I’m in a magazine.
More later.
March 27, 2008
Next time I will:
And the journal itself is up as a set on Flickr: USA 2007 Moleskine.
March 3, 2008
In the grand tradition of not making up my mind until the last possible moment (as usual, some time after take-off) I browsed through travel journals in newsagencies and online trying to determine an optimum combination of categories - should I include expenditure? an itinerary? what about an address book? How much space should be allotted for each day? How did artists organise their travel sketchbooks, if at all? Were journal, diary and sketchbook incompatible?
I settled on the winning combination on the flight over: The debden notebook would retain its usual structure - infodump with index. I put all postcard addresses in there (indexed under “contacts”). Otherwise, it was used for directions, reminders and a futuristic science fiction story involving cryogenic sleep and prosthetic limbs and lawyers on motorcycles and mafia connections and the rule of law (the true hero) and consisting only of the bits in between the action.
The sketchbook was divided into two sections.
Section one was a planner: each page featured four hand-drawn boxes with the date (a sticker), month and day of the week. In these I jotted down a very minimal account of the day, and only missed the last four or so. For a random example, 17 October - Wednesday reads:
Up 9-ish.
Watched part of the Waltons and Little House (guest starring a very young James Cromwell)
Breakfast @ Free Port (”Good food, legal drinks”): cinnamon scrolls.
To North East to wait for Martha to get off work.
Lunch at Bova’s.
Back to Martha’s to drop off a sub for Nick.
Through Eyrie to Presque Isle.
Drove around Presque Isle, monument, lighthouses.
Stopped at visitor centre.
Back to Martha’s for pie. Spoke to C.O. on phone.
Back to farm.
Downloaded photos. Kathy & Mommy organised for me to go to Pittsburgh.
Section two was everything else (I micromanage content, as you can see). The date headers went in as each day came along. I sketched as I could through the day, wrote only a little, and at the end of the day added in any cartoons or drawings (often from photos on my camera or phone) or bits-and-pieces that remained.
I had an idea that if I wanted a list of expenditures I could start from the back, or keep lists of Things to Eat on the index cards in the back pocket, but none of these were necessary.
And the journal itself is up as a set on Flickr: USA 2007 Moleskine.
February 29, 2008
I did not want to repeat the pattern of previous holidays which resulted in collections (envelopes, packages, bags, boxes) of papers, brochures, tickets, advertisements, envelopes, squashed pennies, packaging, cards and labels.
This time, I implemented a policy I referred to as Cut Things Out and Stick Them In.
Every night, before bed, I had to cut up the papers collected through the day, cut them up, stick the relevant sections into my sketchbook-journal and Throw The Rest Away.
There were a few late nights, but it was not generally an onerous task and tiredness could make me brutally selective. As I carted the glue stick with me, dead time in airports (”the planes in America have never been so safe or so late”) and planes and trains or while other people were in bed could be used productively.
My bags were lighter, there were no folders to sort or store when I arrived home, and I don’t regret throwing out anything I did.
Best of all, the journal was always up to date. I could not show photographs to people, but I could show them scraps and sketches, and when I arrived home, the journal was almost complete: pictures drawn, scraps stuck in, observations made at the time. All that remained was to add in the few pieces that had fallen through the cracks and into the back pocket of the sketchbook: a menu, some currency, a greeting card.
Scraps, however, were not the only things that were stuck in. Before I left, I treated myself to one of the unsung treasures of the stationer’s: numbered stickers. I took a package of black-on-white to label the days in the planner at the start of my sketchbook, and white-on-black to label each day as I progressed through the sketchbook. It was unnecessary but fun, with some of the mild excitement of an advent calendar, and knowing that as each day was sketched and written and pasted, I could mark it off and start a new one with a fresh new sticker.
The sketchbook is here: USA 2007 Moleskine.
