Travel Sketchbook

For travel I have made it a habit to bring with me a small sketchbook, mini colored pencils, and markers and other drawing tools, and when time allows, capture a place or person in its pages. Words find their way in too, when I come across a poem or quotation that speaks to me in the moment.

This year so far has found me traveling more than usual. I take photographs, but my sketchbook is a more personal response to the world. I know the world all the better for the extended, intense looking that is needed to make a sketch.

So here are a selection, in date order of my travels so far in 2017.

A view from my window, Reykjavik, Iceland

Duluth, Minnesota

beach detritus, Spring Lake, NJ

pedestrian bridge, Spring Lake, NJ

In a botanical garden, Sarasota, Florida

sculpture by Juan Munoz, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.

one corner of a fountain enclosure
by the Capital Building, Washington, D.C.

Atlantic City, NJ

Monmouth Beach, NJ

hillside, Lake Tahoe, Nevada

view of Lake Tahoe

sun worshipper, Lake Tahoe

waterfall with snow below, Lake Tahoe

Where to next? Vermont, New Hampshire, Cape Cod are on my calendar - more opportunities to study trees, waves, people and all the other challenging subjects. I can't draw every leaf, the wave will not hold still to be drawn, and each person has their own individual features. I must miniaturize and simplify. The challenges of drawing are many and the sketchbook is a learning tool. The sketches are that, and they are also a souvenir for me of pleasant day beyond my "little world."