Travel sketchbook thoughts : Alissa Duke

Thoughts on creating myTravel Sketchbook

I have had these thoughts going through my head for a while and I wanted to put them in an organised version on paper. The catalyst has been the Sketchbook Project that I am working on this year (more about that later) and wanting to share my learning experience anyone else who is interested.

Looking back, I always enjoyed reading books that were illustrated travel journals and sketchbooks. I enjoyed them for their illustrations as well as reading about other people’s travels, They are always more interesting if they are about a city or country I want to or have visited, especially the United Kingdom ( I am in Australia) .

This interest began many years ago with books such as David Gentleman’s Britain (and many others in the series) and Fabrice Moireau sketchbooks, to more recently Taking a Line for a Walk by Christopher Lambert, An Eye on the Hebrides by Mairi Hedderwick and Lorette E Roberts Singapore. Secrets of the Lion City.  (and many many more books) . (I am looking forward to Danny Gregory’s upcoming book “An Illustrated Journey”).This is all pre-internet/self publishing era.  But these are usually edited, formatted, composed, cleaned up, lovely small font with commentary, they are quite lengthy and published after the journeyNow I have many online favourites, .
 
I realised that I wanted to create my own sketchbooks in my drawing style when I travel.. They would be a narrative, day to day, capturing my travels, whether local, interstate or overseas.. As the sketchbooks would be created as I travel, I won’t have the luxury of all of the above editing factors. But I do have the luxury of being able to have an approach in my mind, a concept of how to approach a page composition and what works for me. That is the stage I am at now.

For the past few years I have been drawing everyday in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook, using watercolour pencils and/or ink. I draw at home, on buses, in queues, sitting on stairs, at cafes,. So I am comfortable with how and when where to draw.

I also know how I draw at the moment.  I am at ease drawing objects, food, paper. I am not so good at buildings and vistas. But architecture is an important feature of a city or town and so I want to include it , the trees, roads, sky. I have been considering how it is best for me to capture a scene with these in it. And people – people are the life of the city, so I must include them too.

Sketchbook travel Journals

I currently draw my pre trip preparation – drawing my packed bag, or things in preparation – my sketch-kit,  passport, currency. I also always draw at the airport, and on the airplane.( a good way to pass the time)  So I am comfortable with the first few pages of my travel sketchbook.

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o o   My current creative investigation is into I

I am entering the 2013 Sketchbook Project and have chosen the theme : Travelogue.Paris 2007.  I am revisiting my 2007 holiday to Paris, as if I was there, drawing as much then as I do now ! ..My sketchbook is based on my diaries, photographs I took and where I thought I would have drawn at the time, as well as souvenirs I bought. Although this is created in retrospect, all the time I thought how would approach future travel sketchbooks. I still have a few pages to complete, as it is not due to be sent away until January 2013.

The journal can be viewed here Travelogue Paris 2007

My Travel Sketchbook :my thoughts

Over the 18 double pages of the Sketchbook Project I have experimented with composition, lettering, maps., It is different paper and size of my usual sketchbook and I have had to squeeze five days into a limited amount of pages. have come to the following conclusions

•  it will be a combination of on the quick on the spot sketching and more detailed drawings

• leave first page or two of each day blank – at end of day I could draw maps, streets walked that day, rail/metro routes caught.

• draw objects such as tickets, souvenirs, food, headings also at the end of the day in my hotel room. There is time and space to draw. If there is a good view from the room, I can draw it everyday

• MAPS. If I colour the roads or areas between the road on a map I can match them with other colours I have used on the page, bringing it all together. Below are examples of maps and date experiments

 

 

• leave lots of white space – I can always fill it in later if it looks too sparse.

• write commentary about how I feel, think, react to things, smells, places but not too much. I will probably keep a separate diary. I have read a very good book by Dave Fox called “Globejotting : how to write extraordinary travel journals”. I am not a writer, but it had some great hints.

• Re: buildings and vistas
• just try an draw a section
• leave the top, bottom or sides unfinished.- lines drifting off
• only colour some parts
• don’t try and fill the page - only use part of the page
• it is like a little vignette., with a little character and insight, but not too much
• don’t try and get caught up in the detail and try and leave this to a " close up " drawing later if I get the chance

Reading over what I have written it seems a little pedantic in places but it has been a very valuable creative experiment.

Of course this is all very well in writing,

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mudéjar

Drawing "mudéjar" a Spanish architectonic stlye from the XV Century. More photos here http://www.4ojos.com/blog/?p=8739

You never know what will happen next!

What I love about keeping a regular sketchbook just for yourself is that at times it seems to take you places you never really expect.


After my overseas trip in July I was all inspired and keen to do some different things. I attended the 3rd International Urban Sketchers Symposium in Santo Domingo (always an amazing source of inspiration) and then afterwards spent a week in New York sketching and socializing madly. This single image shows all the sketches I did that week. There is no doubt that I was somewhat out of control with my sketching.


