2023 has been a wonderful sketching year. While I don’t think I’ve ever truly left sketching ever since I picked it up 12 years ago, I feel I rediscovered it for the first time in late 2022 when I went to Banda Islands, and since then I’ve had plenty opportunities to combine my love of sketching and traveling by sketching in some of the most amazing spots around the world. This is the first time I have enough sketches in a year to actually make an annual recap (and I hope this tradition continues!), so here are all of the sketches I made this year, in chronological order.
My first sketch of the year also happened to be my first trip of the year; the sketch on the top left was of a small temple in the middle of a village in Chiang Mai. We first passed by this temple on our first night in Chiang Mai, and as we walked past it while looking for food I casually mentioned that it would be cool to sketch here. We forgot about it until one day we found ourselves with nothing to do one afternoon, so we headed to the temple and spent the afternoon sketching until the sun set.
Bottom left (and right ;)) was a door in Talad Noi, Bangkok. We were wandering around with no plans when this door caught our attention, and it didn’t take us long until we found ourselves a chair for us each and we settled in with our pencils (and watercolor and pens for me). Not far from where we were sitting, we encountered a local sketcher, his various work sprawled on the floor: his sketches were mostly line arts with strong and detailed inks, but he was doing a commission with colored inks when we found him. We probably spent a good fifteen minutes just chatting and getting to know him—in a previous life, he was a theme park designer, which is a role that I never thought existed! He had designed theme parks all over the world, from Singapore to Dubai, and found his calling in sketching and doing commissions. I got myself a postcard of the Talad Noi alley. Lo and behold, the next day when we had lunch at a restaurant, we discovered his works (plural!) framed in the restaurant, one of which was the exact same door that we sketched the day before. The restaurant owner took notice of us admiring the art, and she mentioned that she is such a big fan of him. :-)
Next up, Penang. This was not the first time I sketched in front of a stranger’s house—a few years ago my mom brought me along with her because she wanted to sketch the view from a total stranger’s front lawn, so I learned from her. :) I was waiting for my friends who were getting a massage, and found this lovely house nearby our hotel. We were there for a weekend, and mostly spent our time eating and taking pictures; oftentimes I’d separate myself from everyone else to sketch, like this time I was at the hawker center (2nd pic) or at the peranakan museum (3rd pic). Last pic was of the bagel with the longest waiting time of my life.
On our last day we found our way to a pop up market of some sort. I came across an artist who did watercolor (!) painting on wood planks—something truly unthinkable to me, I struggle with watercolor on proper watercolor paper, let alone on such an unconventional canvas. He said he used to work as an interior designer, and was used to being surrounded by wooden planks all around him, hence the inspiration to start using them as canvases. It’s definitely more difficult; watercolor takes longer time to dry on wood, so the waiting time is longer, but it’s not impossible. I mean, look at these wonderful paintings of his—he still managed to bring out such vivid colors and texture.
Some of my last sketches in Singapore: kouign-amann in Tiong Bahru bakery that I sketched during brunch with a friend and a new place specializing in smörgåsbord place next to my neighborhood cafe, Anagram.
My first sketch in Berlin at the Museum für Naturkunde, also one of my first Berlin outings after I was done with all the paperwork and bureaucracy.
A weekend in Amsterdam. It was way too cold and windy and as you can see I could barely sketch and paint properly, but still I insisted on sketching outside and we found a nice spot (and left as soon as I was done with my sketch because did I tell you that it was so. Damn. Cold!?)
A weekend in Heidelberg. I forgot my regular Lamy pens, so I went back to using my old Micron pens (that, as you can tell, were running out of ink).
I was actually quite surprised I still found some time to sketch in Porto; Primavera Sound was quite busy, not because of the lineup but because it rained so hard we all had to scramble to find rain gears by our second day to avoid getting soaked like how we were the first day. The first sketch was a typical Porto neighborhood, the second one was from a cafe I went to by myself one morning, and the last one was of the port. It was unbelievably hot, but I persisted.
First two sketches along the Camino Portuguese! First one was the fortress in Valença (Camino Portuguese, Day 0 - Porto to Valença); I remember sketching this while being super hungry because I hadn’t eaten, and yet dinner started at 20:00 on this side of the world. ;) The second one was of Ponta das Furnas (Camino Portuguese, Day 1 - Valença to O Porriño (21 km)), a historical bridge that I crossed on my way to O Porrino. The bridge had been undergoing restoration for five years, and the group of people who were working on it took notice of me sketching. One of them came by to see my sketch and talked about the process of restoring this historic bridge. In the post, I wrote:
Nevertheless, I was grateful for this chance interaction. It was the first real interaction that I had of the day, other than the occasional “buen camino!” greetings that I exchanged with other fellow pilgrims on the way. I have been sketching for as long as I can remember, and I had always thought about it as a solitary activity until I realized that it has helped me plenty of times to connect with people that I wouldn’t have connected with otherwise.
