Of course, your travelling journal is a special kind of art journal so you mainly draw and write in it – but since it is your art journal, you can do whatever you want in it: glue stuff in, cut pieces out, glue over secret thoughts,… And it is fun to include some small little trinkets from your days – especially from your travels because it will be interesting after a few years when the memories of those details will already have faded. What can you include you ask?
Parts of gift wrap on birthday pages (their birthdays are back to back).
What other things to include: – travel tickets: train, boat, ferry tickets – tickets for fun and educational visits: museums, shows, galleries, Ferris wheel rides, fun park, aquapark,… – receipts: from the hotel, bakery, market, ice cream shop or bar (some people really like to compare a price of a ball of ice cream in different places and times – or a bread bun, a cup of coffee, a bottle of beer or glass of wine, whatever floats your boat) – you don’t have to put the whole receipt on – you can just tear a piece off and use it as a collage element – if something special happened there, you can use the opportunity to try to include that: my daughter AND my alpha male have birthdays on our vacation – so I included a piece of gift wrap in those spreads (in the first picture)
A teabag sleeve can be collaged onto a page as a fun colourful addition and a reminder of a favourite tea.
– part of a paper napkin or food wrap: some people prefer only clean things in their journal while others enjoy the stained papers glued onto their pages. All is good – just take into account that if you put grease onto your pages, some media (like watercolours) might not want to stick and grease will also make the paper more translucent – you might want to skip the next page if that happens – a leaf or flower from an interesting plant (the ones that can be pressed, of course, don’t try to squeeze agave leaves in there;) – draw the succulents instead, they are a very forgiving subject;) – a lovely postcard from the stand you walked by – a message with the address or the little piece of paper where someone you’ve met on vacation wrote something for you (it could be just the telephone number of a taxi, whatever) – everything can look cute if it’s displayed nicely – galleries are displaying toilets and bananas stuck to walls… so you’ve got a lot of room there;).
A die-cut mermaid my daughter made for me while we were making DIY postcards (coming to the blog in August:)) especially for this page:).
Sometimes I cram a whole bunch of illustrations into my journal…
This one is a little different to writing because your choices could depend a bit on your skill or how comfortable you feel drawing certain subjects. If you are a beginner you might not want to start with a portrait of your kiddo because you might feel intimidated. But there are many ways to illustrate the same event – and they all represent a special moment and will take you back through memory lane when you’ll look at them for years to come…
I love to use large sketches, especially when there wasn’t that much going on;) or if something was really important to me.
What to sketch: – some simple objects that are easy to draw – a cup, a pencil, a leaf, a stone or a rock… are the things that most people will recognize in every beginner’s sketch. If you are somewhere where there are objects you don’t see at home – or they are very different, sketch them! I sketched the cup in the hospital where my kiddo went for vaccination under control (because he had problems the first time around – everything was ok this time). The cup was very interesting so I sketched it – it might even come to life in a picture book or another painting down the line – you never know…
Mugs, bowls, computers… are pretty geometric and thus pretty easy things to draw…
– food – is relatively simple to draw because it doesn’t need perfect proportions to look representative. We all can recognize a scribble of a rolled-up pancake or a bread bun. It’s easy and we all love food – ok, the vast majority of us;) – if we didn’t our species wouldn’t have survived;). Therefore many travel illustrators focus solely on food – they go places to try new foods and journal and sketch about the experience. And for some, that’s their job! Cool, right?;) But if that’s not your job, you’re much freer and can move along and sketch other stuff, like…
Food – is one of life’s greatest joys:) I always love to sketch it! And it’s not difficult;).
– landscape or urban areas of the place you are visiting; there’s a vast community of urban sketchers that are way more experienced than I am so I will leave this for a future post where I’ll reference them so you can learn from the masters:) But generally, landscapes are pretty forgiving – nobody will know if that tree is wonky or that the rock wasn’t really so close to the shore;)
Landscapes can be quite forgiving (compared to portraits) and you can start with a map kind of illustration – from the bird’s eye view.
