The Lay of the Land

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Start from the shoreline and move inward when sketching.  These landscape markers need not be overly detailed as long as you can tell what you want to fill in the area with.

Note: Below are things to keep in mind while creating various icons on your maps.  In the next lesson, we discuss the different types of land called “biomes”.  I list basic characteristics of each to give you an idea of what type of land you can create.

Wetlands – There’s a difference between bogs, marshes, swamps, & fens:

1. grasses grow in marshes (think of grasslands along coastlines with cattails & lots of insect life)
2. trees & woody plants grow in swamps (think more like a mushy, wet jungle forest)
3.  fens are a mix of peat & growing plant life similar to bogs but without the acidic water (fens can turn into bogs if the water becomes too acidic) 
4. bogs have acidic water and a variety of mosses growing from them
   • brown bog – usually brown like the bog you the hobbits try to get through in LotR
   • green bog – lush green mossy fields of Ireland

Trees & plant life:

• Unless the plant life of an area is dying off, most growth will spread until something stops it such as rivers, mountains, arid climate, or bedrock.
• Older, and therefore often the tallest/biggest trees are towards the middle of a forest with more younger/smaller trees growing as it spreads outward.

Types of forests are discussed in the “Biomes” lesson.

Mountains:

• Do not occur randomly they are formed when:
  • tectonic plates create volcanoes long their ridges which erupt to cause the mountain to form
  • tectonic plates collide or one plate slips under another plate
  • ground along a fault rises & tilts (called a “fault block”), pulling the surface apart and eventually causing the center of the range to sink between flanking ridges of earth.
• Mountain ranges that form along plates & fault lines can line up with mountain ranges along the same lines in the water and on other continents.

Water:

• Flows from higher elevation (mountains) to lower (sea level) and generally lead to the sea.
• Lakes & ponds occur when land sinks below the water level of a region.
• Almost all flowing water leads to the sea.
• Though not always the case, flowing water will flow in the path of least resistance and wind around rocks, hills, & bedrock.

Types & names of the different bodies of water are discussed in one of the following lessons.