Oi vey, it’s been a long time since I last wrote! I blame the renovation we got into that boxed up a lot of my things, and made tidy spaces (required for peace of mind to craft) non-existant. It’s only marginally better as I write this. One way I mitigated this was exploring watercoloring. So, taking my new hobby of nature journaling with ink and watercolors (which you’ll learn about sometime in a future post), I had opted to try out a travel journal. I bought one that was panoramic shaped and gave it a go. First stop: gramma’s for a long weekend.

I’ve cropped out some pages that had too personal information for a public blog, such as addresses and such, but you get the gist. I began by thinking of a very simple title for the book.

Then, I just sort of explored how to include things. What was important enough? What would I want to remember? What could I actually render with my nascent skills? I settled mostly on logos and small objects, though I did add a “photo” of a landscape view.

I spent a good chunk of time out at my gramma’s pond, and my nature journal instinct was strong. I spent far too many pages documented plants for a travel journal. But all practice leads somewhere!

Then, I also included all the sounds I heard while painting. I used Cornell Lab’s Merlin app and left it running. And the last page incorporated the few social events before we left. It was a quick trip, so not much to report, but I think I did well to capture it all.

I couldn’t tell if travel journals like this were for me, so I knew I would have to try it again. (Spoiler alert: I did try – and continue – and you’ll see all that in coming up!)