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Some Travelers Capture Their Vacation Memories With Sketching

Some Travelers Capture Their Vacation Memories With Sketching

Some people prioritize food when they travel, others focus on the local music scene. But for a certain group of visitors, there is nothing more absorbing than settling down in front of a striking scene and putting pen or paintbrush to paper.

“I’ve always been fascinated by travel journals and watercolor, but I never thought I’d be able to do it myself,” said Clara B. Martin, a 44-year-old content creator and mother of two. While locked down at home in Madrid during the pandemic, she enrolled in online watercolor classes. Her daughters joined in, and once restrictions were ended, the family started bringing sketchbooks along on their travels.

“It’s a fantastic way to remember a place as you focus all your attention on your surroundings,” said Ms. Martin, who with her family has sketched in Amsterdam, Portugal and other spots. “This is a way to really disconnect during an hour or so. We all sit down and concentrate on the sketch.”

How can you get started sketching yourself? We asked professional sketchers and dove into sketching blogs to find out.

In recent years, many travelers have deliberately slowed down during their trips, tossing out the crammed itineraries to fully immerse themselves in one destination. It’s a practice that some travel experts call slow travel.

“Many tourists arrive at the same place, take dozens of photos with their mobile phone and continue running to another point on the map,” said Alicia Aradilla, an illustrator from Spain who has sketched around the world, from Washington to Mount Fuji in Japan.

Sketching “is one of the few artistic fields in which we experience our subjects on location firsthand,” he said. “The genuine is in demand.”

Ms. Aradilla, Mr. Scheinberger and others offer sketching classes on everything from capturing the light on passing faces to picking the best kind of paintbrush. Mr. Scheinberger said that while he teaches technical aspects of sketching, the thrust of his workshops are on “the art of seeing.”

Some classes are offered online, while others are held in person in locations around the world, so that a group learns together as they sketch a scene. Prices vary, but Mr. Scheinberger’s weekend-long workshops in Berlin, for example, cost between 300 and 400 euros ($314 to $419), and participants need only bring a fineliner pen (this popular choice costs $12 for a pack of six) and a sketchbook (some sketchers recommend this $16 Moleskine).

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