Sketching Portugal: Keeping a Travel Sketchbook

What You Will Learn?

• I’ve been keeping travel sketchbooks for over 10 years and they’ve become an essential part of the way I keep my souvenirs, for pleasure and to make my books..
• In this Class you'll see me working on my 4th travel sketching book: a book about Portugal. To make this book I take 4 short holidays to Portugal..
• They’re also the best way to remember your travel afterwards: when you draw a place, you are really mindful and present, more than when you take a picture. When you look at your drawings afterwards you’ll remember and relive all the sounds, smells and thoughts of that day. Memories will immediately come back to you!.
• In this class I'm going to show you the real behind the scenes action as I fill my travel sketchbooks in 3 Portugal trips with watercolour sketches that will eventually end up in my new book I’m making about that country with Editions Akinome.  I filmed in real time during my travels, with very little material, sketching outside, so some videos are less comfortable than usual, but this way I can share with you some of my struggles and challenges as I fill those pages.  .
• Sketching outside is a challenge. Almost every artist I know often feels frustration and uncertainty with the act of sketching outside and showing his work, and making a book. I worry about  whether people will like what I make, I worry about whether you will like the video’s and learn something, and I worry about the outcome of the book..
• Please join me on my Portugal trip to see how I make my sketches for a book, and how I go urbansketching in general, and don’t hesitate if you don’t feel like drawing outside alone, to look for your local urbansketching community to go out and sketch with other people..
• The more you DO it, the better your drawings will get. Please don’t only watch this video’s, but grab your sketchbook and DO it: Draw, Paint, Play, Enjoy! No Progress without Action..
• PS: you don’t need to go abroad. Sketching your neighbourhood is fun as well. I do it often!.