Travels with a sketchbook - Resources for Artists

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Like looking at travel sketchbooks or want to know how to make one?

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Learn how to sketch on your travels 

tips and techniques about how to sketch people, interiors and landscapes and suggested toolkits if you want to travel with a sketchbook

These are the sites where you can find out how I sketch on my travels - from the kit I take with me to how I tackle sketching in different situations around the world.
MAKING A MARK How to Sketch - advice and information by Katherine Tyrrell
Learn how to sketch. Information and advice about how to draw a sketch of people, interiors and landscapes.
Tips, techniques and toolkits for travels with a sketchbook by pencil artist Katherine Tyrrell
MAKING A MARK How to Sketch - Sketching Plein Air / Travels with a Sketchbook
Learn how to sketch - Sketching Plein Air and Travels with a Sketchbook - tips and techniques

Advice about how to sketch 

A collection of links to blog posts and guides (as free to download pdf files) which provide advice, information, tips and techniques about how to sketch on your travels with a sketchbook
MAKING A MARK A Making A Mark Guide - Plein Air: 10 tips for working in light and shade
Ideas for artists about how to with the impact of heat, light and shade when working plein air
MAKING A MARK A Making A Mark Guide: Sketching Plein Air with Coloured Pencils
Sketching Plein Air with Coloured Pencils - a Making A Mark guide by Katherine Tyrrell

It covers: how to get used to a place; how to use your camera selectively and for reference purposes; my version of a thumbnail sketch; how to consider and select colours; developing a sketch plein air and finishing it at home.
MAKING A MARK A Making A Mark Class - Sketching for Real
Do you want to learn how to sketch? Sketching For Real is an online class for people who want to learn on how to sketch. This site provides an introduction and three assignments

* Introduction (why do the class; what is a sketch; why sketch; outline of the assignments)
* Assignment 1: So you want to learn how to sketch.............
* Assignment 2: Sketching the Familiar - from life and outside
* Assignment 3: Getting out of Your Comfort Zone - Sketching in Public
Making a Mark: 10 Tips for How to Sketch People
Drawing and sketching people is an invaluable way of developing a wide range of artistic skills. I've been drawing people for very many years - family, friends, people in cafes and restaurants, life class models - and other artists. This post provides 10 tips on how to sketch people - or at least my understanding of how I sketch people.
Travels with a Sketchbook in.......: 10 "Dos and Don'ts" for how to draw people while eating
I've drawn in cafes and restaurants all over the world - in the UK, Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. Lots of people tell me they'd never ever be able to do this. What follows are my dos and don'ts for being able to sketch people and interiors while eating - without it causing a problem for you.
Dordogne Painting Days: 'Wet' Sketching in Pen & Ink using washes - includes advice about materials & techniques
Dordogne Painting Dayspaintings & drawings from the south west of france
lundi 3 mars 2008
'Wet' Sketching in Pen & Ink using washes - includes advice about materials & techniques
American Artist: Letters on Landscape Painting
American Artist August 2008 'Letters on Landscape Painting'
Asher B. Durand's "Letters on Landscape Painting" from the mid-1800 publication The Crayon are today considered an invaluable source of information for landscape painters, offering advice that is as evergreen as it is enlightening. Here American Artist presents an excerpt of a letter from 1855, in which Durand advises artists to spend considerable time studying and drawing from nature before painting it.

BOOKS: How to keep a sketchbook 

books on Amazon

Everyday Matters

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The Sketchbook Kit: An Artist's Guide to Techniques, Materials, and Projects

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Create Your Own Artists Journal

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Watercolor Journeys: Create Your Own Travel Sketchbook

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How to Keep a Sketchbook Journal

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Travels with a Sketchbook......in the UK 

Katherine Tyrrell's sketches from places around the UK

These links all relate to summary blog posts on Katherine Tyrrell's sketchbook blog "Travels with a Sketchbook in......"

You can also see her sketches in the "Travels with a Sketchbook Gallery on her website
Travels with a sketchbook in London: a summary
Sketches from my journeys around London - in central London, to galleries and museums, along the River Thames from the Pool of London to Greenwich and visits to West London and Kew Gardens.
Travels with a sketchbook - in the South of England
Sketchbook blog posts about places in southern England -
Berkshire & Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Gloucestershire, Kent, Surrey

These include sketches which are drawn in pencil or pen and ink and then completed using coloured pencils.
Travels with a sketchbook.....in the north of England
Sketches from trips to Cheshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Yorkshire
Interior landscapes with food - a Sketchbook
Lots of my sketches on my travels end up being done in restaurants, cafes and tea rooms. One day I may do a book.........

