Travelers Notebook - a recent holiday

Many of you will know that over the holidays, I was able to travel to South Africa to visit family. Since this was to be a time to re-connect, relax and not a serious sketching holiday, using the Travelers Notebook (from Bookbinders in Gympie Road, Brisbane and online) was the ideal sketchbook to use. Generally the paper format can be awkward for sketching since the pages are quite long and quite narrow. However, I found that it was this very feature that enabled me to do many sketches while out with family and friends. 

My rather chunky-looking TN at the end of the holiday 

The black leather cover stands up to rigorous treatment and, in fact, improves with wear. The Notebook is also fairly unobtrusive so it was easy to open and write or sketch without taking up a lot of space at a cafe table. 

I used two types of inserts - one with sketchbook paper and another with blank Midori paper. The latter is lovely for use with ink and I was pleased that the Sketchbook paper worked successfully with watercolour. I almost completed two sketchbook inserts and the same amount with the blank notepaper.

Time for coffee and cake

Sketching in the shade of Causarina pine trees

The blank notepaper became my travel diary where I could capture my thoughts at the end of each day. Before I left I splashed out and bought a HP Sprocket printer. I was then able to add photos of special places and people on the occasions where a sketch wasn’t possible. It is a small and light unit, working via Bluetooth with the iPhone. 

Combining travel diary entries with photographs 

The HP Sprocket printer

Occasionally the connection would be erratic but switching on and off solved that issue. The colour can be a little flat and dull so boosting the saturation before printing gives a good result. 

Garden Castle, Drakensberg Mountains, South Africa

I have made a video flip-through of the whole book which you can see here: 

Travelers Notebook- holiday sketches South Africa

A Favourite Cafe gets a makeover

One of my favourite cafes is French & Mor, Dawn Cresent, Albany Creek. It’s a few minutes drive from my home and close enough to collect coffee for the artists who come to the Studio. (We do like our creature comforts) 

Recently, the Cafe has undergone a makeover - new flooring, smart tiles and a fresh coat of paint. Today I stopped for a quick coffee. The transformation was complete - lovely hanging baskets with ferns and trailing creepers and new displays with Christmas decoration completed the new look.

The new look called for a sketch. I used my new Pelikan Smoky Quartz ink (I was the lucky recipient at a lucky draw at Bookbinders on Sunday) Smoky Quartz is Pelikan’s Ink of the Year. It’s a soft brown and very smooth to use. The lines are soluble when just drawn but after resting for a while seem to be quite stable.

I’m not yet geared for “on the go” colour so the watercolour was added when I returned home. 

The sketch in my Travelers Notebook.

a little colour.

and French & Mor with fresh va va voom...

Bricks and mortar versus Online shopping - I know which I would choose...

We become accustomed to buying almost everything online. There are self-service checkouts at the supermarket. We become used to the lack of the personal touch, the direct contact; the face to face conversations. Personally, if there is a choice, I opt for the person at the checkout any day rather than the self-serve option - I like to think I’m helping a real person keep their job and besides, I love to chat to people. 

Recently, it was with delight that I discovered a local Brisbane store stocking pens, ink, notebooks and lots more. Bookbinders 1355 Gympie Road, stock a wide range of goods for the stationery aficionados. 

Travelers Notebooks, in particular, have an almost cult following world wide. Originally called the Midori Travelers Notebook, now more simply, the Travelers Notebook, the TN comprises a leather cover, with Midori paper inserts held together with an elastic closure. I have always loved fountain pens, consequently I delight in the return to popularity of pens, good paper and the recording of ideas in a  real book. 

This coming Sunday, 3rd December the store is holding a Travelers Notebook meetup.  There's more information if you click the link to the Event page on Facebook.

I’m pleased to be part of the meetup - the lovely people at Bookbinders have asked me to come and play. I’ll be sharing tips for sketching using ink and watercolour - and of course, I’ll be using fountain pens and a Travelers Notebook.