Travel sketchbooks

Five reflections and insights.

After rediscovering a love for travel sketchbooks this summer I decided to look back through sketchbooks from holidays and adventures over the past 20 years.

While flipping through my old on location sketchbooks this week, I couldn’t help but think how glad I am I made them. There’s so much in these pages; memories, sketches, places and even moments I’d completely forgotten. Here are five things I’ve learnt from my travel sketchbooks and thoughts for future drawings.

1 - Preparation

Before holidays or travelling I have found that doing a little preparation of both the materials I am using and the surfaces I am working on is incredibly helpful.

Some of my favourite sketchbooks to work in when out and about are mini ones that I’ve made myself, using really simple paper methods, folding them like concertina or zine-style books can be brilliant. They’re light, easy to carry around, and there’s something really satisfying about finishing an entire mini sketchbook on the go. It makes it feel like a little project in itself.

One thing I’ve also found useful is to prep the pages ahead of time. You can give the paper a quick layer of paint to have some background colour and texture or add some collage elements before you leave. That way, you’ve got a bit of structure, but still plenty of room to play with as you travel.

Another great tip is to have an idea of the color palette you want to work with. I like to pack just a few pencils or neo colours that reflect the place I’m visiting. It cuts down on the overwhelm of trying to figure out what to draw, and it helps capture the essence of the location right from the start. Plus, keeping it simple with a few go-to colors helps make the process feel more intuitive when you’re out and about.

2 - Collections

There’s something special about collecting little paper ephemera. Looking back at them always takes me to places I’d completely forgotten about - exhibition tickets, travel passes, or concert stubs. These tiny pieces of paper hold so many stories and funny adventures, each one sparking a specific moment from the trip.

It hit me recently how much that physical collection has changed in the age of digital tickets. It’s not as easy to collect all these little paper mementos these days. The hand written notes are lovely too, I always enjoy that when looking at other artists sketchbooks.

This little ticket tells a story of going to the wrong airport in Spain to catch a plane while travelling Europe as a student. I remember it led to an impromptu 3 days at the most brilliant campsite on a beach and lots of swimming in the sea while waiting for a flight, so no harm was done!

3 - Draw badly

It’s an obvious one but drawing while travelling is all about the experience. Some of the drawings I’ve found in my sketchbooks are ones I thought were awful at the time, I knew I was in beautiful surroundings but it wasn’t being translated onto my paper. When I look at them at home they still capture the experience. I remember vividly going on a school trip when I was 16 to Barcelona and on a warm evening on a little wall we were a row of 15 students sitting trying to capture every detail of Gaudi architecture or as a student frantically scribbling Paris out of a bus window.

4 - A new viewpoint

It occurred to me how important some of these drawing trips have been to the work I have made over the years (even if I didn’t know it at the time). The drawing above is one I made as a teenager on a family holiday to New York, I remember the absolute awe I felt looking at the skyscrapers combined with older architecture, the yellow taxis, the fire escapes and the grid structure of the streets. I remember drawing them all in a really flattened out style and layering everything over each other to get the feel of how big and busy this city felt to me as a girl who lived in a small Scottish village at the time. This is exactly how I still work now in prints and paintings using layered textures and patterns.

5 - Finish at home

Or even start at home if you didn’t get a chance to draw! I’m sure like lots of people I constantly snap photos on my phone of details, colour combinations, labels and signs etc. We recently went to France as a family and I was well aware of how tricky it is to sit and draw with 2 children on the go. I did a few quick sketches out and about and some evening drawings in hotel rooms and campsites to capture the day we had enjoyed. I still have lots of photos to work on in my studio and that’s ok. There is a magic to capturing the surroundings when you are there but I think often it’s ok if you and up with a combination of drawings on location and afterwards.