– small illustrations of people doing stuff – this can range from strangers’ silhouettes sweeping the street or selling ice cream (you can often get away with stick figures for those) to portraits of your loved ones reading a book. Here you’ll probably want to achieve some likeness but the hair and skin colour can often help a lot even if your features are not perfect. People can be challenging to draw – we are designed to see faces everywhere and to notice when something is off very quickly. But don’t be discouraged – you can start with people from afar – that way it’s not so intimidating as we’re not that good at reading details afar so we’re pretty forgiving with that kind of illustrations, too. And when you feel more comfortable, move closer. Kids will love to see their favourite shirt or dress drawn on them and won’t mind the oddly placed eyes (take a tip from one who’s tried;)…
You can be really figurative and draw in a comic book style if you’re not into the realistic drawing. This style is also much faster which is very nice on holidays;).
minutes read Now that you know what a travel journal is, and what it can look like (although there are as many travel journals as there are artists and much more – because one artist usually doesn’t have just one style and it changes over the years)… here comes the list of ideas: – what to write about in your travel journal (today) – what to sketch (along the spectrum from the easiest to the most difficult variation so you will certainly find something to suit you) – coming up on Tuesday – what other items to include if you feel like it – coming up on Thursday I hope you will like it and get some inspiration or a fun idea to try in your journal:).
Birthday pages: I like to draw and write about special moments and days but even more the funny inside jokes and anecdotes…
What to write about: You can just journal about your day as you normally would – some people prefer to do it chronologically “we woke up in a bed with an interesting design, ate cereals for breakfast, went for a hike to the nearby lake/winery/whatever and to the local museum at night” – whatever you did – even if you were just lying on the beach all day – no shame in that – you’re on vacation!
Chose one or two things that you want to remember (or want to express and just flush out of your system;)) – here I was writing about the nest that swallows made in our “summer home”.
Some like to expose certain moments and elaborate on those: like – “we went to this wonderful beach with turquoise water, rocky shore that some kids were jumping off of. Their mom didn’t want to join. She found shade from the rock that we all envied her. We went snorkelling there and I saw a very strange fish that looked like a snake.”
Find a way to incorporate your writing into your picture where applicable – large surfaces are great to write stories in:)
Others enjoy the free flow of their thoughts – think about James Joice novels or pages from morning journals that Julia Cameron is talking about in her Artist’s way. This can look like anything so I won’t even attempt to write it here – stream-of-consciousness writing can be very cathartic to the author but it can be a real drag for the reader. Since it is rarely fun to read I will spare you;). You are probably not that interested in the fact that this table is way too low for my legs and what noises I hear through the window as I am writing this :D.
I’m not into those methods so instead, I write a title on my page if one is applicable and I usually do this in nice letters (that means decorated or special font – not that they are actually that beautiful – I’m not a calligrapher;)). In the text itself, I just jot down small little anecdotes, silly thoughts, funny conversations and alike. Those are the things that take me and my loved ones back the most. I don’t know what it is – maybe we just love humour or it’s the way our brains work. We all love to joke around so there is no way I wouldn’t have enough material each day. And the silly, totally meaningless remarks are the ones that crack us the most years to come. Like the fact that the die-cutting machine looked to me like a ferry… I told you it was silly;). Don’t judge – we all have our perks;). But the people you took your holidays with and the people whom you’ll show your travel journal to are usually people who like you – and your perks – so don’t worry. They won’t look for the perfect grammar or proportions – they will look for your memories, little details and inside jokes.
There are no rules about what is allowed in travel journals – here I’ve written about the 70th anniversary of our best comic book illustrator’s legendary characters.
Find your perks and just go with the flow. If you don’t know where to start, try all the different methods and you’ll see what you like – some people like to write a lot and just put a tiny illustration in one corner. Others barely use words – maybe just to describe a dish or name the place they went to. Find what speaks to you, what sparks the most memories and what you enjoy doing the most.
Some pages barely need words – the story is best told in pictures…
It probably won’t be the same setup and “word vs. drawing” proportion every day – these things change – one day we feel like drawing another day we feel like writing. Or something happened that can not be drawn easily – or you saw something that can only be captured in a picture. Don’t be too rigid, this is your place to play:). If you hate a spread, you can still glue pages together;).
Other events need a lot of words to describe everything – and I add just an illustration like in a picture book…
I can assure you from experience that the people whom you’ll show this (if you choose to do so) won’t be as hard as your inner critic. At least in real life – I don’t know about online – I haven’t shared it yet – I’ll see your reaction now, hehe :D.
You can put in instructions if you took a tutorial or did a class online – this one is from the slow drawing party me and my daughter attended online.
But generally, we’re our own worst critics – so don’t worry. It doesn’t need to look like a designer made it. It can just be yours – messy and cute in its own way. Memories get preserved in messy sketches,barely readable writing and imperfect grammar just fine, I guarantee ;).
Yesterday I wrote about the travel journal but they say that a picture says 1000 words and since a video is a million pictures, it says even more – so I thought I’d show you my last year’s travel journal flip through to give you an idea of how it can look in the end.
Let’s preserve our memories in a travel journal! It’s easy and will be so very cherished!