This would be a theme that rings true throughout this year. Sketching might have been a solitary activity, but it has helped me connect with more people I otherwise wouldn’t have interacted with.
A fantastic sketching day on the way to Pontevedra (Camino Portuguese, Day 3 - Redondela to Pontevedra (20 km)); I started early and the weather was good so I had a few opportunities to sketch along the way. I especially couldn’t resist sketching the bridge (I mean, look at that view!).
I didn’t complete this painting on Day 3 because it was a particularly difficult day and when I got to Pontevedra, I was already late (and extremely exhausted). I forced myself to paint this iconic church but there was no comfortable spot to sit on and it was getting dark, so I continued the painting while I was in Caldas de Reis the next day. This was one of the very few sketches I did without ink; I quite like this look especially how the gates turned out. :)
Some of my last sketches from the trail. Yes, I’m fully aware that I got the perspective totally wrong in one of these sketches. At this point, fellow pilgrims started recognizing me as “that girl who sketches”; many people stopped by to see my sketchbook or just to ask if I live in Berlin to study art (oh, the disappointment when they hear I’m a regular corporate worker ;) just kidding). A particular memorable one was in Padrón (Camino Portuguese, Day 5 - Caldas de Reis to Padrón (20 km)) in one of my favorite sketching spots on the trail; one of the women who approached me put her hands on her heart and told me, “bless you!”
Surprisingly, I still found some energy to sketch the iconic the Santiago de Compostela cathedral. I was struggling to get the colors right because I was tired and all I wanted was to just lie in my bed and sleep for days, but I quite like how it turned out. Many other pilgrims stopped by to see what I was sketching, some took the time to flip through my sketchbook and see the sketches I made throughout the trail. One actually offered to take a picture of me sketching, which was very kind of him.
Back in Berlin. When I got back, I remember wanting to do more sketches in Berlin. This one is of the Berliner Dom that I actually passed by every time I went to work; I was waiting for a friend who was visiting Berlin for the summer, and I forgot my pen, so I thought this was the perfect time to do something similar like I did when I was sketching the Pontevedra cathedral.
My art/craft club usually happens on weekdays in the evenings at someone’s house; this is one of the few times we met up outdoors in a park, and this time we met up in Treptower Park. I have to say, painting nature and trees is definitely one of my biggest weaknesses, and since I want to do more painting in the wild (literally) next year, I feel this is one of the things I should improve on if I want to do something more than green blobs when I paint trees—the other being properly learning perspective. :)
Oh, the bakeries of Copenhagen. I didn’t mind getting up early to line up and spare one or two hours at the bakery to sketch; it was definitely some of my favorite moments in Copenhagen. The most difficult thing to do when sketching food is actually not being tempted by the food you’re getting before you finish your painting. Here I learned that the genius trick to this problem is to get two of them.
I only had two full days in Copenhagen. The second day I spent with my uni friend, but the first day I managed to visit some spots and did a few sketches: one was of the sculpture park in Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, and then the botanical garden, and lastly the admittedly pretty touristy (but still pretty) old port of Copenhagen, Nyhavn.
Returning to Berlin, I participated in the Urban Sketchers Deutschland 2023 meeting, and for the sketching day I was assigned to sketch in Schöneberg. It was nice to meet fellow sketchers (though I wish my Deutsch was better); I made friends with a girl my age whom I invited to the art/craft club, it’s always nice to have more local sketching friends!
Back on the trail again. The first sketch was in Porto Covo when I was waiting for the sunset (Fisherman’s Trail, Day 0 - Lisbon to Porto Covo), and the next one was my first sketch on the trail (Fisherman’s Trail, Day 1 - Porto Covo to Vila Nova de Milfontes (20 km)).
I’ve got some of the most spectacular views on Fisherman’s Trail, Day 2 - Vila Nova de Milfontes to Almograve (14 km) and Fisherman’s Trail, Day 3 - Almograve to Zambujeira do Mar (23 km), despite Day 3 being a particularly challenging one for me to the point where I was thinking of quitting the whole thing. :-) At this point, fellow hikers have started recognizing me as “the artist” (ha!), a lot of people would stop by to see what I was sketching this time. Apparently, sketching is a great way to make friends on the trail, who would have thought?