Other parts:
February 26, 2008
I divided the tools I took into two bags: a large ziplock bag in my checked luggage with scissors, brushes, watercolours and so forth; and a smaller bag in my handbag with markers, prismacolors, unipins and mechanical pencil. The glue stick travelled between this smaller bag and my clear-onboard-toiletries-and-liquids-for-inspection bag according to whether or not we were airborne.
And in the end I used only:
The first two were unexpected. I have almost always drawn in pencil or pen. Markers were still unfamiliar territory, unwieldy and permanent and blending poorly. I disliked coloured pencils - using them, what they could and couldn’t do, what art in coloured pencil looked like.
They were, however, the most travel-friendly: light, portable, not messy, quick to use, bold, handy. Both travel in my handbag still and if I am again travelling light, I might leave behind all the excess security blanket of other media.
The last two were used for cutting things up and sticking things in, of which more anon.
The sketchbook is here: USA 2007 Moleskine.
Part 1 is here: What was lugged.
To come:
February 23, 2008
I knew, when I went to America last October, that I wanted to draw while I was there (I draw every day) and, if possible, to keep a sketch-journal. I’d done this once before, in Melbourne when /Karen/ and I went to Continuum and met Neil Gaiman and Robin Hobb and I had been putting it off doing it again until an occasion justifying the purchase of a Moleskine sketchbook (that first was a present from Deb).
This is what I generally keep in my handbag: Debden notebook (indexed), Moleskine sketchbook, diary, another sketchbook and notebook if I’m in transition, an exercise book if I’m in the middle of a first draft, scratch paper with drawings on the back which I have forgotten to take out and file, a packet of monochrome Pitt markers, a packet of earth tone Pitt markers (new arrival), a pencil box with Prismacolors and a mechanical pencil, a pencil sharpener with shaving catcher. That’s my everyday handbag. If I’m going somewhere art-related after work, I may take another bag with charcoal and pastel pencils, kneadable eraser, water colour pencils, travel watercolours and a larger sketchbook. If I’m going home for the weekend, there will also be at least a document box of paints, paint brush roll, rubber stamp blanks, corner cutter, lino carving tools, stamp pads, dip pen, bottles of ink, more sketchbooks, some pads of paper, watercolour postcards, canvas boards, glue, scissors, fancy paper, scrapbook, ruler, etc.
All this for someone who does most of her drawings in biro on memo pad.
Since I was planning to travel relatively lightly (interesting fact: my total luggage weighed in less than the change in my weight in the last two years) it was impractical to pack on the usual scale.
In the end, I took advantage of large ziplock bags and packed: Unipin pens, Pitt markers, glue stick, scissors, Prismacolour pencils, watercolour pencils, a few inexpensive paintbrushes, numbered stickers, blank labels and index cards and a mechanical pencil.
I agonised over the sketchbook/notebook/diary/travel journal situation until the night before we left, and settled on an A5 moleskine sketchbook for everything related to the trip and my usual debden notebook for everything else (ideas, fiction, notes, transient stuff), with a moleskine cahier for backup (not needed).
Coming Soon:
If you can’t wait to see how it ends, the journal is up as a set on Flickr: USA 2007 Moleskine.
November 20, 2007
We lost ourselves for a while in the Christmas displays at Macy’s - dozens of trees, beautifully dressed - red or white or pink or peacock-coloured. There was even an upside down tree (I think it’s “Christmas at Macy’s 13″ if you link through to my Flickr album).
November 15, 2007
Originally uploaded by tanaudel
I’ve posted some more photos on Flickr, this time from the shores of Lake Erie.
We could see the lake from my aunt’s house and my mother and I went exploring, through vineyards and across the road, down between groves and gardens and guest houses to the lonely shore. It is a shale beach, covered with flat, clinking stones, that ring and shift like coins underfoot. The rocks are carved and sculpted in fluid shapes by the grey waves, and the cliffs are of finely stacked, brittle layers of stone, supporting here and there broken and stranded boat ramps, or rusted ladders that end a metre or more above the stones, or stairs that have fallen away and been replaced with uncertain landings of shale-slabs balanced on pebbles.