Have I mentioned how much I love this book about explorers and exploration? I have? Well, I’ll mention it again.

I love this book about explorers and exploration.

The list of people covered is extensive and the stories are fantastic, but for me it is the way the stories are told that I enjoy so much.

These are just samples from the book, but every page is littered with detail to discover. The book doesn’t just show what something is, it shows how it works and why it exists in the first place. For example, I had no idea what an astrolabe was, and I hadn’t even heard of the Mayan city of Tikal until I looked through this book.

When you understand the “why” of something you move beyond what something looks like and into what something feels like.

Here are a few digital paintings based on images from the book: