Ask the Expert: Maps and Rhys Davies
Edith/Maddie here, awed to have book map artist Rhys Davies as our guest. Yes, he is the person who drew the famous map of Three Pines! He has illustrated many more author’s towns, too, including Nether Monkslip in the Max Tudor books written by our friend G.M. Maillet and the 17th century London of Susanna Calkins‘ fabulous Lucy Campion mysteries. He agreed to let me ask him some questions today, and he has a special giveaway for one commenter.
When and how did you get started drawing maps for authors?
As an artist and designer, I’d done a variety of creative things over the years. I’ve always had a real interest in maps since I was a kid back in Wales and can remember unfolding the huge OS maps (Ordnance Survey) we had in the house and spending hours looking over them. They were so beautiful and detailed. My dad and I did a lot of hiking in the Welsh mountains where an understanding of maps and how they related to the land was crucial.. and fun.
It wasn’t until years later when this came back into focus again and merged with my creative life. A lucky conversation with a friend who’s an art director at St.Martins/Macmillan in New York started me off in this new direction. It suited me right away and I’ve been fiddling with real world and fantasy maps ever since.
How do you work with authors? Do they send you a sketch and you elaborate it? Or do they describe the town in words, you mock up a map, and you both revise?
Projects usually come from art directors at various publishing houses though more and more self published authors are requesting maps these days which is great.
I usually get a pretty basic scribble of an idea (sometimes very rough:). I’ll have an initial stab at general shape and some features and send it back to the art director. I don’t usually get to have direct contact with the author (poor, sensitive things ! :):).. and work through the art director and editors in endless e-mails. It seems the bigger the author, the more the layers of input. I’ve just finished a high profile book where there was a committee of people giving input 
