What does your husband do while you are sketching? I would love to do a travel sketchbook but the people I might travel with are not …shall we say interested in sitting and observing…🙄🤷🏼♀️
Hi Carol! My husband is generally happy to do his own thing without me when I want to go sketch. Some options are:
Build in some sketching time to your day--like announce that as part of the day's activities, when you get to the village or the beach or wherever you're going, you'd like to sketch for an hour or thirty minutes or even just 15 minutes, and meet up after that. It might help if the people you travel with know before the trip even happens that you want to take the kind of trip where people are free to go do their own thing now and then.
Sketch at restaurants while you're waiting around for your food or the check. Pick restaurants where you can get a good seat with a view. Or just draw what's on the table!
Do tiny thumbnail sketches really fast, and paint them later. You can even paint them in the car or on the train or anytime you have a spare few minutes. Example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql90NyiJ4wU
Take pictures, and draw/paint from pictures in the morning or evening, when your traveling companions are basically just sitting around in the hotel room, or on the train, etc.
I also think it's nice to involve your traveling companions with your sketchbook. Invite them to write or draw in it! Ask them to make top 5 lists that you'll write in the sketchbook. For instance, you take a tour of a cathedral (and maybe you let them take the tour while you sat outside and sketched it), and afterwards, you sit in a cafe and you ask them the top 5 weirdest things they learned about the cathedral. Top 5 new foods. Top 5 new words in Spanish they learned. Maybe someone can recall that funny thing the bus driver said, and you write that down. Maybe you ask everyone to find something cool you can glue in the book, like a ticket stub or a beer label. It can be a bit of a group project!
It’s the jazz nerd in me. That line is in the verse, and it’s not a standard jazz standard, but the Chet Baker version is sort of the ultimate version and he sings the verse. I will say I imprinted first on the Bjork version, which is worth a listen if you’ve never heard it. 🤓
I love your newsletters, but this one was particularly fun. I laughed out loud at the dolphin/diving mask story. You have sparked my interest in journal drawing/painting/writing.
Also, I loved your recent post about how to travel with art supplies.
Another also, I recently finished your book Girl Waits with Gun - very good read.
This is just what I needed to read on a Sunday morning, Amy. Thanks for a great glimpse into your Tahiti and NZ adventures! So good to follow along! xoxo Debra
PS the artist who died at 41. So profound to end with that. Life is always unexpected and I'm glad to know of her.
What a great sketchbook! Thanks for sharing it, and for sharing the link to Urban Sketchers. That's my goal for this summer: get out and draw what I see. It won't be as exotic as your travels in this sketchbook, but I'll do my best with my very urban landscape! Really inspiring post :D
What does your husband do while you are sketching? I would love to do a travel sketchbook but the people I might travel with are not …shall we say interested in sitting and observing…🙄🤷🏼♀️
Hi Carol! My husband is generally happy to do his own thing without me when I want to go sketch. Some options are:
Build in some sketching time to your day--like announce that as part of the day's activities, when you get to the village or the beach or wherever you're going, you'd like to sketch for an hour or thirty minutes or even just 15 minutes, and meet up after that. It might help if the people you travel with know before the trip even happens that you want to take the kind of trip where people are free to go do their own thing now and then.
Sketch at restaurants while you're waiting around for your food or the check. Pick restaurants where you can get a good seat with a view. Or just draw what's on the table!
Do tiny thumbnail sketches really fast, and paint them later. You can even paint them in the car or on the train or anytime you have a spare few minutes. Example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql90NyiJ4wU
Take pictures, and draw/paint from pictures in the morning or evening, when your traveling companions are basically just sitting around in the hotel room, or on the train, etc.
I also think it's nice to involve your traveling companions with your sketchbook. Invite them to write or draw in it! Ask them to make top 5 lists that you'll write in the sketchbook. For instance, you take a tour of a cathedral (and maybe you let them take the tour while you sat outside and sketched it), and afterwards, you sit in a cafe and you ask them the top 5 weirdest things they learned about the cathedral. Top 5 new foods. Top 5 new words in Spanish they learned. Maybe someone can recall that funny thing the bus driver said, and you write that down. Maybe you ask everyone to find something cool you can glue in the book, like a ticket stub or a beer label. It can be a bit of a group project!
Love your sketch books. Always inspires me.
Tahiti and New Zealand are on my wife and my bucket list
The title of this post made me so happy! I love that song and your trip sounds dreamy.
Ha! Glad you picked up on it! I wasn’t sure if anybody would.
It’s the jazz nerd in me. That line is in the verse, and it’s not a standard jazz standard, but the Chet Baker version is sort of the ultimate version and he sings the verse. I will say I imprinted first on the Bjork version, which is worth a listen if you’ve never heard it. 🤓
And I LOVE the Seek app!
I love your newsletters, but this one was particularly fun. I laughed out loud at the dolphin/diving mask story. You have sparked my interest in journal drawing/painting/writing.
Also, I loved your recent post about how to travel with art supplies.
Another also, I recently finished your book Girl Waits with Gun - very good read.
This is just what I needed to read on a Sunday morning, Amy. Thanks for a great glimpse into your Tahiti and NZ adventures! So good to follow along! xoxo Debra
PS the artist who died at 41. So profound to end with that. Life is always unexpected and I'm glad to know of her.
What a great sketchbook! Thanks for sharing it, and for sharing the link to Urban Sketchers. That's my goal for this summer: get out and draw what I see. It won't be as exotic as your travels in this sketchbook, but I'll do my best with my very urban landscape! Really inspiring post :D