After many years of making sure my camera was packed for a trip, now I often leave it behind. Places I loved seemed so disappointing when I looked back to remember them. That's when I bought my tiny watercolor box and now sketching is my favorite way to create these artifacts.
I drove east from Wisconsin last month and spent the afternoon by a creek that runs past a little town called Oxford on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It's a scene whose beauty can overwhelm you.
I edited, rearranged, and colored to suit my mood and to show what I felt was important at the time. I like the roughly torn edges of the paper and the documentation inked at the bottom.
They may just be memories put in an accordion book and tied with a ribbon to be discovered another day.
My next adventure is north to the Porcupine Mountain Folk School to teach tapestry landscape with handspun. I might bring my camera, but I know I'll pack my sketchbook.
