2020 was going to be a year of adventure for Dave and I, a year of travelling (only by train and boat), around the UK and Europe. We headed off to Cambridge (where Dave’s company is based) in mid Jan, found a house, moved into it, and then two weeks later weren’t allowed out again for 5 months! It has been a year of hardship for so many, and definitely not the one we had planned at the start. My year has been lucky, but also very claustrophobic and much of my joy has come from travelling inwards into my imagination and memories, rather than outward into the world in the way we had imagined.

One of the ways this was most obvious, came through the month of October - Inktober as it is called by those who draw. Every year through this month people from everywhere draw something every day. Originally it was about using ink, but it has become just about drawing or painting. And this year I used the prompts put out by the wonderful They Draw and Travel. They chose a city for each day of the month, and the goal was to make a painting or illustration to celebrate that city. I am lucky - there were many I had been to. There were also many I hadn’t and so I drew on a combination of my memories and my usual way of planning a trip (scanning airbnb and reading blogs and finding the good coffee) in the places I hadn’t been to to try and imagine them.

Trying to paint/draw a picture everyday for a month, from a particular prompt and of a quality I’m happy enough to share, is hard! And also amazing. I learned so much and felt very proud I was able to do almost every day (I missed LA as I just couldn’t get inspired - I don’t think LA is my kind of place). Some days I drew two images for the city like above, with beautiful Mumbai. I did the one on the left first, and loved drawing all the beautiful colourful patterned fabric. But, I decided I wanted to add a travel icon in there as well, to make it impossible not to know where it was, so I did another one (right). From this, I learned a lot about pattern and drawing fabrics and sky, and have brought these with me into all my work since then.

I had a couple of favourite pieces from the month and both were images I’d had in my mind for ages and finally painted. These always come out the best I think.

The first was this one of New York City (right below). As an urban sketcher and lover of people and quirkiness and urban life, NYC is a bit of a dream. I’ve only been there once for 10 wonderful days with my sister, and loved it as much as I always imagined I would. I think I most loved that it felt like there was nothing new a human could do that would make anyone look twice, nothing too peculiar or strange or original. We were there at the end of autumn and super lucky to get a day when the snow fell and made this famously lively city quiet. On another day I saw a dog walker, with a whole entourage of four-legged creatures and so I put these two together and drew this NYC in the snow.

The other one that came from a pre-envisioned idea was my last one, drawn of my favourite city in the world, beautiful, creative, tasteful, fairytale Tallinn (above left). We were lucky to have spent a month there over winter and one day a bright orange dog pulled it’s owner through the snow in front of me. Behind them were the beautiful bright pink buildings. And ever since then I thought one day I will draw this scene!

I learned through these to draw snow! And snowy scenes and what tree bases look like when they’re in the snow which was super exciting, and yet again something I have brought with me into my work since.

From this wonderful month of drawing I grew more confident with using paint. This was a bit of a breakthrough as using gouache was something I’d wanted to try for ages. I’d had the odd go at it, but always made something awful, but I used it in every piece for this month and by the end I felt like I had learned a lot about it. Which pencils work over it and which don’t. How thick. How to make the colour bold and opaque or more translucent like watercolour and when to do which. It’s the first monthly challenge I’ve ever committed to, and I’m so very pleased I did.

A month of travel sketching!