I am by no means an expert in this! I just love to do it :). And as you can see, there’s no need to be perfect – in a tiny journal like this and in the travelling circumstances you usually even can’t be! Boats and trains bump, beaches can be windy, things fly around, you sit on the ground… it will be imperfect by design. So just relax – I can assure you from experience that the people you’ll show this to won’t mind the wonky illustrations and misspelt words – they look for your summer memories there – not for grammar;). At least in real life – I’m not sure about online, haven’t published this yet (I’ll see how you’ll react:D) but I think people are generally kinder to us than we are to ourselves – so don’t worry about proportions and perspective – this is to preserve memories and it’s really a cute way and a nice souvenir – everybody in my family loves to flip through those – and as you can see, they are not a work of art;). A list of ideas about what to put in coming on Sunday, so stay tuned!
Travel journal page: sketching on the beach, painting on stones, making postcards…
Have a great summer! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do – I love the heat, the summer weather, the sea, the swimming, elaborate meals and time with kids – so you’ll see a lot of that in my flip-through. I hope you get inspired and scribble something down – or just smile at my takes and take in those special memories of yours and store them in that special part of your brain for the long winter days;).
7 minutes read- grab an ice cream or a cold drink and join me;) Most of us take days off for a vacation in the summer. I understand not everybody is that lucky but luckily, the majority is:). Most of us spend at least part of those days somewhere else – at least here in Europe, that’s almost a mandate. Actually, I don’t know if I know anybody who doesn’t. That doesn’t mean we necessarily travel to exotic places (although some do) but we usually at least move towns for a week or two – as a rule of thumbs souther, closer to the sea or to the mountains with lakes – the Alps in our case;).
This lake is from my bullet journal not my travel journal but it just seemed appropriate – a lake in the Alps where many people spend their holidays…
Our politics, cultural climate and the fact that a suitable body of water is relatively close no matter where you live all contribute, I think. In our little country we even have a law that mandates us to take at least two week-long vacation – isn’t that awesome?:) I am not so familiar with America’s holiday habits (or laws for that matter) but as far as I can tell, you guys travel to see family a lot because you often live miles apart (unlike here, where 30% of people live in the same house with their parents in adulthood and much more when they are young adults! Maybe that’s why they can afford vacation :D.)
Vacations – my favourite time – I don’t care that much if I have to work while I’m here – I am just happy to be here – no need to explain I guess 🙂
I do hope you get to experience a little bit of novelty or just a break from your daily routine – however, you like it – in the mountains, in the forest, wandering the scenes of old towns, laying on wonderful beaches or bungee jumping – whatever you love. When you do, make sure to document it somehow – photos and videos are very practical but sometimes they can take away from the magic of the moment when you grab your phone or camera at that special moment when you’re all in the flow. It can feel like you’ve disturbed something beautiful. Or you simply don’t remember to grab for electronics when you’re enjoying good company doing something you love:) That happens to me a lot! That is why I don’t have that many pictures of the things we enjoy the most.
We spend our summers on the little island with very expensive food (and limited selection) – so we drag it along… This is not a comic exaggeration – this is exactly how my alpha man came from the boat… So I drew him all loaded in my travel journal later that day – because in the moment he came, I definitely wanted to help him, not take a picture of him;).
Luckily, there’s a workaround – like you are probably already used to here: there is always a but – but there is always a solution as well;). You don’t have to touch your electronic devices to preserve your memories and record your days. Let me introduce you to the almighty travel journal. That is a sketchbook or an art journal (usually small, for practical reasons) where you draw and write about your travels and holidays. Pretty cool, right?
A page from my last year’s travel journal about a little trip (by foot) we take every year on this little island – at that time with our guests – one of them is an ornithologist (can you guess which one he is in the picture? :D)
Unlike photos that have to be taken in real-time, an art journal page can emerge later that day or even after the vacation if your memories are fresh enough. Reference photos sometimes help – if you took any;). Some of us are not so sure about the construction of ferries, lighthouses etc… 😉 But to tell you the truth, I almost never take them – that’s why I prefer to draw when everything is still fresh or as I go when I can look at some things in real life. But if you want realism, references are your friends, it’s easier to draw from a photo. On the rare occasion, I did so, it shows that the proportions are more accurate – but I’m not sure those are my favourite sketches, though. The less perfect are usually livelier and more meaningful – because when you think about what you will draw down then you really think about your day and extract the most meaningful event. And that’s one of the reasons that travel journals preserve memories better than photos – they filter out the unnecessary clutter and focus on the important details – those that were meaningful to you.
You don’t have to finish the whole page in one sitting – sketch once, then add ink when you get another 10 minutes and colour when you get to it.
