Enough with the bugs…
In the summer of 1986, I spent just over three weeks on a backpacking trip to France and Germany with my friend Paul Ryan. I’m not exactly a carefree traveler, and so I wondered whether this combination of minimal planning, cheap transport options and even cheaper accommodation would finish me off – or at the very least, our friendship!
But I loved it.
Paul is a sketchbook genius, and so I followed suit, using my little black Daler book like a journal as he did. The art we saw and made, and the values it embodied, made me recalibrate. There are some events that change you forever, not on the spot naturally, but nevertheless they set a different course.
I look at that sketchbook now far more than the photographs I took on the same trip. The sketchbook feels more immediate – its own little time capsule. And it reflects who I was at the time: unsure, definitely self-conscious, but also open to beauty and wonder. At least the latter trait is something I hope to maintain.
Please also make sure to look at Paul’s extraordinary body of sketchbook work.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulryanandsketchbooks/albums
