Documenting Your Travels
The Blues, Greens, and Oranges above Lake Maggiore in Italy
Keeping a dedicated travel journal or travel sketchbook can be a great way to document your travel experiences, especially if you have many of them. If you don’t travel often, I recommend bringing two regular sketchbooks with you - a tiny one you can fit in any bag or purse, and a small one for more intentional drawing and writing.
ART WALKS
I’ve been hosting Art Walks at our local botanical gardens and riverfront for about 6 months now, and it’s such a lovely way to get into the habit not just of sketching but of observing and noticing! When you see a flower or some foliage that catches your eye, what is it about that particular plant that draws you in? Is it color, shape, pattern, texture? Sitting down to sketch something or write about it doesn’t necessarily mean creating a realistic visual representation or description - it’s about capturing the essence of something, the feeling you experience when you are noticing it. This is my biggest recommendation for travel documentation - do not think just about what you’ve seen and done, think about how a place feels. What about your travels would you want to capture and bring home with you? This will tell you a lot about what a place means to you, and will inform your creative practice in unexpected ways.
When I was recently in Italy, I sat down to sketch on what I called an Art Walk, Travel Edition. It gave me the loose freedom to capture what I was experiencing without having to create something for anyone else’s visual consumption. This exercise was so pleasant (I mean, the view and the breeze on the water were incredible), but it also brought to the forefront as I was choosing colors that the whole scene before me featured my three favorite colors: blue, orange, and green. In fact, seeing these colors and seeing them together was a big takeaway of the easy feelings I experienced by the hilly lakeside.
WHEN YOU’RE ON THE MOVE
When you are traveling, you don’t always have the ability to sit down and draw or write when something strikes you. Or you may have time to make a quick sketch, but not enough to fully get to know the details you’d like to capture. In this instance, it’s OK to take a reference photo and come back to it later to document what it is that stopped you. It is important to still ask yourself why you paused. Taking a short moment to properly identify your interest and frame your reference photo will go a long way toward reducing the dreaded, “What was I looking at here?” moment when you go back through photos later.
Numbered Doors: A Sneak Peek of What’s To Come From Me This Travel Month
I wasn’t always a fan of reference photos. But then I didn’t ACTUALLY go back and draw or write about what I saw. Photos were almost an excuse to NOT spend the time looking closely at something, so I make sure to take fewer photos, and take ones that count. Take ones that I intend to reference, and let my senses enjoy the rest in the moment. When reading about Dutch Still Lives, I learned that most of the Dutch Masters used reference images, because the flowers they wanted to place together compositionally were not always in bloom at the same time. So now I give myself some grace in these instances, and remind myself, “If it’s good enough for the Dutch Masters, it’s good enough for me” … and you.
MY FAVORITES FOR TRAVEL
I like to pack a few small options when I travel. I pack my Mini Sketchbook, which fits just about anywhere. The pages are thinner so this works best for pencil, ink, colored pencil, crayon, and pastels, though I enjoy using it for watercolor as well. It requires a bit of patience, though I find that since this book has an elastic strap to hold it together, it doesn’t wrinkle too badly with the added moisture. I also pack a 4”x6” watercolor paper book. I like ones that are tape bound, as they are easy to separate without damaging the pages if you’d like to frame one, yet they all stay together nicely in the book. I’ll use this for slightly larger sketches, if I’m committing to watercolor, or (in the case of the middle photograph) I want to pre-load some colors for use with water. The spiral book is great for writing, for when I want to use the backs of the pages, and if I want to be able to lay the book totally flat. I can always find room for these three little books in my luggage, and I can choose which one I’d like to carry with me on any given day/excursion.
TOP TOOL
My absolute favorite for sketching anywhere is my travel watercolor set. It fits anywhere, is easy to clean, and gives me (almost) every color I need! You can choose from different palette colors - I obviously needed the one with the most vivid blues.
Do you have a favorite way of documenting your travels? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
My Travel Watercolor Palette (I use Palette #01)