I realize it can be a bit hard to find time to do the whole page at once – so I tend to sketch a few key moments, scribble down a word or two that I don’t want to forget and do the inking, writing and colouring another time if needed. You don’t have to do it all at once! Yes, it can happen that you never get to finish them or that they will wait for a long time for their chance to shine – I still have some pages in my last year’s journal that need to be coloured and many in this year’s that lack inking, text and colour! That’s ok! I am not Picasso (and I’m sure he had some unfinished stuff, too;). I do this to record our memories, not to sell. I don’t need to finish everything. Even the bare sketches envoke memories in me (they wouldn’t in others – I sketch very loosely, nobody knows what I’ve scribbled;). But some pages will get finished and it’s worth it for those;).
Here’s a simple idea about what to sketch: food ate, what you did, who you talked to… More on that to come;)
If challenges motivate you, you can join world watercolour month or just give yourself the challenge to finish a page every day, every other day, every week,… But what to draw and write about? I’ll show you a flip-through of my last year’s travel journal tomorrow and give you a list of ideas on Sunday not to make this post too long, I’m wordy enough as it is;)
Last week we’ve packed our art bag for vacation and now it’s time to use it! What are the benefits and caveats of creating at the seaside? Well, we usually don’t have the whole art room with us at the seaside. We are very limited in our supplies – but we’ve taken care of that when we packed. Now let’s try to get the best out of the supplies we took with us!
Painting at the beach… Just drop your little art bag into the big beach bag and you’re all set! *Don’t copy my Quasimodo-hunched pose, though 😀
If you’ve packed a small little art journal and a set of fine liners and watercolours, you’re pretty much set and can follow along exactly with the steps I took in my travelling journal but even if you have different supplies you can still do this – you will just modify the colouring with your chosen materials and use different writing tool. So you can do this with a pencil or ballpoint pen and a small set of coloured pencils as well.
A pencil and a couple of fine liners and you can journal about all your holiday days in your art journal.
If you didn’t pack a travelling journal you will have to find other surfaces to make art on. But that can always be done! Even if you have nothing you might find a chipped-off leaf of a succulent and draw with it on stones. Get creative;). I’ll show you a few ideas as we go along our summer so stay tuned;).
Mandalas on stones… There’s a post coming up soon about that – but first more about travel journaling.
So how can you make art at the seaside? – you can fill your travelling journal every single day of your vacation if you want to remember everything or just chose some most memorable experiences and sketch those – you can paint your own postcards like I did with this happy cocktail – blank watercolour postcards are sold at art and craft stores
Paint some postcards – friends will be thrilled to get a hand-painted card from you!
– or you can make your postcards from scratch (but more on that later) – you can paint mandalas on stones (I’ll show you how soon;) – my girls LOOOOVE this one! They are easiest done in acrylics but you really need only very little of them and you can use gouache or even coloured pencils to draw on stones – you can draw with leaves or coloured stones on the ground – you can make seashell necklaces – you can make fairy houses from pebbles and pine cones (use pine cone scales for the roof – it looks great!) – you can build sand castles, of course – a classic;)
Travel journal for the day – simple illustrations with some text about the day is all it takes.
You can invite your kids or friends to join you;) It makes great summer memories no matter the quality of the outcome!
July is world watercolour month – a month of painting with watercolours, my favourite medium of all! Why do I love them so much?
Watercolours are very portable and thus perfect for travel journaling (more about that to come;)
– they are extremely versatile – you can use them with so many techniques, so many styles, so many subject matters, they really are appropriate for everything – from children’s books to nudes, detailed realistic pet and people portraits to loose flowers, landscapes to urban sketching and everything in between… – they are also incredibly portable – they are small and a few carefully chosen colours (as little as 3 or 6) can get you a wide variety of shades and you can combine 6 primary colours (3 warm and 3 cold varieties of primary colours) to create the whole rainbow, literary every colour there is! Add a water brush and a rag and you’re good to go! – since you don’t need many colours and they are small, they are pretty inexpensive to get into – you can get a basic set for as cheap as 10$ in the USA (of course, in the EU, everything is more expensive – but still – 15-20€ will guarantee you a good student basic set that you can take everywhere and not worry too much about;).
Watercolours are very suitable for magical beings and can create incredible atmospheres!
Is this the real thing or another “month of…” that someone just thought about? No, it’s actually official now, check it out if you don’t believe me;). But who invented world watercolour month? Charlie O’Shields, the creator of Doodlewash®, founded World Watercolor Month in 2016.Â
Simple loose-style flowers are very easy to paint and are so very relaxing!
