A picture of a cloud blowing wind?

August 10, 2005 5:12 AM

I'm looking for a cool picture of a cloud blowing wind, like this, except better quality and preferably older looking... like what you might find on an old decorated map. I'm googled out and need your hope!
posted by Ljubljana to Media & Arts (13 answers total)

This won't help you online, but there have been a number of times in the past year where I've looked and looked for something with google images or whatever tool and found nothing- and a five-minute stop at the local library turned up tons of books with rich illustrations and photographs that are simply unavailable online.

I know I've seen a number of books on engraving and cartography that contain that sort of image... if nothing turns up here you might give it a chance.
posted by fake at 5:50 AM on August 10, 2005

What is the correct term for them?
Here be dragons icon/illumination/pictogram/image etc.

Knowing that might help.

Here is a rare map site, FWIW.
posted by asok at 5:50 AM on August 10, 2005

for images like that, i often use dingbat fonts. you could try something like this or this.
posted by geeky at 5:51 AM on August 10, 2005

Here

And check your gmail, too.
posted by essexjan at 5:55 AM on August 10, 2005

Can't view any of the links unfortunately (something wrong with the 'net connection here at work...) but to me it sounds like something that I remember from one of Aesop's fables, in an illustrated children's book. Perhaps if that sounds similar, it will give you another avenue of approach...

The fable was a competition between the sun and the wind to remove a travellers cloak; the wind (pictured as a cloud puffing away) tries to blow the cloak off, but the traveller grips it harder. The sun smiles, and shines harder, and the traveller has to take the cloak off because he's too hot. Moral: Reading children's stories when you're young leaves all sorts of strange information tucked away in your memory...
posted by Chunder at 7:41 AM on August 10, 2005

Try this search.
posted by Necker at 9:17 AM on August 10, 2005

Ooooh... problem solved. Check it!



Now that's quality.
posted by Necker at 9:20 AM on August 10, 2005

maybe this?
posted by juv3nal at 9:47 AM on August 10, 2005

Try Clipart.Com.
posted by ldenneau at 10:42 AM on August 10, 2005

I have heard of such wind heads called a "Zephyr", which is a bastardization, I would imagine, of Zephyrus, the west wind in ancient Greece.

See this page on antique maps for an explanation. You might try looking for images of each of the winds mentioned, including
Boreas (north), Cecias (Kaikias) (north-east), Burus (east), Apeliotes (south-east), Notos (south), Lips (south-west), Zephyrus (west) and Skiron or Corus (north-west).

Check out some of the ancient greek works too, like the Ptolemy Cosmographia (or Geographia), which generated some nice semi-relevant-looking images in my quick Google search.
posted by gemmy at 11:00 AM on August 10, 2005 [1 favorite]

The intro to Miyazaki's "Castle in the Sky" has wood-cut like animations of the a cloud blowing wind. I did a quick Google Images search and didn't spot it, but you might have some luck digging deeper.
posted by slimslowslider at 1:14 PM on August 10, 2005

I was looking for one of these for a while too. I wound up finding one in a font dingbat set that I liked okay but wasn't old map style. I found a few images that have sort of what you need: one, two, three, four
posted by jessamyn at 9:30 PM on August 10, 2005

Response by poster: Many genuine thanks to everyone for the help!
posted by Ljubljana at 3:02 PM on August 11, 2005