In the meantime, this summary post lists all the sketches by title, with their locations. I've organised it geographically in case anybody else fancies having a go at sketching the same view.

Sketchbooks - in the UK 

If you've got a good sketchbook site recording sketches in the UK leave a comment below and let me know what's it's url is.
Vivien Blackburn Cornwall Sketchbooks
Sketches of Harlyn Bay/Trevose Head on the wild, rocky north coast of Cornwall and the south of Cornwall - a much gentler coast with drowned valleys creating complex tidal creeks overhung by woods.
One mile from home
On Tuesday, May 01, 2007 Julie Oakley recorded the last entry in her year long challenge to "Walk a minimum of one mile from home. Record where you've been with a drawing, sculpture, photo or painting and then walk back". The the challenge is now over but the sketches and drawings remain in the archives of this blog which won the "Get off your blogging bottom and sketch" award in 2006.
Shirley sketches London
Shirley made several trips to to see her daughter and family in London in 2006/7. She recorded all her trips out with beautifully simple watercolour sketches - including trips to see exhibitions with me.
Roland Lee - Great Britain Sketchbook
Pencil drawings completed on location in England, Ireland, and Scotland

BOOKS: The City Sketchbooks 

Published sketchbooks on Amazon

These sketches while they may have been done 'on the spot' are essentially commissioned drawings rather than records of a journey

London Sketchbook: A City Observed

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Paris Sketchbook

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New York Sketchbook

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Venice Sketchbook (Sketchbook Series)

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Singapore Sketchbook:The Resto

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Gardens of Paris Sketchbook

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Loire Valley Sketchbook

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Oxford Sketchbook (Sketchbooks S.)

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Amsterdam Sketchbook

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Bali sketchbook: watercolours

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Urban Sketchers - the blog and the Flickr group 

Urban Sketchers is a community of artists around the world who draw the people and places of the cities where they live and travel to.

There are two sites
- Urban Sketchers - the blog
- Urban Sketchers on Flickr - Group

All the people who are members of the Urban Sketchers Blog (which includes me) are people whose blogs are mostly dedicated to drawing on location - they travel around different towns and cities all over the world - with their sketchbook!

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Travels with a Sketchbook in...... (recent posts) 

When I travel, I sketch. When I sketch on my travels I record it here. Plus information about the history and facilities of places I visit and lots of related links for those who want to know more........ and best viewed in Firefox

The last five posts on my travel sketchbook blog

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Travels with a sketchbook in......Europe 

Katherine Tyrrell's travel sketchbooks - Europe

Travels with a Sketchbook in.......: Travels with a sketchbook in France
Sketches from a trip to Paris, Normany (Giverny, Rouen and Mont St Michel) and the chateaux of the Loire valley in September and October 2009
Travels with a Sketchbook in.......: Venice 2005 - Summary
Skecthes from a trip to Venice in 2005

Travels with a Sketchbook in.....the USA 

Katherine Tyrrell's travel sketchbooks - USA

Travels with a Sketchbook in.......: Travels with a sketchbook in New England, USA
September 2006: Travels in
* Massachusetts - from Cape Cod to Concord to Rockport;
* New Hampshire,
* Vermont and
* Maine - in the footsteps of Winslow Homer and the Wyeths.
Travels with a Sketchbook in.......: Sketching in the southwestern states of the USA - what happened next....
July 2006: Three weeks and 3,000 miles in one of the hottest months ever in the USA - around Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and finally a road trip from Monterey down Highway 1 and back to San Diego

Various sketchbooks by various artists

Cindy Woods New York Sketchbook - on Flickr 

curated content from Flickr

Cindy Woods San Francisco Sketchbook 

curated content from Flickr

Enrique Flores Travel Sketchbooks on You Tube - vote for your favourite 

Enrique Flores has a lot of his travel sketchbooks on You Tube. Check out some of them below

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grecia-A4-2006 0 points

marruecos A4 2007 0 points

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Trumpetvine's Travels with her sketchbook 

