Let me show you my illustrated travel journal…
In the video below I share why I made this book, and the process I went through to plan and illustrate each page. I hope you find it inspiring in some way.
For those of you who have been following along with my social media recently you would know that I just went on a four-month-long holiday trip with my young family in a caravan. I knew that I was going to be away from the studio for a long time, and I wanted to have a little bit of a creative project to work on while we were travelling. I also wanted to create something that would document the trip in a really beautiful way and create a lasting memento of our travels.
I decided to create an illustrated travel journal, which is essentially just a written travel journal with a bunch of little illustrations around the text to highlight certain things we saw or did on the trip. It turned out to be a wonderfully satisfying project and it was a great way to focus and relax while on the road.
I hope this inspired you to take a little drawing kit away with you when you travel and perhaps create a travel journal of your own. It really is so much fun!
My setup for working on this journal was pretty simple. I sat at the little table in the caravan (the lighting was terrible) and I had brought along a little kit of drawing/painting supplies. This is the same kit of tools/materials I take out to do field work, it has everything I need.
Tools and materials used:
Journal: Winsor & Newton A5 visual journal, watercolour 300gsm
Mechanical pencil; Staedtler mars micro 0.5mm (2B lead)
Kneadable eraser: Faber-Castell
Fine line markers: Copic Multiliner SP, sizes: 0.3, 0.03, 0.05
Brush: Winsor & Newton series 7, size 2
Watercolour paints: Winsor & Newton travel set. I have replaced the paint pans that came int eh set with my favourite artist-quality colours. I work with a range of select primary colours so I can mix most of my own colours as needed.