My new Sketchbook Blog

This is my new sketchbook blog "Travels with a Sketchbook.........".

I'm going to use it to post sketches and photos of places and people I have seen on my travels. It's also going to allow me to arrange all posts associated with one trip in a sequential manner.

I will always signal when my posting focus has switched my main blog to this one. I'll sometimes be able to post while I'm travelling - but it's usually going to be when I've got back home. I've got quite enough art paraphernalia to lug around without taking a laptop as well! ;)

I'm also intending to use it to focus on matters relating to sketching and travelling such as:

• what to take,
  
• what to watch out for,
  
• things that make life a little bit easier
  
• and, most important of all - where to go!

This is the bit where the interactive nature of blogging can really take off and help us all.

• I can tell you where I've been, show you photos and sketches and respond to any queries that I can answer
  
• I can tell you where I'm going and what I'm planning to do. If you know an area that I'm going to visit you might be able to suggest places which are good locations for sketching and/or painting.
  

The nature of this blog means that posting will only be periodic - usually during or just after a period of travel in the UK or overseas. Posting will sometimes be on a daily basis during these periods but inbetween times I anticipate that this blog might not be used for weeks at a time. In other words it really is like the sketchbook/journal which I take on my travels.

I suggest if you've been following and enjoyed my sketching activities in my main blog you might want to get the feed for this blog registered with whichever feedreader you use. The URL for this blog is http://travelsketch.blogspot.com and the feed is http://travelsketch.blogspot.com/atom.xml

My current art journal/blog Making a Mark will continue to reflect on the more general themes which interest me:

• the making of marks with pastels, pencils and pen and ink
  
• influences on developing both artwork and art careers
  
• information about resources for artists, and
  
• the making of new artwork on my website www.pastelsandpencils.com

as well as continuing to cover sketching in a more general sense.

One more thing............those of you who have read my other blog will know that I often manage to combine eating and sketching! So one of the other things this blog will do is identify nice places to eat. I sometimes go back to the same restaurant - even when it's miles from an autoroute in the middle of the Aveyron in France. The two sketches (of the same Pigeonnier) in this post were done 10 years apart. The first was drawn in 1994 and the second (below) in 2004. On both occasions I had a wonderful meal at the L'Oustal del Barry (in the medieval bastide of Najac - near Villefranche de Rouerge). I drew the second sketch one Sunday lunchtime while I sat next to a window with a view and worked my way very, very slowly through the Menu Gourmand!


Map: Najac, Averyron, France - Michelin map reference
Guide: Najac
Restaurant: L'Oustal del Barry
Sketches: Le Pigeonnier 1994 and 2004 - see the France Gallery on my website for more sketches of France
Technorati tags: art , art journal , making a mark , sketching , sketchbook