Sketching On Holiday

On holiday it's lovely to have a record of the places you visited and the friends you've met. Sketching is a great calmer after the stress of travelling.

Pencils
A6 Sketch Pad
50 sheets, 135g
For sketching only because thin paper  tends to buckle with water paint

Watersoluble Sketching
Tin of 6 sketching pencils with handy pencil sharpener. When I bought them they cost me £4.99.
www.acco.co.uk

Water colour pencils
Daler Rowney has 12 Artists Pencils in a double height metal
tin.
www.daler-rowney.com

WHSmith 24 watercolour pencils in a large square tin, was £9.99, now £4.99 (in May 2015). Includes bright colours, black, white, and a pinky-orange flesh tint. All sharpened nicely.

Watercolour paints

Paper pads
If you are driving, for example around the USA, or from London, England to Wales or Scotland, you could put an easel and poster size sketchpad in the boot of your car. (The UK car boot is the USA trunk - if you are reading in the USA or travelling from the UK to the USA.)

If you are travelling light on a plane, or ultra-light with hand luggage only, you could probably find room for a small A6 sketchpad.

Postcard Pads
Thick postcards are strong enough for water paints.
You could paint a postcard of your destination - same view for yourself and several friends. Enclose each postcard in an envelope to protect the watercolour from rain, fingermarks, creasing or theft.

I used to send away my photos for developing throughout a long trip. That way they would be ready when I got home. If anything happened to my luggage en route, I was sure a record of my trip had reached home.

Shop online at Whsmith.co.uk
Customer relations 0870 444 6 444

Saving travel photos and memories

You can save souvenirs of your travel trips in many ways.

PHOTO SLIDESHOW

Make your photos into a slide show using Powerpoint or Keynote (on Apple Mac laptops or iPads) or Mosaic. Starting with a title page and map, ending with a photo of yourself at home or unpacking souvenirs. Add music. Or recipes. Or a page of websites and addresses at the end. Or list your future or all previous trips.

WATERCOLOURS, SKETCHES & CARICATURES
I draw pictures of people I meet. I carry watercolour pencils. (Less messy and less time consuming than watercolour paints or oil paints. You can also take photos and draw pictures in the evening or after you get home.

PRINTS & TEE-SHIRTS
A print of your family with the car is useful if you often lose each other. You can point to your tee-shirt and ask, have you seen my husband, children, car?

EMBROIDERY
A lady in Singapore makes embroidery pictures of the places she visits. How could you do this? Print photos onto a tee shirt.

PHOTOS of HOTELS, RESTAURANTS, TOUR GUIDES, GROUPS