January Sketchbook Challenge - Episode 1

At last after a week of procrastination I have finally done my first sketchbook page for January. If I could draw as well as I procrastinate I could be up there with Signor da Vinci!

This sketch represents the opportunities I have had to travel, often to places off the usual travel track. This sketch amply illustrates that. It is part of a silver cruet from Iraq. In 1949, when I was a lot younger than I am now, we moved to Iraq where my father, who was in the RAF, was posted. This cruet was bought by my parents whilst there. I remember my mother telling me it was made by a silversmith who called himself John the Baptist.....either my mother or the silversmith or both were having a joke.

Since then I have travelled widely, both with my parents and on my own. With my parents we went to Australia and Germany as well as around the UK. By myself I have been to the Middles East, North Africa, Nepal and Thailand. Two years ago, I was fortunate enough to sail across the Atlantic and up the Amazon with my painting teacher and friend, Penny Wilton when she was teaching on a Swan Hellenic Cruise. I have also done a couple of trips to Menorca with Penny and some friends who also attend her classes.

I have a stack of photos of these travels but, more importantly to me, a wealth of memories. I just wish I had had a sketch book for some of my earlier travels. You can capture so much more in a sketch book, bot in words and pictures than you can with a camera, no matter how good a camera is. My sketch book do not just have sketches but a lot of notes to describe the environment where I am sketching. When I look at those pages now such descriptions transport me back to the day I made the sketches.