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.
Wow - you're going to the UP! We always meant to go there but didn't. I hope you give us a full report. Love your watercolors. I'd love to do that or sketch when we travel but I'm just not very good.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty excited about seeing the UP myself, I have to see if those UP-ers live up to the myths that have been created around them! As for "I'm just not very good" , hmmmm...I understand statements like that, but you have to leave them by the door when you head out with the pad. Perhaps regional sketches first, not documenting your first trip to London:)) My first attempts long ago were ink drawings with watercolor filling in the shapes when I got home. Just a thought.
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