I got home and had the desire to try something different and experiment… so I choose a sketchbook (Canson Universal) which did not have watercolour paper in the hope that this would loosen me up to try new things. The paper turned out better than expected and although the paper buckled, it made a lovely crinkly sound. I also started a 'sketch and walk' in the morning for 30 minutes before work. I walk for 20 minute and then sketch for 10…and find that I get into the office pumping!


And then, one day I thought I would try to use markers (alcholol based markers than graphic designers use/used and I did a workshop at the symposium by Eduardo Bajzek who has been doing amazing things with them)

For a while now, I have thought that markers would be the perfect medium for me to use at work (I am an architect) as they are quick, can be used on bond paper, are dry and scan well. But I just never got the hang of them during office time...so I needed to test them out on the streets for myself.



Well… after one or two days I got hooked and have been using them for the last 5 weeks…even to the point that last week I took my watercolour kit out of my everyday bag (purse) …shock horror- I would never think that would happen!..but I really hadn't touch them in 2 weeks.



I am mainly using Copic markers and they have the really big disadvantage of bleeding through practically every paper…



so I ended up only using every second spread and then use red dots to close the bleed through spread together….which was a nice graphic…though I was going through the sketchbook really fast (here is one weeks sketches)


Trying them out on my signature tea cup sketch… they have limitations with mixing…but so much fun!


And then, on the weekend I was out with Alissa Duke at a very special Chinese tea house and after doing a quick sketch with markers suddenly felt that I just need to record this with my paint… so I did a second sketch. This was a sign to me that the markers are fine for my morning sketch and walk…but deep down watercolour is still the BEST for me!
I am now using a moleskine cahier… but getting ready to go back to a sketchbook with paper that is watercolour friendly!

But who knows where I will end up next …. I like going with the flow in my sketchbooks….

BTW more of my markering here

Lamy Pen hack...more tweaking!

Several people have mentioned that the Lamy pens hurt their hands, as they do mine after a time (what were they THINKING with those sharp edges right where your finger and thumb rest??), so I thought I'd share my solution...

Here's one of the edges that cause a problem...if you could turn the calligraphy nib (this one's a Lamy Joy, their calligraphy pen I like sketching with) that might help, but I couldn't seem to do that. 

So I just took my two-sided nail file and filed that softly rounded...rough side first, then the smoother one.

It looks a little rough here, but I polished it with a rough cloth and it's fine now...AND a lot more comfortable when I'm sketching or writing for a while! (And yes, that IS Pepi fur in the background--he keeps me company!)

This was an easy fix, so I did it to another of my Lamys...before you give up on something that's otherwise satisfactory, see if you can't make it work better for you.

The best of times...

I needed a break the other day...and so we went for a ride in the evening. Joseph seemed to know just what I needed, and we went to the tower overlooking Cooley Lake--or after this summer's drought, Cooley NO Lake. Still the view was wonderful and the evening cool and breezy...

He brought my folding stool and I used a big bulldog clip to hold my pages against the wind...this is as far as I got...

I took a quick shot of the clouds as we were leaving--but I could either get the clouds or the trees, not really both, because of the strange exposure...

I tweaked it a bit when we got home, to show the rain at left and add a few branches...a record of a truly delightful evening.

Pulling it All Together

 

Sometimes I just do a page of bits and pieces...here, a quick sketch of my husband at work, the bamboo poles that hold me little fountain over the fish pond (Joseph bolted it to the pot to keep the raccoons from knocking it off, but those metal bolts just didn't get it.) and finally, at the end of the day, a bright colored mechanized para-glider!  I had to really work fast on that one, and a small set of colored pencils were handy to suggest the beautiful rainbow of colors.

And of course the next day that seemed obvious, to tie everything together--color!  A watercolor border and spatters of the same colors made me smile...

Travel Sketching

badlands, a photo by windwordwriter on Flickr.

I recently hiked and sketched in the Badlands near Dubois, WY. All of the wondrous towers, hoo doos, and sculpted formations were inspiring to capture on paper but far beyond my ability to do so. The vastness of the land, combined with the rich colors, shapes, and textures of sedimentary rock is almost overwhelming on a visual scale, so I eventually settled on a small formation to sketch, where I could sit in the shade of a cottonwood tree, out of the scorching heat of the day. Pen and ink allowed me to get the details of the structure quicker, and then a light watercolor wash implied the many eons of layered rock. The name "Badlands" was originally given to the semiarid area in South Dakota near the Black Hills, and called "les mauvaises terres a traverser" by the French because it was so difficult to cross. The true artists here are wind, rain, and flash floods--the medium is erosion. My sketch in the journal is a meager attempt at capturing its true beauty and mystery, but when I look at it and the entire aroma of the day there comes pouring in.