Victoria’s Internet-famous GPS artist on his inspiration and technique
Victoria’s Internet-famous GPS artist on his inspiration, technique and that 14-hour mermaid
LLots of people cycle and lots of people doodle, but Stephen Lund is one of a handful in the world that pulls off both at the same time. Lund, a 50-year-old marketing consultant who has gained international recognition for his doodles, has turned his hometown of Victoria into a massive canvas, and his bike and a GPS tracker into his pen.
On where the doodle idea came from
It came from a little red line on a map. I bought a GPS device in 2014 to track my rides. When I first saw them on the map, I started seeing shapes and wondered, “Why isn’t anyone drawing with this?”
On how he plans the drawings
In the best case, it’s the map that provides the inspiration, but I use two techniques. One is to find routes that allow me to complete the entire picture uninterrupted. That feels a lot more creative to me than the other technique, which I call “connecting the dots.” I discovered by accident that if I pause my GPS at point A and restart it at point B, those lines will be connected with a straight line.
On making mapping mistakes
I don’t do it as much now because I know the obstacles pretty well. When I was creating a witch doodle, it looked like one road connected to the other, but there was a big wall of bedrock, and I was in cycling cleats and the rock was wet. I thought “Well, I can climb it, or just go a block down and skirt about it.”
On how long it takes to create a doodle
They average about 70 kilometres of riding, or about four hours on the bike. I made a mermaid that took 14 hours. It was an ordeal. But she turned out in the end, and people are really quite taken by her.
On being called an artist
I work with graphic designers all the time and have a pretty good visual design sense, but this is my first foray into the visual arts. But in terms of the broader notion of creativity, I find that even though words are my domain, this really recharges me. I feel totally reenergized after planning a route or going out and riding one. I don’t know if that’s a matter of working a different part of my right brain, but it’s been really good for me.