sketchbooks
When you draw something or somewhere, you REALLY see it.
Through drawing, you experience a place in a much deeper way’. You take the time to draw a breath, to smell and listen and feel a place, absorb it and then express it on the page.
I've lived overseas for many years and love to travel. Wherever I go, I always carry my sketchbook.
And as Victoria Crowe says so eloquently, my sketchbook is my visual diary to experiment and explore and dream and imagine and it's just for me! Sometimes my drawings lead to larger paintings.
Often, just the experience of making the drawing, soaking up the atmosphere and capturing a memory is enough.
Here is a small selection of my sketchbooks.
Have a wander, and if you click onapictures, you see them with a black background, and it looks nicer.
A wonderful night market in Krakow
Poland
October 2- 12, 2020
The aroma of pierogies and the quest for gravity-assisted adventures brought us to Krakow and the mostly downhill Dunajec Trail...
It was weorth having to quarantine when we returned home. Poland had been a Covid-19 acceptable "travel corridor" with Britain till the day we left!
France and Italy
Starting from the ferry crossing at New Haven, this sketchbook chronicles 2 road trips, one to Italy in 2018, and one to the south of France for a motorcycling adventure.
In late summer, 2018, I ran a week-long residential painting course at Caza Bezzia, a beautiful farm just outside Bardi, close to Parma, (where the ham and cheese come from. We even met the cows!)
After the course, Richard and I drove to Bologna and on to Lucca, one of the most paintable cities in the world!
We journeyed home through Cinque Terre and back through France.
The following year, we drove to Tours and on to the Lot Valley for a week on motorbikes, glorious countryside and charming villages, coming home through Albi and Toulouse. And then a few sketches at home in brighton.
The white cliffs recede as we ferry out of New Haven at the start of our Italian adventure.
The white cliffs recede as we ferry out of New Haven at the start of our Italian adventure.
Morocco
A flying week in the Morocco, starting in Tangiers.
We stayed with a friend of our friend Rachel's and had a bit of an inside invitation the bohemian expat life and cafe society of this wonderful coastal city. Every day around 11 am we'd go to Cafe Tingis, drink coffee with fascinating new friends, and I'd draw.
Later, we took the train to Fez, (which hit a cow en route) and returned via a place I must return, Chefchaouen.
The BLUEST town on earth, bluer than Johdpur!
So inspiring. I'd love to return, stay and PAINT!
Israel, Palestine & Jordan
A great advantage of living in the Kingdom of Bahrain for 8 years was the proximity to other parts of the middle east. I travelled to Israel and Jordan twice, and several times to Oman, Qatar and the Emirates.
Here are a few of my sketches, mainly from Jerusalem, one of my favourite cities in the world, and Bethlehem in the West Bank, and Petra in Jordan.
Aleppo
My friend, the French journalist, Francine Burlet and I travelled to Aleppo in 2010 to work on an article for “Voyage, Voyage” magazine, she to write the text and me to illustrate.
We had a GREAT time! We stayed in chic boutique hotels, ate delicious food, had great conversations with locals and marvelled at the ancient souq and magnificent citadel. The city was in World Cup frenzy and the only tensions were about football, and Brazil vs. South Africa. People were incredibly friendly and open, Christians and Muslims living side by side. My caption to the painting of the citadel was , “great place to sit and have a beer and watch the world go by”.
These sketches were used in the publication.
Within a year the subject matter was irrevocably changed, much of it no longer exists and the people are gone. But where? I want to find a way but I don’t know how to begin to express my sorrow at the tragedy has befallen the wonderful people of Syria.
Click here to read the full article.