L.A., Part 6: People in Transit (Plus Travel Prep)

 

4/10/25 light rail ride to SeaTac

As is always the case when I fly, I had plenty of time to sketch at airports on both ends of my trip. In addition, I had longish light rail rides to and from SeaTac airport to catch a few commuters, too. For this final post of my L.A. series, I’m including all my in-transit sketches. In addition, at the end, I’m including media notes and comments about my (nearly non-existent) travel prep.

I tend to favor Uglybooks in vibrant, midtone hues so that both black and white will pop as shadows and highlights. The lavender book I used for most of the trip was paler than I prefer because white doesn’t show up well. The paleness, however, forced me to make highlights with the paper color (like the highlights on the woman’s sunglasses on April 10, upper right), which is a fun challenge.

4/10/25 SeaTac airport

4/10/25 SeaTac airport

4/10/25 light rail and SeaTac food court area

4/15/25 LAX

4/15/25 light rail ride home

For many years, prepping my sketch materials for travel began weeks and even months before the trip. (If you read earlier posts with the “travel” tag and in the Travel Sketching section, you can witness the whole process.) I hemmed and hawed about what to take and what not to take; auditioned various permutations of bags and accessories; even had “dress rehearsals” by going out sketching locally with whatever travel setup I was considering. Admittedly, I enjoyed this process almost as much as the travel itself, so it wasn’t burdensome. But the longer I sketched and the more I traveled, the simpler my process became. At some point my travel sketch kit basically became the same as my everyday-carry.

As my everyday-carry sketch kit has become smaller and simpler the past five years (I have the pandemic to thank for that), so has my travel sketch kit; in fact, it was no different at all for LA. The only color consideration I made was to make sure I had two shades of green because I planned to sketch at Descanso Garden.

All the usual suspects: A variety of water-soluble colored pencils, acrylic markers, Pitt Artist Pens, Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and waterbrush. The kit has been getting a little thick around the belly, so I might need to do some trimming soon.

Beyond that, my only “prep” consisted of filling a spare brush pen with ink in case the first ran dry (it didn’t) and bringing a second Uglybook because I could see that the remaining pages in the one I was using wouldn’t last the whole trip. In addition to those daily-carry items, I brought my current A6-size Hahnemühle sketchbook for using color and a panorama-format Uglybook if I wanted a larger page for my comics style.

Sketch kit, water spritzer and three sketchbooks. The spare brush pen came along but wasn't needed. In the background is my Rickshaw-made, limited-edition tote bag that the Erasable Podcast gave to its Patreon supporters last year.

As for a bag, I used my usual everyday-carry Rickshaw Mini Zero Messenger plus an auxiliary tote bag to hold the additional sketchbooks. When traveling, the latter is useful for all kinds of things, not just sketch materials that won’t fit in my mini: a water bottle; the layer that I inevitably shed by midday; the sun hat I don’t need during the daily morning “June gloom.”

Without the angst, drama and dithering of years ago, my travel prep takes all of minutes instead of months. I’m good with that.