Travel sketchbook: Nice/Lisbon
Travel sketchbook: Nice/Lisbon
Journaling tips, preparatory advice and a downloadable PDF of the full sketchbook
Today I’m sharing my sketchbook made during my travels to the South of France (Nice and surrounding towns) and Lisbon, Portugal! I shared before that I had a goal to complete a Midori MD sketchbook during my nine days of travel and I managed to accomplish it, hooray 🎉
Since I finally have a complete sketchbook documenting my whole trip, I wanted to share all of it with you via downloadable PDF! Getting to see the full thing is great for those who want inspiration for different types of journal spreads or recommendations for places to go.
You can get the entire scanned sketchbook here at a pay what you wish price (starting at $2) or free for paid subscribers with discount code (it’s the same code that you can use for my online shop, which you can find at the very bottom of this email in the footer—email me if you have any issues).
Want a preview? This vacation was the most fun I’ve ever had sketchbooking, so I want to show you some of my spreads and share tips on how to make travel journaling enjoyable.
Before the trip
There’s a famous quote by Miguel de Cervantes that “being prepared is half the victory.” That is absolutely the case with travel sketchbooking, especially if you use mixed media. First I made sure to use the same brand of notebook in my everyday life to get used to the paper and dimension. You can see examples of those pages below.
I also looked up photos of the buildings and neighborhood in Nice and Lisbon so I could make sure to bring the right range of colors. Since it was late summer, I brought lots of warm pastels. All in all I brought around six brush pens, five Neocolor pastels and sixteen colored pencils. My most used colored pencil was the Prismacolor in Mineral Orange, which was a perfect match to the color of Lisbon’s ceramic roofs. I would encourage lots of intention and experimentation to determine which materials to bring, so that you’re not laboring over what to use when you sit down to draw.
During the trip
Just as I did in Japan, I gravitated towards drawing food in my sketchbook. You can draw items you picked up at the grocery store or photos of your dinner from the night before. Breakfast is my favorite meal, and I loved indulging in a daily baguette, super ripe plums and plain yogurt (yogurt tastes so much better in Europe).
This time I collected a lot more paper—brochures, business cards, tickets, tissues, you name it—to paste into my sketchbook (glue tape is your best friend when traveling! Though I did run out and had to buy a glue stick). I visited a lot of museums on my trip, and my favorite was Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul de Vence. The below spread combines a drawing on location, collaged bits from brochures, and my personal notes on what I saw.
Brief aside: I had the pleasure of traveling with my parents in the south of France. My mom loves to take photos and she snapped many of me while drawing. Who needs an Instagram husband when you have Instagram mom?
My favorite spread is the one below, reviewing four different pastéis de nata (egg tart) spots in Lisbon. My reviews were amassed over the course of several days, and seeing it come together with each shop’s branding was so satisfying!
Traveling alone in Lisbon, I was able to sit at cafes uninterrupted and draw my view. This might not come as easily when traveling with others, but you can give yourself permission to dip out of seeing a tourist attraction in favor of a few hours spent alone drawing. Or you can always start a drawing in situ, take notes on the colors and lighting, snap reference photo and finish it back at home.
After the trip
If you’re like me, you want to hoard anything you come across during traveling. Then you come home to a mound of receipts, postcards, and brochures you don’t know what to do with. Put them all in your sketchbook! The below spread of shops in Lisbon includes a fold out brochure of vintage shops that will be a great reference to share with friends.
Curious to see the rest? Download the full sketchbook here.
As always, dear reader, thank you for being here. I’m so grateful for those of you (like
!) who shared travel recommendations with me as well. If you have any questions or travel sketchbook tips to share, leave them in the comments! ☁️
LOVED reading your notes on Matisse!
So fun and inspiring! Thanks for sharing!