See also the sketchbllog at http://trumpetvine.com/sketchblog/

curated content from Flickr

A lot of people travel and sketch in Europe 

Sketchbooks by various people visiting different cities and countries in Europe
Laurelines - Travel Sketches
Travel sketches by Laura Frankstone. Mostly from a month in France in 2006.
paris breakfasts
Paris and watercolors are Caroll Gillot's twin passions
RozWorks | Fun | Journaling | Paris 2006
Paris Sketchbook by Roz Stendahl
2007: Judith Nijholt-Strong's French sketchbook(Champagne, Normandie, Somme)
Sketches from Northern France (Normandie, Picardie, Pas de Calais)
2006: Judith Nijholt-Strong's French sketchbook(Champagne, Normandie, Somme)
A Moleskine Sketchbook dedicated to vacations in France.
2006: Judith Nijholt-Strong's Berlin sketches
Sketches from Berlin done on site in a Moleskine sketchbook, using Derwent Graphitints, Derwent InkTense and van Gogh watercolor pencils with Sakura Micron ink pens
in viaggio col taccuino
in viaggio col taccuino
libreta de viajes :: travel sketchbook :: carnet de voyage
Europe Sketchbook - Watercolor Paintings by Roland Lee
Europe sketchbook by Roland Lee
Shirley sketches Italy (2006)
Shirley visited Italy in 2006 - and started to keep a travel sketchbook
A sketch in time: A holiday in France
Pages from the journal which Cathy Gatland kept on a wonderful painting holiday in France - the writing's mainly about the food, but the drawing 'notes' helped her to really be there with the details.

Travel Resources - Venice 

Links to places which people may find helpful if visiting Venice
Top 10 B&Bs in Venice | Travel | guardian.co.uk
A new wave of B&Bs are finally offering visitors an affordable alternative to over-priced hotels - and they are a great way to meet the locals, says John Brunton

BOOKS: Sketchbooks for sale on Amazon 

Moleskine Large Sketch Book Writing Journals Book (Moleskine Notebooks and Calendars)

The main sketchbook I use when I need a small one. Very well suited to pen and ink, pencil and coloured pencils

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Moleskine Sketchbook Pocket

An even smaller sketchbook which can fit in a pocket

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Sketchbook Black cover 8 1/4 x 11"

The paper is archival quality, neutral Ph and nonyellowing

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Sketchbook-Hunter Green Spiral Bound-Landscape Format, 10x7

I've not seen this or used it but I'd definitely be picking it up if I saw it in a shop.

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Sketchbook-Blackberry Blank Book-5 1/2x8 1/4"

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Sketchbooks from USA suppliers 

Artexpress - CHARLES REID WATERCOLOR SKETCHBOOK 8.5x11
CHARLES REID WATERCOLOR SKETCHBOOK 8.5x11

This spiral bound 140lb. cold pressed watercolor sketchbook is made with 100% cotton, neutral ph watercolor paper. It has 24 sheets and is available in 2 sizes. Great for travel, studies or those who want a nice way to keep their sketches together.

Exhibitions involving Sketchbooks 

More and more exhibitions in art galleries and museums are putting sketchbooks on show and some have sketchbooks as the main focus of the exhibition
Brooklyn Museum "Under the Open Sky" Landscape sketches by 19th century American Artists
"Under the Open Sky" (March 28-July 29 2007) features a selection of almost thirty sketchbooks, drawings, watercolors, and oil paintings from the Brooklyn Museum's rich holdings of American art.

BOOKS: Published sketchbooks - Europe 

books on Amazon

Sara Midda's South of France: A Sketchbook

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Road to Rome: An Artist's Year in Italy

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Pastels and Pencils - Fine Art by Katherine Tyrrell 

Pastels and Pencils - Travels with a sketchbook
Travels with a Sketchbook - Katherine Tyrrell displays her sketchbooks from travels all over the world

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  • Reply
    smithsonianjourneys smithsonianjourneys Mar 5, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
    Nice lens. We have trips to < http://www.smithsonianjourneys.org/tours/arthudson10/
    " target="_blank"> Art Along the Hudson.
    Check out the Smithsonian Journeys' lens or our web site Smithsonian Journeys
  • Reply
    KimGiancaterino KimGiancaterino Feb 18, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
    Oh, these are beautiful... Makes me want to go back to Italy and create one. Thanks for adding this to All Things Travel.
  • Reply
    laura laura May 17, 2008 @ 12:46 pm
    I have been navigating in and around this article--it's absolutely wonderful; I'm amazed and so grateful that you put all this information together so thoughtfully! Thank you!
  • Reply
    Cathy Gatland Cathy Gatland Jan 7, 2008 @ 7:11 am
    Katherine, you left a comment on my blog http://asketchintime.blogspot.com/2007/08/here-are-some-pages-from-my-journal-i.html in November, which I have only just discovered, asking if you could link to it here - This is another wonderful and inspirational lens and it would be an honour, thank you.
  • Reply
    daveterry daveterry Nov 11, 2007 @ 6:39 am
    Awesome lens, great idea. Will be back to see more since I plan on second trip to China in April (last one here) I will be doing more journaling and sketching this time.
    ...dave
    blog
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So who is Making A Mark? 

by makingamark

Most of my artwork in pastels and coloured pencils is based on drawings from life and plein air studies.  I love sketching and keeping sketchbook...

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