EmoriaCustom art prints and star maps
Maps · Collection 01

Sedona poster, drawn from the real map

34.8697°N / 111.7610°W · United States

On this sheet the red rocks are the paper itself. Wherever nothing is drawn, no street, no green, the bare rock stands; the town is what fits in between, along a creek and two roads.

You choose the framing, the palette and the words of the caption. The work is drawn from real data, then printed to order in the workshop closest to you.

Compose my Sedona poster
What the map shows

A creek lined with green, and a town in the gaps of the rock

Oak Creek comes down from the top right corner as a thin line of water inside a band of green, and the highway follows it closely, down to the junction where the town’s two main roads meet. Just above that junction, around the engraved point, a small knot of short streets marks Uptown. From the junction one road leaves to the west, through the long, looser grid of West Sedona; the other turns south and runs to the bottom of the sheet, past neighbourhoods of looping streets. In the lower left, a long pale shape with one straight edge, ringed with green, sits apart from everything else: the top of a mesa, and the airport on it.

Read on

Everything else is drawn in two ways only. Green, where the canyons and slopes are wooded, in long trails across the sheet; and blank paper, crossed only by the fine blue lines of small streams, where the bare rock stands. The buttes and cliffs around the town have no relief and no colour of their own on this map: they are the white between the greens. The creek itself is a thread, never a mass, and the two small roundabouts at the junction show only when you come closer.

Compose your own

What suits Sedona

The palette

This is a rare sheet where green does more than water: the creek is only a thread, but the wooded canyons draw the whole landscape around the town. Choose a green with enough depth to carry those long trails, and keep the background close to the paper, because the blank between them is where the rock is; give that blank a strong colour and it will read as something else. Water needs an ink strong enough for a thin line. The streets are few and scattered: a mid-tone line keeps each pocket readable, with the darkest ink kept for the two highways.

The framing

Portrait, a little south-west of the engraved point, which sits in Uptown: the creek and the highway from the top right corner, the junction, West Sedona to the left, the road south to the bottom edge and the mesa with its runway in the lower left. The canyon of Oak Creek continues beyond the top right corner, and the red rock country beyond every edge. Pull back and more canyons enter, but Uptown shrinks to a few lines; come closer and its short streets sharpen, at the cost of the mesa.

The caption

The title, one line under it, the coordinates. On a sheet where the rock is left as blank paper, the caption can name the one you looked at every morning.

The sheet
Subject
Sedona, United States
Palette
Low tide
Map style
Clean and Detailed
Layout
Frame
Typeface
Handwritten
Framing
Zoom 12.6
Fade at the edges
0%
Format
Portrait
The palette of this poster

Low tide

Sixteen inks, in the configurator’s order. It is not in the catalogue, but you will find it in the palette library, filed under its material.

  • Background
  • Water
  • Greenery
  • Built-up areas
  • Roads
  • Buildings
  • Text
  • Motorways
  • Main roads
  • Secondary roads
  • Minor roads
  • Streets
  • Service roads
  • Paths
  • Railways
  • Borders
Compose with this paletteStart from it to make your own

Opens the colour workshop with these 16 inks in place: change one, keep the rest.

It will wait in your account, ready for any piece.

What the drawing tells

Three dates that explain the town

1938The last link up the canyon

In 1930 the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads began an extensive upgrading of the Oak Creek Highway between Sedona and Flagstaff, in several sections. The final link was a bridge over Wilson Canyon, a mile and a half north-east of the town: work on its foundations began on 24 March 1938 and the steel arch was completed on 31 October. On the map the bridge is simply part of the road, the heavy line that follows the creek up to the top right corner.

1956A runway on a mesa

In 1956 the 230 acres on top of the mesa west of Uptown were deeded to Yavapai County for a public airport. A first runway of 3,700 feet was paved, and in 1968 it was extended to its present length of 5,130 feet. The mesa has no relief on this map, but its top shows all the same: the long pale shape in the lower left, ringed with green, with one straight edge that follows the runway.

1988Pockets that became one city

Sedona did not incorporate as a city until 1988. The city brings together pockets of streets that the map still shows apart: Uptown by the creek, West Sedona along the highway to the west, an area once known as Grasshopper Flats, and the neighbourhoods along the road south, with wooded canyons and bare rock between them.

Before ordering

The four questions people ask

Can I choose any place, any date?

Yes. The search covers the whole world, from a capital to a hamlet. For the Sky collection, any date works, past or future: the sky is calculated.

What sizes do you offer?

From 21 × 29.7 cm to 84.1 × 118.9 cm, that is A4 to A0, portrait or landscape depending on the material. Every size is shown with its price in the editor.

What materials do you offer?

Four, from the barest to the most dressed.

  • Matte fine art paperA 200 gsm art paper with a deep matte finish: the bare print, to frame as you please.
  • Wooden hangersThe print suspended between two wooden hangers, ready to hang, in the spirit of studio posters.
  • The classic frameThe print mounted under acrylic glass in a slim frame, assembled by hand, delivered ready to hang.
  • Framed canvasThe piece printed on canvas, stretched over a wooden stretcher bar and set in a frame: a gallery presence.
How long does it take?

Making depends on the edition: 1 to 3 working days for Fine Art paper and wooden hangers, 3 days for the poster and the mounted frame, 3 to 5 days for the framed canvas. Transit depends on the country:

Delivered toIn transitIn total
European Union5 to 7 working days6 to 12 working days
United Kingdom2 to 3 working days3 to 8 working days
United States4 to 6 working days5 to 11 working days
CanadaNational deliveryGiven at dispatch
AustraliaNational deliveryGiven at dispatch

These are standard delivery times and remain indicative. For a set date, order two to three weeks ahead.

Digital editions are available immediately: the file of your piece can be downloaded from your account as soon as you order, and an email lets you know the moment it is ready.

All the questions

Your Sedona

You probably left the car where one of these roads gives out, and walked on into the white. Find that spot on the sheet: the blank beside it is the rock you remember.

Compose my Sedona poster