Pencil sketching

“India can be incredibly overwhelming — it’s crowded and chaotic, and it often moves fast enough to render you dizzy. Every time I took my sketchbook out in India, sketching was my way of slowing the chaos down; I could enter the eye of the storm, and suddenly look on at the scene around me with clear eyes and renewed perspective.”

“In Guatemala, I was amazed by how fast the paint dried on the page, and that I couldn’t keep working over it. This meant I spent way less time on each sketch — and more importantly, it meant that I was sketching more “in the moment” again, and catching those smaller, fleeting memories that make a journey. In some ways, it felt like I was starting all over again as a sketch artist — but at the same time, I was starting over on a foundation that took me five years to build.”

“Okay, so initially this doesn’t look too bad. Fairly clean lines, some well placed highlights and careful use of markers… until I tell you that I spent a very unreasonable amount of time on it, a solid 3 hours. Yes, doesn’t look so good now does it? To make matters worse I definitely would have passed this off as a “quick sketch”.”