One of my recent obsessions is travel sketching. I try to maintain a sketching practice in my everyday life, but it’s often hard to find the time. When travelling, there are often moments of downtime in which I can whip out the sketchbook, pens, and watercolours.
I was recently lucky enough to visit Fiji, and have a wonderful relaxing holiday in a resort there. What better place to do some travel sketching?!
For this trip, I tried to pay particular attention to choosing a focus area of each sketch, and enhancing it through colour, contrast, and detail. I also experimented with loosening up my linework, and simplifying compositions.
The coconut stand
For example, I liked this sketch of a coconut stand, but felt that some of the linework was still a little too “forced.” So I experiemented, copying the sketch again but with a much looser line:
I actually prefer the second version, and it was interesting to discover that, as long as the proportions are correct, I can have a lot of freedom with linework. While these loose sketches look more effortless, it’s deceptively hard to relinquish control! Copying my original sketch was a great exercise, though, and one I’ll do more of in the future.
Loosening up
That looseness inspired my next sketch, of one of the resort pools:
For my last sketch, I really pushed myself to let the lines be more organic. Every morning, the waitstaff at the breakfast buffet sang several songs. They all had the most beautiful voices, guitar-playing, and clapped rhythms. But the chaos of the restaurant doesn’t lend itself to an attractive sketch. So for this one, I tried to include as few details and colours as possible, while still capturing the energy and joy of the moment:
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