Sketching South Africa

One of my goals for this trip was to spend some time working in my sketchbook. In reality, I haven’t had nearly as much time as I imagined. We’ve been constantly on the move, with early mornings, long drives, museum visits, and activities packed into nearly every day.

Still, I’ve been trying to make sketching a regular part of the journey. It’s something I encourage my students to do as well.

Most of my drawings have been quick pencil studies. A sketchbook is perfect for this kind of travel because it encourages observation without needing to be perfect. Any spare moment—a cup of coffee before breakfast, an hour in the afternoon, or a few quiet minutes before dinner—becomes an opportunity to slow down and really look at a place.

Whenever I’ve had a little more time, I’ve bravely pulled out my watercolors. I am not a watercolor artist and I’m clumsy with the medium but like most things, practice helps.

One of my favorite pieces so far has been a watercolor landscape. The scenery here has been incredibly inspiring.

I was especially excited to draw elephants along the river. I’ve been practicing the basic structure and proportions of these amazing animals. They are much more complicated to draw than I anticipated, and I still have a lot to learn. But that’s part of the fun. Already I’m thinking about how these sketches might inform an animal drawing unit with my students next year.

Perhaps my favorite drawing so far is a pencil sketch of a beautiful sycamore fig tree near one of the places we stayed. Its trunk twisted and undulated in every direction, almost appearing to move across the landscape. The pencil drawing captures its shape, but not its rich colors and subtle variations of light. I’ve already decided it deserves a watercolor version as well.

One of the gifts of keeping a sketchbook while traveling is that drawing changes the pace of seeing. A photograph can be taken in an instant, but a drawing requires time and attention. You begin to notice details that might otherwise pass by unnoticed. For me, it how I make my strongest memories.

South Africa’s landscapes and wildlife have been deeply inspiring. I know these sketches are only the beginning, and I look forward to continuing to fill these pages—and bringing some of these ideas back into the classroom this fall.