How To Start A Travel Journal: A Beginner-Friendly Guide
If you’re like me, you’re looking forward to travelling in 2023. New horizons to see are new horizons to paint!
What I find helpful for my craft is the practice of journalling and drawing memorable moments. If this is something you’d like to pick up, here are some tips that you might find useful_
1. Decide on the type of travel journal you want.
Will it be a landscape journal? Will you be writing a lot? How much do you want to log down for each trip? A good example would be Nina Cosford’s travel sketchbooks which have a lot of writing and small cute colour pencil drawings. For myself, I prefer more quick sketches and paintings with fewer words.
2. When choosing a journal, choose one with the type of paper that is more in line with the content you wish to create.
More painting requires thicker paper. If you intend to write more, make sure the paper is bleed-proof to prevent ink from leaking from one page onto the other. It also gives you the option of using different pens such as fountain pens or brush pens to create a different vibe.
3. Take some time to visualise how you want your art to be composed on the page and segment out the space for each illustration.
Here are some examples of how I divide up my pages on my various trips. You can see more on Instagram with this hashtag. #twrtraveljournal
Feel free to experiment and find a way that brings you the most joy.
4. Draw and paint.
You can draw them on the spot plein air style or take a photo and draw in a cafe or sit by the pool sketching. The options are endless! For me I usually take a photo and finish them in my own time at the end of the day but usually it spills over to the end of the trip, and I’ll take my time to enjoy the quiet moments of sketching and painting.
5. Decorate and add surprising elements
Do you have a large stash of stickers and washi tape? Time to put these to use! Feel free to add in polaroid photos, ticket stubs to the journal pages.
Just remember to take these factors into consideration when you’re planning the space for your journal pages.
And that’s it. It will take some planning to get a journal started but it’s ultimately a form of freestyle expression for the creatively inclined folks.
At the end of the day, a travel journal is a way for you to do what you love for the sheer fun of it. So go have fun and don’t forget to tag me if you decide to share some photos of your journal!
