I’m fascinated by how different the sketches in this Summer’s Sketchbook are. I’ve always loved that about art – how we each draw with our own “voice.” How boring would it be if we all sketched the world exactly the same?
It has been a summer of discovering new landscapes – the ethereal Shi Shi Beach of Olympic National Park, the desert canyons of Yakima River Valley in central Washington, and now I can add Desolation Wilderness to that list, too.
With my camera stolen, I can’t share photos from my new favorite haunt in Seattle – but what I do have is a sketch from Shi Shi Beach in Olympic National Park, where I spent the weekend camping and falling in love with its misty, tree-lined shores.
She soon leaves us as we sketch the Bay Bridge, but Suzanne’s words remain with me throughout the rest of the day. Whether I’ve been in a place for thirty seconds or thirty years, I never want to stop sketching – and more importantly, stop seeing.
As summer kicks off, I would love to put together a roundup of your sketches and publish them here – not only to celebrate all the travel-inspired art that has taken place, but to inspire even more people to get sketching.
I want to leave you with this thought – that every interest, every childhood pursuit, every old inkling of a dream, can mean something; that the little pieces of our past can always find their place in the puzzle of our present life.
Since I started this blog, I’ve never had an idea of what my niche is. Indeed, the very idea of pigeon-holing myself felt opposed to the way travel has opened up the world to me. But one morning it hit me: Let travel sketching be my niche.