True, selfies and everyone photographing everything on their smartphones is so pervasive you are not likely to be able to avoid it. And yes there are growing pockets of folks coming up with personal strategies to decrease their digital addiction. And, there are those seeking greater engagement in the real world, connecting with nature and their surroundings –making memories instead of clouds of digital photos they will never access.
Shikha Shah
What about making memories of your travels, your surroundings through the totally novel and enjoyable experience of sketching? How much more deeply would you feel connected to sights and environs of your travels? Would it create deep visual associations with these place? And, how much more deeply will you feel connected to them? How much more vivid would your memories be of not only the places but also the people and your experiences? How is this possible one might ask?
The answer can be found in any art museum. Think of the outdoor paintings and sketches of Claude Monet, George Lambert or John Constable. True, the majority of us are no Claude Monet, nor do we need to be to sketch on the go as we travel.
In a recent article Shikha Shah, journalist with BBC News, shares her sketch-on-the-go travel experiences. Sketch retreats are apparently popping up around the globe. Like me, you have certainly come across someone sketching or painting in a park, at the beach, across the street from a regal looking cathedral. This current “en plein air” open air art movement, a term coined by Gabriel Campanario in 2007 was spurred when he began sharing his on-the-spot drawings online and encouraged others to do the same, this according to Shikha Shah.
Painting outdoors on location has been around for about 200 years. In fact it was popularized by Monet and French painter Eugene Louis Boudin, among others. Campanario founded a global community of traveling sketchers called Urban Sketchers. According to Annette Morris, a watercolor artist and director of education for Urban Sketchers, “Sketching on the go at different places around the globe… opens your eyes to everything from the obvious to the invisible. A sketch captures a memory of people and places in a way that a photograph never can.” According to Global Brands Magazine, Urban sketching retreats offer a unique artistic way to explore and capture the spirit of a city through creative expression.’
Passionate about both painting and travel journalist Shah ventured on her first painting on-the-go painting experiences in 2023 with Painting Holiday Italy. In the months that followed she sketched her way through India, Bhutan, Georgia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Seychelles. Her sketches encompass everything from landscapes, buildings and people to sketches of bite-size food delicacies she experienced of Basque.
ArtFoodCulture.com
Urban sketcher Dan Johns, based in Australia, shared with Shah that his Vietnam art retreat hosted by Art Food Culture became a way to interact with local children and elders of remote Indigenous groups. These painting and sketching retreat experiences are guaranteed to take your travel experiences and memories to a deeper more meaningful and rewarding level connecting you to, and immersing you in, the experience in a way that a selfie or digital photo taken you your smartphone never could.
Campanario’s Urban Sketchers is a U.S. based nonprofit. According to their website “We draw on location indoors or outdoors capturing what we see from direct observation. Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings the places we live and where we travel. Our drawings record time and place. We show the world one drawing at a time. ” As a nonprofit they offer educational programs that teach drawing skills and demonstrate techniques and supplies.”
Art Food Culture, an immersive travel experiences service, focuses on the Vietnam, Laos region and Australia with specialty travel itineraries focused on culture, food, textiles, architecture and fine arts. The founder Anna Barnes curates trips to cater to diverse groups from beginning sketchers to studio artis and experienced urban sketchers. Their website also offers specially curated materials and supplies for purchase.
John Skelcher, who has been conducting urban sketching retreats in Italy since 2015 recounted one of his fondest memories. On a retreat in Venice, on an excursion to Burona, while he demonstrated watercolor techniques to the group, “an old Italian woman and gentleman stood and watch my demonstration.” He noticed tears trickling down her cheeks. When he asked if she was okay, she explained that watching him paint rekindled memories of her childhood.