Travel sketchbooks

I am still working from home and dreaming of far away places. Places that I have been to and places that I would like to go to. During lockdown I took time to look back through my (many) sketchbooks, particularly from times before mobile phones and Instagram. I always carried an A6 Daler wherever I went and thought I would share some of the images from my travels. It’s been wonderful to reminisce and be transported back to amazing places...I hope it gives you a sense of distant places too.

Here is the first one...my favourite, from a trip to Syria and the Near East in 1991. Travelling on my own in the aftermath of the Gulf War was eye opening. This is a sketch done very quickly of people and fluttering cloth heading to the entrance door of the Oma

yad Mosque in Damascus. I remember this so clearly. The act of sketching made me look and also made me involved. That, for me is the magic of drawing....the physical action which connects eye, hand and place.