Top 5 Tips for Creating a Travel Art Journal
Travel is something that’s not only good for my mental health but also beneficial for my art practice. My husband and I have been fortunate enough to travel the world quite extensively, and each trip has expanded my worldview and impacted my art career. In fact, it was while on a trip to Italy that I made the commitment to follow my dream of an art career!
When traveling, a travel art journal can be the place where you keep your art practice alive despite being far from your studio. It’s also the ideal repository for the inspiration you’ll be taking in on your trip! Here are my top 5 tips for creating a travel art journal that will help you capture the magic of your trip without bogging you down:
Keep it Simple
I tend to overpack. You too? When we’re packing for a trip, it’s easy to feel a sense of anxiety about leaving behind our favorite things. It’s hard to create limits for ourselves, such as two pants and a skirt to last a nine-day trip. It’s different from life at home, where we open up our closets and make a selection daily from a large selection.
The same goes for our art supplies. In your studio, you are accustomed to having your pick of all sorts of art supplies. But think about it: many of those supplies are absolutely impractical for travel. When I’m on vacation, I don’t bring acrylic paint and canvases with me—there’s no room for them in the suitcase and I’m rarely in one place long enough to put them to use.
Pick one unlined sketchbook or notebook (the less fancy and precious, the better) to bring with you as well as no more than five drawing implements, such as two black pens, a pencil, a graphite pencil, and a colored crayon. If you simply must use more color, consider a portable watercolor set and a water brush or a set of colored pencils. But don’t overdo it.
2. Have Fun with Your Travel Art Journal
We’ve all seen stunning sketchbook flip-through videos on Instagram. These can make it hard for us to do travel art journals—it sets an unrealistic expectation that they should be share-worthy and gorgeous. The role of your travel art journal is to capture your inner and outer experience. You are looking to benefit from creating the journal as well as reflecting on it after you’re back home. Don’t worry if it ends up looking chaotic and messy! It’s your private playground.
Maybe you’ll choose to intersperse actual journaling about your trip in the journal, among your art. You may choose to sketch some of the sights you see or people you meet—or even the food you eat! Maybe you’ll see a ceramic tile that catches your eye. You’ll take a photo of it, but maybe you’ll draw it as well and develop a deeper relationship with the pattern in that way.
It can be fun to draw your top three memories of the day every day while on your trip. Don’t worry about drawing these things well: it’s more a way to capture the fun memories. For example, if one of the highlights of your day was a scone that knocked your socks off, draw it! These small details are often lost in the overwhelm of a big vacation—yet they are a big part of the pleasure.
Maybe you’ll decide to follow a theme, capturing animals, flowers, or baked goods throughout your trip. It’s all part of capturing the magic!
3. Just Turn the Page
Some of the pages of your travel art journal will be a big mess. You may have a drawing that didn’t come together well, or you may have packed in a lot of doodles and notes but the result is jarring. That’s ok! Just like your trip, there will be ups and downs. You wouldn’t ditch your whole vacation over one bad meal or a boring bus ride, right? The same holds true for your travel art journal: don’t judge it, just live through it. Not every day is epic and fabulous, and neither is every page of your travel art journal. That’s normal.
4. Practice, Practice, Practice
If you’ve fallen in love with something on your trip such as a landscape, an animal, or a type of flower, dive deep into it! This is the perfect opportunity to draw that object again and again and really get to know it. Don’t worry about getting it perfect—you have time for that after you return home. This is the time to study this subject and revel in it as you draw it from various angles.
5. Capture the Essence and the Mood
For me, it’s not important to capture a perfect and realistic sketch. After all, my artwork is all abstract nowadays! But I’ve learned that by aiming to capture the essence of a place or a thing or the mood of a place, I can recreate the experience when I’m back in my studio. It’s not that someone would see one of my gestural marks and say, “Oh, you were in Spain!” Rather, I will recall how this mark came to me as I soaked up the summery experience of Spain. It imbues my art with my own voice and my unique experience as a person in the world. And the same goes for your travel art journal discoveries!
If you’re headed on a trip this summer, bring an art travel journal. It doesn’t matter if your trip is an epic adventure or a trip to the amusement park with your kids. Inspiration is there for you to capture!
Traveling This Summer? Take My Abstract Landscapes Course!
I love to travel, and I find that painting abstract landscapes is the perfect way to forge a deeper connection with places that I love. Let me teach you how to do it!
This series includes 3 video lessons and replays of three live Q&A sessions.
Who is this perfect for?
Those willing to experience a creative journey of visual art
Those who want to learn acrylic abstract painting techniques
Creatives who want to explore what it means to create freely and to gain a better understanding of the elements that make for a more dynamic painting
Artists with basic experience will find this a perfect place to transform their abstract painting practice, while more experienced artists will expand their skills.
Included:
Supply list
Color scheme tips
Tips on creating an eye-appealing horizon line and focal point
Instruction on making preliminary studies on paper before painting on canvas
Daily positive affirmation
Caryl