop door. Some of them are true.
