“No sketches first, no studies, that’s long past: I do what many dream of, all their lives… Well, less is more… “ Robert Browning (1812–1889) from his poem (1855) ‘speaking’ as artist Andrea del Sarto to his wife Lucrezia Less is More I needed to tidy my studio, but where to start? Why is getting over […]
Woodland Walk to a Meteora Monastery in the Sky
Meteora’s Magnificent Monasteries For several hours we’d been winding our way up through ancient woodland when we broached the top of a hill and the largest and oldest of Meteora’s monasteries – The Great Meteoron – came into view. Perched on the top of its sandstone pillar it appeared to float in the sky against a […]
But I Can’t Draw
“I can’t draw to save my life” “I credit myself with zero artistic ability“ “I simply cannot draw“ These are all comments left by *you*, my readers, when I’ve been waxing lyrical about the fun and benefits of creating storymaps for recording holiday travel memories, rather than taking what has, to date, been the more traditional route of […]
The One Thing All Travellers Will Forget…
…and my Top 3 Travel Tips to be sure you will remember! “Passport?” – CHECK “Tickets?” – CHECK “Toothbrush?” – CHECK And you’re off For months you’ve been dreaming of… faraway places and luring landscapes sparkling sunshine and gentle breezes escaping to a world a million miles away For weeks you’ve been researching top travel tips and planning on… where […]
The Laid Back Travel Journal Layout – How to Story-Map Your Day
This post forms part of my series How to Travel Journal Like a Mapmaker… In the previous three posts about creating story-maps I’ve covered: How to Make the Most of Line Types to Express Your Travels How to Create the Illusion of Movement with Arrows And the Use of Pictogram Symbols for pictorially communicating your trips Now, how […]
Do You Realize How Often You Already Use Pictogram Symbols?
This post is part of my series How to Travel Journal Like a Mapmaker… Here, I illustrate my hand drawn sheets of pictogram symbols. Seeing the World in Symbols Pictograms are the type of symbol we see frequently on our travels and without even thinking what their meaning is, we comprehend them no matter what language we speak. Along with […]
How to Create the Illusion of Movement with Arrows in Your Travel Journal
As part of my series on How to Travel Journal Like a Mapmaker… Arrows are Lifesavers Arrows have been a part of human survival for over 20,000 years and amazingly we still rely on them today for our existence. Not in the traditional sense of course, of going out to hunt for food, but relying […]
How to Make the Most of Line Types to Express Your Travels in a Story Map
As part of my series How to Travel Journal Like a Mapmaker… The Key to your Story Map When is a line not a line? When it’s on a map! As every line and symbol on a map is representational. Every line has a meaning that can, in some cases, require a ‘legend’ or a ‘key’ […]
How to Travel Journal like a Map-Maker
Why do you treasure your travel journals? For their marvelous memories, of course! Memories of faraway places… exotic locations… & experiences often never to be repeated So, how do you capture your adventures? By words? Pages and pages of descriptive writing? By sketches? Whimsical lines and blobs of colour expressing an essence? By scrapbooking? Collating […]
How to Create a Story Map – Kayaking in Moreton Bay
A couple of days ago we went kayaking across Moreton Bay near Brisbane, Queensland – As usual I took my camera. But we had a variety of nature encounters with fish, sea eagles, stingrays and turtles that were so fleeting (or occurred underwater) it was impossible to photographically capture them – So I published this […]