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Instructions for Hand Colouring Maps
from the 18th Century
Further from our previous article detailing how to make watercolours, this passage gives detailed instructions for how a map should actually be coloured, it is based on those given in an 18th century text.
The divisions in a Map which distinguish one kingdom from another, or one country from another, are known by certain lines or rows of pricks, or points of several sizes and shapes, agreeable to the divisions they are to denote.
In a map of Spain and Portugal, for instance, the two kingdoms are separated by a row of large points or pricks, and the several provinces (such as we call shires in England) are distinguished by lines or lesser points. Then, to colour Portugal, cover the hills within the large pricked line with very thin tincture of myrrh, or tincture of Jesuit's bark; and, where there are woods, dab every tree with the point of a very fine pencil dipped in grass green, made with gamboge and copper green. In dipping your pencil, stroke it against the side of the pot or glass where your colour is, to prevent its dropping. The principal cities and towns may be marked with another pencil dipped in red lead, thinly tempered with gum water, that the eye may readily perceive them.
To trace out the bounds of the provinces, take another pencil dipped in copper green, which move along the inside of the pricked lines, laying it evenly on. The next province may be coloured in like manner with gamboge, the next with the crimson tincture of cochineal, the next with red lead, the next with grass green, and then any of the former colours. Observe, that no two provinces must in any part join with the same colour: and that where the provinces join, the second colour must not be laid on before the first be dry. The colours may be lightened off, or made fainter, when nearly dry, by wetting a clean pencil in water, gently squeezing it out, and going round with it on the inside of the coloured line.
part 2 - Guide to hand colouring maps
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