The Art and Habit of Travel Sketching Lecture

[By Rita Sabler] I am preparing some great travel-sketching tips, inspiration, and tool ideas for my lecture in Manchester. Happy to report that I will be pulling from the experiences from yet one more amazing sketching expedition of 2016. In a few weeks I will be heading to Cuba. These last few months the US government has been gradually easing the restrictions on travel to the forbidden island. I have been extremely curious about the country and can’t wait to draw the Trinidad’s colonial architecture, street musicians of Old Havana, and all of the colorful characters that I would meet there.

As usual, when going on a sketching adventure I am making a new sketchbook. I typically use colorful fabric prints or old maps for my covers and commercial book cloth for the spines. For this book about a very special place I decided to try out new material– leather. A friend of mine is a shoe maker and I am heading to his shop to rummage through a pile of leather scraps that might work.

A new sketchbook is in progress. The signatures are sewn together and ready for the next step

My time-tested DIY sketching gadget is an elastic pen and watercolor holder that fits snugly around my sketchbook and keeps everything organized. It has an added benefit of protecting the pages of my sketchbook by keeping the book tightly shut. The holder is super easy to make out of an extra wide elastic. 

Elastic holder/organizer is easy to make on your own fitting precisely the size of your book and the shape of your tools

I am also taking a make-up artist tool-belt with me. Designed for use by makeup artists is clips around the waist and allows for easy access to your water colors, pens and pencils while your hands are busy holding a sketchbook. It is especially useful for those of us who do a lot of sketching standing up. Not having to hold your pen in your mouth while you are switching between that and your brush frees you up for conversations with the locals.

Makeup artists use this belt for painting faces–I think it makes for a perfect sketcher’s belt

I am only hoping this would not look too much like a dreadful fanny pack when I travel

Happy sketching and see you in Manchester!