Rules? There hardly are any – anybody can join, wherever, whenever, however – just use watercolours (aquarelle) and paint something – ideally every day in July or as often as time permits. Nowadays I’ve seen it extend to any water-soluble medium so you can also use gouache, watercolour pencils, inktense pans, pencils or blocks, or even water-soluble crayons. As far as I know Charlie, he wouldn’t mind, he’s all about inspiring creativity in young and old alike!
Quick nature studies in a more realistic style – very fast as the subject is usually moving 😉
So grab a brush and enjoy the most beautiful month of them all! It’s summer, it’s warm, it’s usually spent (at least partly at the seaside), there’s no school, no exams (ok, at the end of the month, at least;),… and it’s the world’s watercolour month! What could be better?
And lastly, watercolours can be used in bullet journals – even on thin paper – with some consideration;)
What is an art journal and what is a sketchbook? Are they the same? And what is a junk journal? What about sketch journal? Travel journal? Visual journal? Sketch diary? It can be somewhat confusing at times to see the examples and flip throughs of all these as they can look similar – what’s the difference – and does it matter in the end?
I love the sticker on post’s mailbox saying: “More love letters, please!”
To be honest, I don’t think it matters how you call the thing you make art in – as long as you use it:). But if someone is interested (as I was), here is what I’ve found on the subject i.e. my interpretation of what I’ve read/watched:
Travel to our magical island…
BOTH, art journal and sketchbook are little books filled with art. They can be bough (usually sold as sketchbooks) or hand made from blank papers or from trash paper (that one is called junk journal and is usually not used for sketching as the background is often busy so we need to cover it up somehow). It can be even made from flyers (and I’ll teach you that in the future:). They can both be small or large – although art journals are usually bigger. There are some differences, however – let’s look at those now:
Sewing a dress for my girl and referendum for waters combined…
ART JOURNAL is more of a loose term and it’s more focused on self expression and more often used by crafter’s community so drawing skills are not at the forefront of creating an art journal page. In majority of cases there are different media used so it usually looks more like finished mixed media pieces – single or double page. It often includes stamping and stencilling. The usual technique is to layer the background first with some colour, pattern, stencils, stamps, etc… and than bring in a focal point (a painted subject, collaged image or stamped, coloured and cut-out image or even sticker glued on). Then some techniques are used to tie the background and foreground together – like treatment of the edges, adding ground for the object to stand on, shading, more stencilling, splattering etc… Colour is usually a very important element and pattern or texture is more often included than not. Often a quote (stamped or written) is added and art journals don’t shy from use of stickers, shiny paint, glitter etc… It feels like a playful approach and since many times other people’s art is used in form of stamps and stickers… it can feel less intimidating to produce something nice. Julie Blazer and Kerry have some amazing resources and you can find a ton of good videos on YouTube: Vicky, Dylan, Susanne, Dina, Lindsey and many more…
A day at the seaside – holidays… very relaxed, very cute… everything I love about life:)
Sometimes more writing is included and when it focuses on your day, thoughts and emotions, it is often called a visual journal, a visual diary or a sketch journal. I love this kind of art journal/sketchbook since there is something special about recording your moments in a visual way – we remember them better and they get a different feel. My examples on this page are all in this range.
Preparing for the holidays…
SKETCHBOOK on the other hand is more for exploring ideas and honing skills – not so much the finished pieces of art. It is the term used by art students and artists and it’s a bit more geared towards developing skills (you can find gesture drawings and studies of one part of the body there, it’s full of studies, there can be many drawings on one page and the background is not always finished). Line is very important but colour is optional. Many times people have different sketchbook they all use at once and keep one for each subject matter: one for gesture drawings, one for birds, one for face studies, etc… Sketchbooks are also used for roughing out ideas – so media used are usually more sparse – often just pencil and/or ink, many times coloured with colour pencils or watercolour (that method is especially popular with urban sketchersand in travel journals because watercolours and fine liners are very small and light to carry around).
My favourite teacup and editing software:) And lunch, cookies, sports… a normal day…
TRAVEL JOURNAL is a sketchbook with art, inspired by your travels as the name suggests. It is not always done on location, however. Many artists just sketch while traveling and then they complete the pages in the hotel or even at home. It is most often done in ink (fine liners) and watercolour although that is purely for practical reasons and it can be done in any medium you like (Ian Fennelly uses markers and watercolour combined with amazing results and Following the rabbit hole has some amazing videos on the topic).
Drive to the seaside and sketching at the beach (yes, I love ice-cream)…
I’d like to finish with the line from Kerry Woodhouse: “You can call it an art journal, or a sketchbook or a visual diary. Heck, you can call it Gertrude. It really doesn’t matter. Just make sure you take it out and make some marks in it. Often.”
Very Arty Fairy 