elizabethlevett

I love pictures. I love to take pictures. I love to share them. Sometimes, if they’re significant in some way, I have them printed out and then saved in an album or a frame. It’s a way of capturing a moment and holding onto it after it passes. I don’t travel much, so the photos I’ve taken when I have gone somewhere are often treasured. Lately though, I’ve learned a new way — or actually a very old way — of saving significant images.

When I went to France to visit friends, we made a plan to buy sketchbooks just for creating images of our travels together. Since my friends live there, I don’t see them except for Zoom meetings, seeing my French girlfriend was a real privilege and I was eager to spend time each day sitting with her, recalling our adventures, and sketching together. I’m sharing some of the pages in hopes that readers might be inspired to try this for yourself. I found it a wonderful way to slow down each day for a little while and really reflect on things we’d seen and done. It’s also a great opportunity to put devices away, stifle the inner critic, and feel like a kid again — drawing and painting without fear, without worrying about whether the sketches were “good enough.” You can find amazing examples of travel journals by fabulous artists online. Check out Barbara Luel. She offers lots of ideas and tips along with reflections on sketching as a mindfulness practice. (https://barbaraluel.com/) Creating a watercolor record of a trip is popular in Europe. Many suggest that you put away strict constraints around scale, proportion, and perspective. In fact, it’s common to draw an image of some large scene and then place a detail somewhere on the page — out of proportion with the rest. You can also glue in found bits of ephemera and write down whatever comes to mind. In other words, we had a blast and got a chance to bond more deeply than we would have otherwise. Plus, in those hours coming home on the plane, I got to fill in the final pages.

Materials…

1. Your sketchbook. Look for one that fits in your carry-on. If you do want to use watercolor of any kind, find a sketchbook with 300 gsm weight, cold-pressed paper. It’s worth it. When I’ve used less expensive paper, I’ve always ended up frustrated. The Arches travel journal is very reasonable at Blick (buy here). The only issue is that the spiral wire makes it impossible to carry an image across two pages. They do lay flat though.

2. Stuff to draw with. Grab a small pouch and pack a pencil, a couple of fine liners, and some way to add color. I used an H pencil to start with very light sketches and also a #2, plus a good, kneaded eraser. I also brought two Micron fine liners — an 03 and an 005. I only brought one brush, a round #6 which worked well for most things. Next time I might opt for a couple of brush sizes. I took watercolor pencils (here) because I was worried that my watercolor palette would be confiscated. Turns out I didn’t need to worry about that, though the pencils did make things easy on the plane. You just sketch in color as you would with colored pencil and then go over it with a wet brush. You can always get water from a flight attendant. While in France, I was able to share my friend’s paints. Don’t forget to bring a small glue stick and I tend to bring a scrap of old fabric, so I don’t have to suddenly jump up for a napkin.

I hope this inspires more folks to try out this intimate and liberating habit. I learned so much and found that, as significant as a photo might be, there is something even more precious in a sketch you create at the time, revealing layers of the experience. Here are some of my pages…