Last year I started sketching, and for the first time in my life I started bringing art materials on my travels. I did the same when I went to Japan, except a couple of days into the trip at a Maruzen I stumbled upon a reasonably priced traveler’s notebook with watercolour paper. So this is the first time I used a dedicated sketchbook for a trip – thought it is quite apt that I am using a sketchbook from a japanese company on a trip in japan.
I like this particular notebook because it is very lightweight and it has this unique tall portrait format which opens up to a squarish spread. Discounting the first and last page it allows for 11 spreads, which is a pretty good number for a trip. The limited number of available spreads also felt like I could make a good attempt to complete it.
Then while visiting a museum I discovered eki stamps – “eki” means train so these stamps originated from railway stations but now they are also available at tourist spots and some subway stations. I knew vaguely about the existence of eki stamps before but I was never the sort of person to bother with something like this.
Since the museum had it openly lying around I decided to stamp my sketchbook for fun, and before I knew it I was obsessed with hunting them down at every possible location we had been to.
Some of the ink pads available at the stations were quite faded, I reckon serious enthusiasts would bring their own.
I usually sketch food because I love food and they are relatively easy to draw, but at Miyajima we didn’t eat anything I wanted to draw so I decided to try drawing their famous deer, autumn foliage and and torii gate:
I wouldn’t say my drawings are any good but I think what means more is that I recorded an impression. My sketchbook quickly became the most precious thing I was carrying around, so precious that I kept checking that it is still inside my backpack.
Even as of today as I flipped it to write this post, and it still evokes such complex feelings in me. Like wow, I actually did this.
Sometimes it is fun to work on a spread as though I am designing a layout. I also enjoy replicating the logos of the places I’ve been to. They are nowhere near the original but I liked that I even tried. Since I draw with a pen directly instead of a pencil I made mistakes frequently, but even if they are just 50% representative of the originals they still become powerful impressions to me. Like when I see my drawings they immediately take me back to the actual vivid memories.
Midway through the trip I started collecting/buying stickers, washi tapes and things that I can later stick in my sketchbook – scrapbook style. I stuck most of them when I got back to Singapore.
Sometimes the drawings start out terrible and disproportionate but I still trudge on, and they end up becoming something memorable. Other times we have to keep our sketchbooks before they dry, so paint gets smudged etc and I just think it is all part of the sketchbook’s becoming.
Thankfully I also kept most of my receipts:
By the end of the trip my sketchbook became really smudgy and weathered, especially because I am not careful when handling the eki stamps. Yet I really love how it feels – ageing something with use is not something that can be actively replicated or reproduced.
Because I was actually busy writing blog posts while travelling on this trip I didn’t really have time to draw, so probably half of the sketchbook was completed retroactively when I got back. I think it is now one of my most precious possessions, because it symbolises a growth in me that I’ve never experienced before. I didn’t think I had it in me to complete a sketchbook, especially because I didn’t complete it while drunk on the romance of the trip. My past self would just have forgotten about it once I was back to the intoxicating familiarity of my home.
I feel like I’ve found a part of myself that was lost a long time ago or was never there to begin with. I am not very good at having fun, being crafty, or doing things that have no obvious value in this reality.
What is the point of working on and completing a sketchbook? In practical terms – none. But the entire process enriched my soul deeply. Each time I completed a spread it feels like I painted another layer of my soul. It is a full circle: having an experience that becomes a memory, pulling out that memory to make art out of it, then holding that creation in my own hands and seeing that memory take a concrete form – it enhances and solidifies the original experience that would otherwise have been quickly forgotten. But now I get to recollect it like a memory with tentacles. We could probably do something similar with photos, but somehow there is alchemy in the act of drawing, as though etching the memory deeper in a bodily manner. It is no longer merely visual, I have used my body and breath to record this.