Last week I posted my sketches from 2007 one week Paris holiday. This week I am revisiting that holiday in a 2012 Sketchbook Project, with the theme Travelogue. See it HERE

In 2012 I was asked to write a blog post on my travel sketching Travelogue by the amazing Cathy Johnson, who introduced me to watercolour pencil. Today, I am posting this 2012 blog. It is as relevant and meaningful to me now as it was then.

At the end of today’s post I reflect on where I am now in 2025.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Travel sketchbook thoughts : Alissa Duke

Thoughts on creating my Travel Sketchbook

I have had these thoughts going through my head for a while and I wanted to put them in an organised version on paper. The catalyst has been the Sketchbook Project that I am working on this year (more about that later) and wanting to share my learning experience anyone else who is interested.

Looking back, I always enjoyed reading books that were illustrated travel journals and sketchbooks. I enjoyed them for their illustrations as well as reading about other people’s travels. They are always more interesting if they are about a city or country I want to or have visited, especially the United Kingdom ( I am in Australia).

This interest began many years ago with books such as David Gentleman’s Britain (and many others in the series) and Fabrice Moireau sketchbooks, to more recently, Taking a Line for a Walk by Christopher Lambert, An Eye on the Hebrides by Mairi Hedderwick and Lorette E Roberts Singapore. Secrets of the Lion City.  (and many, many more books) . (I am looking forward to Danny Gregory’s upcoming book “An Illustrated Journey”).This is all pre-internet/self publishing era.  But these are usually edited, formatted, composed, cleaned up, lovely small font with commentary, they are quite lengthy and published after the journeyNow I have many online favourites.

I realised that I wanted to create my own sketchbooks in my drawing style when I travel. They would be a narrative, day to day, capturing my travels, whether local, interstate or overseas. As the sketchbooks would be created as I travel, I won’t have the luxury of all of the above editing factors. But I do have the luxury of being able to have an approach in my mind, a concept of how to approach a page composition and what works for me. That is the stage I am at now.

For the past few year’s I have been drawing everyday, in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook, using watercolour pencils and/or ink. I draw at home, on buses, in queues, sitting on stairs, at cafes. So I am comfortable with how and when and where to draw.

I also know how I draw at the moment.  I am at ease drawing objects, food and paper. I am not so good at buildings and vistas. But architecture is an important feature of a city or town and so I want to include it, the trees, roads and sky. I have been considering how it is best for me to capture a scene with these in it. And people – people are the life of the city, so I must include them too.

Sketchbook travel Journals

I currently draw my pre-trip preparation – drawing my packed bag, or things in preparation – my sketch-kit,  passport and currency. I also always draw at the airport, and on the airplane. (a good way to pass the time)  So I am comfortable with the first few pages of my travel sketchbook.

I am entering the 2013 Sketchbook Project and have chosen the theme : Travelogue.Paris 2007.  I am revisiting my 2007 holiday to Paris, as if I was there, drawing as much then as I do now ! My sketchbook is based on my diaries, photographs I took and where I thought I would have drawn at the time, as well as souvenirs I bought. Although this is created in retrospect, all the time I thought how would approach future travel sketchbooks. I still have a few pages to complete, as it is not due to be sent away until January 2013. The journal can be viewed here Travelogue Paris 2007

My Travel Sketchbook :my thoughts

Over the 18 double pages of the Sketchbook Project, I have experimented with composition, lettering and maps. It is different paper and size of my usual sketchbook and I have had to squeeze five days into a limited amount of pages. have come to the following conclusions

•  it will be a combination of on the quick on the spot sketching and more detailed drawings

• leave first page or two of each day blank – at end of day I could draw maps, streets walked that day, rail/metro routes caught.

• draw objects such as tickets, souvenirs, food, headings also at the end of the day in my hotel room. There is time and space to draw. If there is a good view from the room, I can draw it everyday.

• MAPS. If I colour the roads or areas between the road on a map I can match them with other colours I have used on the page, bringing it all together. Below are examples of maps and date experiments

• leave lots of white space – I can always fill it in later if it looks too sparse.

• write commentary about how I feel, think, react to things, smells, places but not too much. I will probably keep a separate diary. I have read a very good book by Dave Fox called “Globejotting : how to write extraordinary travel journals”. I am not a writer, but it had some great hints.

• Re: buildings and vistas
• just try and draw a section
• leave the top, bottom or sides unfinished.- lines drifting off
• only colour some parts
• don’t try and fill the page – only use part of the page
• it is like a little vignette., with a little character and insight, but not too much
• don’t try and get caught up in the detail and try and leave this to a ” close up ” drawing later if I get the chance

Reading over what I have written it seems a little pedantic in places but it has been a very valuable creative experiment.

Of course this is all very well in writing,

My 2025 thoughts on my 2012 thoughts

I haven’t changed many thoughts or my style or my approach. I am amm as passionate about sketching now as I was then. I have run Travel Sketching with Watercolour pencils classes since I moved to Melbourne in 2015. I haven’t done any in a while, but revisiting this has got me thinking about running these again.

• I have become a lot more confident in my ink pen linework. I started using a Lamy Safari Joy ink pen in 2011 and still use one today. The ink flows so smoothly and I love how it feels in my hand.
• I am more confident in drawing building and people. I love to include these in my sketchbooks, as I had planned and hoped.

I have not got my head around:

maps and letter and writing.

I had a six week holiday in England last year and filled four sketchbooks, but did not include any of these. I even took a separate book for writing in, but did not use it. Next visit next year !!!