Uppercase Contest submission for They Draw and Travel!

I really wanted to submit something to this contest as it is a combination of 2 of my favorite things. I love the TDAT website, and traveling in general, and Uppercase is my fav magazine. You can see the full map here on their site. I wished I hadn't already submitted my map of Westborough, MA, that I did for Make Art that Sells, Part B , but  because I had, it made me work on something new! 

I had to reformat Lilla's assignment to the more horizontal specs of TDAT.

Since I had already done a map of the town in which I am currently living, I decided to focus on the area I spent many years in and around, the Providence/Pawtucket area of Rhode Island. I used to work at Hasbro, at 1027 Newport Avenue in Pawtucket. Let's just say it's an "interesting" town. Rhode Island has a lot of faces... from beautiful beaches, quaint seaside towns, to chain-linked fenced yards, triple decker housing, tattoo and pawn shops, well you get the idea. Pawtucket has a lot of the latter. Another strange characteristic is what the locals like to eat. For some strange reason, they have a certain fixation on "New York System" hot weiners (Rhode Islanders do not adhere to the i before e except after c rule). SImply put, weiners are skinny hot dogs, topped with a meat sauce, onions and celery salt. Anyway, I thought illustrating a little tour of the top wiener spots in the area might be a funny topic. Back in the day, Dot's Dairy Bar (see spot number 6 on the map) was within walking distance of 1027. I went there mainly for the shakes, but I was known to occasionally pick up a weiner alongside. At around a buck a dog, the price was right.

It was a fun map to do and if you look closely, you might see my homage to my former employer with a guest appearance of Mr. P and Rich Uncle Pennybags. In retrospect, even the little houses look like the ones in Monopoly! If you ever go there, I don't recommend hitting all these spots in one day... I won't be held responsible for the state of your digestive system after, but enjoy!!

Lilla Rogers, Make Art That Sells, hometown map assignment!

I realized that I never officially posted week 4 editorial assignment from Lilla Rogers MATS class. This was a particularly challenging assignment to do in less than a week. We were to do a map of our hometown. Now I presently live in a typical New England small town, just 30 some miles west of Boston. I actually considered stretching the truth and just doing Boston, but ultimately I decided that doing a map of a city would be more overwhelming, especially since it has been done so many times already. I seriously doubt that little ol' Westborough has been the subject of an editorial map. 

The disadvantage of doing a small town is the seemingly lack of interesting subject matter, so I dove into the history books to get some material! Although he left here as a small child and his family's home is long gone, Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, was born here! Also, in the 19th century, Westborough was known for sleigh manufacturing. Outside of that, I decided to focus on the hellish traffic circle (the rotary) in the center of downtown, with no less than 7 streets converging into it. To make traffic worse, nearby there is a low railroad bridge that despite multiple warnings, tractor trailers get stuck underneath it on a weekly basis. Fun! Since it is in New England, the epicenter of the Dunkin Donut chain store magnate, there is an odd, unhealthy abundance of donut/coffee shops. I counted 9 in a town of 18,000. Seems like a pretty high ratio, but maybe the sugary caffeine rush is necessary to navigate through the downtown traffic ;)

I have always wanted to tackle a map and despite the challenge, I was thrilled that this was the assignment. My class submission is the smaller version pictured below. I wanted to submit this to the wonderful site, They Draw and Travel, so I had to expand and reformat to meet their horizontal specs. There was a lot that I did not have time to do for the class assignment, so I took the opportunity to add more buildings, people and of course, the infamous railroad bridge. There are always more details I would like to have added, but this kind of work is really an exercise in editing it down to a manageable amount of info that gives the viewer a feel for the locale, without showing every last detail. I hope I achieved that!