Bruce and I at the Chagras National Park near Panama City, Panama.
When I travel I usually bring a sketchbook and try to spend time trying to capture the feel of the place. It serves as a journal, reminding me later of special times in a more personal way.
Before leaving on my last big trip I took an online course on Domestika called Expressive Architectural Sketching with Colored Markers. I had seen the work of Albert Kiefer, known as House Sketcher on Instagram and loved the colorful and playful way he depicts buildings around the world. His squiggly lines, bright colors, and watercolor-like splotches are so wonderfully free and expressive.
Around this time I created a few fine-liner ink drawings as commissions that collectors gave as gifts.
It reminded me of how much I like that medium but I wanted to work on developing a style that I could use to sketch more quickly on the go with materials that were easy to travel with. And I wanted to add color.
I put together a travel sketch kit adding Copic sketch alcohol-based markers to my favorite Sakura Pigma Micron pens, along with other supplies to round it out.
I created a few practice sketches while taking the course. On a walk one day I took a photo of the guard house in my community in Florida and sketched it when I got home.
In December we set off on an adventure that started out in Panama City.
We hired a private guide who took us to visit the Chagras National park where the indigenous tribe shared their ways, gave us a wonderful traditional meal and a tour of their village.
I played with perspective in this sketch, below, of a Chagras indigenous peoples’ elevated hut in the way Albert Kiefer does with his house sketches.
On the way to the village our guide stopped at a road-side fruit vendor’s truck to buy fruit to bring to the village that became part of our lunch. We sat in the car while he bought the fruit and I snapped a photo that I sketched from later. My goal for this sketch was to be true to the scene as it was, but be very expressive.
On another day we drove around with a different guide. He stopped at a popular tourist attraction called the Chinese Monument that celebrates the long history of the Chinese in Panama. Guides like to point out the tall steel pole to the left where a tiny monkey perches and will peak out if you tap on the pole. I couldn’t quite get that in accurately, but the way I drew it reminds me of that detail.
My goal for this sketch was to see how expressive and loose I could be while representing the structures in a recognizable way.
The line in the poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T. S. Eliot, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” came to mind today as I was gathering photos of the sketches I am sharing here. I find that the days, into months, into years become a blur in my mind, but when I look back and see the artwork I created over time I realize for me, I measure out my life with the art I create. I really enjoy seeing these little colorful drawings and remembering my time out in the world.