Two Summer Sketchbooks Bound

My August travel sketchbook.

Usually I keep most of my sketches in chronological order, binding them together whenever I fill six signatures. In August, however, I broke all personal travel records by flying to three cities in four weeks (during the one month of the year in Seattle when one can count on mostly beautiful weather – and therefore the one month I prefer to stay home!). I didn’t plan it this way, but it turned out that I filled two signatures per trip. So instead of maintaining chronology by mixing in sketches from the three short trips along with my “normal” at-home sketches, I decided to bind only the sketches from the three trips together into their own volume. On the front cover of my August travel sketchbook are San Diego’s Botanical Building in Balboa Park, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge  and St.Paul’s Conservatory in Como Park – three icons from the respective cities I visited. I put the sketch of my niece’s wedding on the back cover.

Sketches from July and August made between my multiple travels.

While I had my bookbinding tools out, I also put together sketches from July and the few days in August when I was home. I put a little thought into choosing the sketches for that sketchbook’s covers, too. While I love to travel and sketch iconic structures, I also love being home and sketching mundane, ordinary things, so on the front cover, I put the sketch of a backhoe digging a hole. As for the back cover, the sketch I made of the aftermath of a multi-house fire a few blocks away is certainly not the most beautiful sketch I’ve ever made. But it’s a keenly poignant reminder of how grateful I am to have a home – and how quickly it could be lost. My heart goes out to those neighbors every time I walk past the charred remains of their houses.