It’s that feeling of an approaching trip getting close enough to touch; fierce excitement mixed with —hmm— disbelief perhaps. The line quoted in the headline and subhead is from a quietly powerful little book called The Physics of Imaginary Objects, by Tina May Hall.
I’ve recently taken one of Karen Stamper’s sketchbook classes; this one tailored specifically to preparing and working in travel sketchbooks. I definitely recommend it if sketching scenes and people and other things along your travels interests you. Above and below are photos of portions of the concertina book in which I’ve prepared one side of the pages.
One of her approaches is to not only create a ground or sky, but to add in sort of ghosted silhouettes of some major sites that you know you’ll be in proximity to. his will be my first time going to both Finland and Estonia, so I looked up some major architectural sites, and decided to add the shapes of the Lutheran cathedral in Helsinki, and a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Tallin.
Once I’m in these places, I may decide to add details and flesh out these buildings, or I may allow them to remain as background elements, and draw other things or people right over the top. It’s wide open. (Knowing myself, though, I can imagine I will be interested in adding detail to at least one of them!) The more geometric skylines are in anticipation of going to some of the ‘Wooden Towns’ in Finland, which will have rows of small buildings and houses.
It’s interesting to put this kind of thought into a sketchbook before a trip. I'm a huge fan of researching before trips, but this kind of thinking ahead never occurred to me! It will change and grow and evolve while on the trip— nothing is locked in. I’m really excited to work this way, and to have a book that’s dedicated to drawing.
Before taking the class, I had already done some preparation of a non-concertina sketchbook— of a much more decorative kind. It echoes some of what I did last year to my travel sketchbook— which I found I was much more inclined to add to, having already ‘broken the seal’ so to speak— I was not opening to blank white intimidating pages, but pages that looked fun and inviting. That book will be more of my usual catch-all, for writing, sketches, pasting in things that I find, and adding some little polaroids throughout the trip.
Here’s a quick video to give you a tour through each book:
That’s it from me this week. I hope you enjoyed the sneak peeks of my books, and I look forward to sharing what they will look like after my trip later this summer.
Thanks so much for reading and looking. If you know of anyone who might enjoy this, why not share it with them?
xx Liz
Love the idea. The last time I tried writing about my trip, I bought a waterproof notebook for my cycle touring adventure of France and Catalonia. I ended up writing some bullet points and nothing more. I have not looked in the notebook since then.
But, I have a similar notebook full of doodles/stickers/newspaper clippings which I shared with a friend, and I treasure the shit out of it.
What a great idea! I always have a sketchbook with me when I travel but it's often just the one I'm working on at the time. Never considered getting one with less pages specifically for a trip. And then to prep the pages ahead of time. Love this!! Thanks.