DREAMING OF FAR AWAY PLACES.

RHYS BOWEN: Earlier in the week I shared one of my sketches and got such nice comments about it. 

I took up sketching years ago when a friend showed me his sketches after a trip to Japan and Thailand. He was an eminent chemist and not very good at art but the sketches were so alive and real that I thought I wanted to try. Since then I never travel without my sketch book and tiny paint box. I've filled many sketchbooks and last Christmas I put the best ones into a hardcover book so that the family could all have a copy.

So on this dark and gloomy wintery time of year I go through those sketches and each one brings back a sharp memory of where I was when I painted and exactly what I was experiencing. So much more vivid a memory than a photograph. I'd like to share some now as i lie with one leg propped up, recovering from knee surgery, and dream of where I might go in the summer.

Let's start with one of my Venice sketches, that were part of the inspiration for THE VENICE SKETCHBOOK: This one actually made it to the inside cover of the book (take off the dust jacket if you have a copy).

Then the place I love to be every summer is Cornwall. I've books of sketches but these are a couple of favorites. St Michael's Mount and Cadgwith!

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Another favorite place that I dream of on dark winter days is Nice and the beach around the headland in Beaulieu that I would walk to every day from our apartment. 

Two of Italy from the days before I took a paint box with me. Vernazza, one of the towns in Cinque Terre while I was hiking the path and came upon it around a headland to see it lying below me

and Lake Como from a boat.

Sometimes the simplest scenes make the most pleasing subjects. Here is Castellina in Chianti where Hallie and I have both taught writing courses.

And finally from this year one of my sketches that worked out well: the twin of St Micheal's mount, Mont St. Michel in Brittany last summer.

I hope I've given you a little escape from winter and that you might consider taking up sketching too. They don't need to be perfect. You just need to capture the feel of the place.  So who else likes sketching? A Jungle Reds sketching trip in the future?