One of my favorite parts of traveling, aside from tasting delicious delights, is the unique wave of inspiration that maneuvers its way onto the blank pages to be safely stowed for life in my traveling sketch book. Instead of Polaroids or pictures, I am left with an imprint of the emotional and mental inspirations drawn from a place. Each unique trip unpacks its own specific suitcase of ideas. Each section of my sketchbook is catered to its corresponding journey. Typically, an adrenaline-filled stinky weekend spent climbing and camping will splash nature inspired scenes onto the pages, or, more often than not, specific oddities or hilarities that I have observed or noticed within the death-defying activity we are faced with (okay, you caught me—we aren’t that hardcore, but sometimes it honestly does feel that way!) A more relaxing seaside vacay visiting family usually finds my mind wandering along a groovy wave of ‘beachy things’ that swirl together deep yellows, oranges and reds with their bluesy buddies. Longer international voyages to find foreign fiestas, however, are the biggest wildcard of inspiration of all. I really have no idea what inspiration I will stumble into, or what new scenescapes my mind will unlock—and I will tell ya, they aren’t all magnificent, some of them are downright odd, but hey isn’t that the fun of exploring?
One thing that I try to make sure I do when I am sitting down to play with my watercolors is to do just that—sit down and see what exactly flows out on the day. Typically, especially while traveling abroad, when I flip my sketchbook open, I have no plans for what I am about to embark on. Sometimes a random slogan sounding thought catches my attention and I endeavor to bring the thought to a visual relic. Sometimes the transfer process from vision to reality proves to be quite rough and not as pleasing as my initial belief. Other times, I love the idea behind a sketch and prepare to make a “good copy” with the changes I believe would enhance it as a proper original piece. I think it is important to allow yourself to pursue different mental alleyways and pathways that spontaneously intrigue and entice your mind with new concepts and ideas that appear exciting to explore even if they might make you look fairly strange to surrounding peepers. Sometimes, while creating in lively cafes, it dawns on me that anyone risking a peek into my creative wonderland might be taken aback by the current state of my design as it sinks into its “pubescent stage” of finding its true nature and soul, distinguishing me to be quite the curly-haired weirdo. Though, as many a moral of tales of yore go, those who stick their noses into their neighbours garden may just find their nose pinned to the clothesline.
As I have found my body posted up in the lovely and cozy and gray seaside scene of Denmark I have found my voyage through my creative inspiration to have taken a rather complicated turn to that of the abstract mind. Instead of finding myself desirous of painting the greys as they cha-cha with the deep blues of the water and cloud’s tears that gently spill over the greens and yellows of the stout trees and frizzy balding bushes, I have found my mind instead weaving through the mist and mayhem of natural patterns representing human emotions and ideas. To try and explain that more fully, I have found myself observing nature and finding the correlation to a very human idea or feeling. For example, I watched the storm clouds roll in as we sat outside in the beautiful sunlight, and it made me think of the way doubts can roll into your mind in a similar way. I suppose one could say what has inspired me on this trip is searching for the correlation between what we see and observe of nature and patterns and how it can be found similarly within ourselves. The corresponding works have made the pages of my sketchbook colorful and very quirky.
It may not always be perfect or pretty, but I do think it is important to allow your creativity to navigate to its own treasure troves and explore the rough seas of unchartered inspirations. I hope you have enjoyed reading about what currently has been floating my boat, I hope you join in with me next Sunday as well!
As always,
Keep it offbeat!
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