As promised, art and travel! 

I always start with the best of intentions, but they rarely pan out the way I want them to. It's quite possible that I'm not carving out time and space the way I should. It's also quite possible that planning to make art at the END of the day is the worst plan ever, because I am a morning person. 

I have one more trip this summer, and I'm planning to use this journey to figure out the best way to travel and make art. 
There are many people who travel and make art so well: 

Mary Ann Moss of Dispatch from L.A.
Jane LaFazio
Julie Fei Fan Balzer of Balzer Designs

I'm really great at making art before I leave. I'm not so good at making travel-inspired art when I get back. 

Before we left for Sicily, I took an old, beaten board book and gave it a new life as a recipe book.  The project took me the better part of a week, and I loved every minute of it. 

I wrote out the recipes on tags and then illustrated some of the ingredients on the pages. I prepared the pages by coating them with gesso and a small amount of paint for color. 
I'm not a huge fan of starting with a white background--so few things in nature are stark white. 

When I travel with the intention of making art, I pack supplies. I have gotten it down to things that will fit inside a gallon-sized ziploc bag.

A list of travelling art supplies:
1. Sketchbook
2. A pencil and eraser
3. Permanent pens (I like Sharpie fine point)
4. Watercolors
5. Brushes (Round 3, Round 8, 1/2 inch flat)
6. Tape
7. Camera (which doesn't fit in the bag)

I think what happens is that I get so wound up in being there that I let the camera capture the moment/composition. 
Then I go home and get waylaid by the unfinished projects in the studio. 

But like I said, I have one more trip this summer to see if I can work out a system that works for me. 

I LOVE TO TRAVEL. 
Not so much that I want to pitch it all in and live in an RV--but I have seriously considered the merits of  owning a vintage Airstream trailer (you know, the ones that look like foil-wrapped Twinkies).  Love of travel was something that I considered a part of me--the way you might think of your eye color or your smile. Loving travel, craving it, is a part of who I am. I suspected that my parents had a hand in forming this love by introducing it to me early and encouraging it often. I knew that when I had kids of my own, I wanted to show them all of the joy and excitement of going places and meeting people. 

Those of you who have known me for a while might remember when my oldest was an only child. We would fly out to the East Coast and visit my parents on a regular basis--and wouldn't you know it, the kid who hated car rides couldn't get enough of being on an airplane. Then along came kid number 2 and we traveled as a merry band of 3 (while my husband worked his whackado schedule) by car most often.  I have a handle on travelling with kids, and my first bit of advice to you is: start them young. If that's no longer an option, then start by making it fun.  

Is it really fun to sit in a car for hours on end? No.

Is it truly fun to wait in line at the airport?
No. 

Is it fun to eat granita before lunch? 
Yes.

Of course it helps if you know your kids. I know that my kids love music, so early on we invested in MP3 players for both of them. Part of our getting ready to travel routine includes making sure those suckers are charged and loaded full of tunes. They also love Legos so we are willing to risk lost pieces in transit for hours of contended building--on trains, airplanes, and automobiles. 
I never travel without art supplies, which means the kids travel with art supplies. And of course, books! 

I like to do my research before I go. This includes travel guides, historical books, and memoirs. For our last trip I checked out a few cookbooks as well--we traveled to Sicily. And if there is one thing I know in my bones it is that food is the best way to get inside a culture. Language being a very close second. 

And then there's The Paperback Tradition I just can't shake.  The tradition started with annual trips to the beach with my best friend's family back in middle school. 
The rules are simple: 
1. It must be an author that I have never read. 
2. It must be outside of my regular genre. 
3.And it must be at least 300 pages. (You go ahead and set your own page limits)

This is where having access to a physical bookstore becomes handy. I can wander around, look at books, read the back cover, read the first two or three pages and pick one that will probably hold my attention for the duration.
Then there's the added challenge of bringing the kids along. I give them a budget and tell them to pick out books for vacation. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. You know how kids are. 

Next time we can talk about making art while travelling--and how the best laid plans don't always pan out!