a postcard from greece
on taking a break, logging off and keeping a travel sketchbook
Long time no see (read?) - I took one month off social media and it was one of the best things I could have done. I turned in my phone for late night talks on the terrace, burning my bare feet in the hot sand, evening swims in the sea, sweaty backs, sunburnt cheeks and messy hair.
In the beginning of July, after a two day journey on trains, buses, the ferry, me and my friends arrived in a small village near Kalamata on the Peloponnese Peninsula. We stayed in a house my friend Vera’s grandpa built in the 70ties, it is a house as wonderfully, typically greek it gets, turquoise shutters, whitewashed walls, a lemon tree in the atrium.
I’m already feeling nostalgia for the time I had with my friends this summer, so I’m gonna use this blogpost to sprinkle in some film pictures, I hope you don’t mind. Most of them were taken by my friends (I’m waiting for mine to be developed), credits to them! I also made a little video, mainly just for me and my friends, but if you wanna see a bit more of my july you can have a little look.
I definitely spend more time on my phone than I would like to. If we’re being honest, the days where my screen time is below two hours are quite rare. My excuse: Social Media is a part of my job. It’s where I share my art, my journey, it’s where I connect with people and I find so much joy in it. But it also has many downsides. We all know about the feeling when you start comparing yourself to others, how endless scrolling can distract you from doing the tasks you actually set out to do, and, the biggest downside for me, how your phone just has you constantly distracted. Wether it be scrolling on instagram or listening to podcasts, I noticed how in my life I don’t have many moments where I have time to think. Whenever there’s the slight change of me being bored, may that be waiting for my train, walking to the shop, even sitting on the loo - my phone is there to distract me. But there’s a reason we have the best ideas under the shower - because that is where we let our mind wander. no distractions.
When was the last time you did nothing but let your mind wander freely for more than ten minutes?
I didn’t make a big deal out of my social media break, because honestly it didn’t really feel like a big deal to me. A good thing that came with my growing following is that I started to care less about numbers. I’m more than happy with where I’m at, I feel like the people that like what I do are going to stick around, even if I don’t post for a while. I gave a little heads-up in my newsletter, prepared some posts before I left that I saved in my drafts so I could literally just post them whenever I had wifi. And then I left :)
The craziest thing is, I didn’t even miss being on my phone. The opposite actually - in moments where I’d normally bring my phone, such as going shopping by myself or going on a run, I decided to leave it at home as I felt an inner resistance. There was a certain kind of inner peace that I did not want to destroy. It is hard to describe. Maybe it was that my life (I mean, the beautiful scenery of being in Greece definitely added to that) felt so good that I didn’t even want to a distraction, but to feel it fully, be in the moment as they say. But it wan’t only that, there were also many moments where I felt low, doubting myself and not feeling very confident, but I just wanted to fully be there. And going on my phone felt like a fake distraction, looking at other fake worlds in order to avoid having to think about my own.
Just to be transparent; there were the occasional 10 minutes here and there where I had wifi at a restaurant and responded to a couple DMs - just nothing compared to my usual time spent on my phone.
Writing this I feel at the same time like a boomer talking about "the dangers of the cell phone” and like a hippie that just exchanged her iphone for a flip phone and now wants to convince you to do the same.
Don’t worry, I’m not gonna delete instagram, but I have thought a lot about how social media and everyone trying so hard to convey a certain image of themselves is so insignificant in the bigger scope of things.
Now I’m back home and even whilst writing this I notice my hand reaching for my phone every couple of minutes. I want to try to work against it, but it’s difficult, being in my old routine and environment again. I’m not sure if you know Joy, but she does a monthly social media detox and I’m thinking of joining her. A week a month without social media sounds quite good to me - healthy. Have you ever done a phone detox? If yes, have you learned anything from it? I’d love to hear about it.
Last year I also brought a sketchbook with me on my holiday, and I made maybe four drawings in two weeks. This year it went a lot better, I had more fun and ended up drawing waay more. I feel like there’s a couple things that helped me, so I’ll share them here with you, in case you also want to start sketching whilst you’re on the go.
bring a small, cheap sketchbook
this really helped me to be able to let loose. I’m the biggest fan of my Odd Orange Sketchbook, but it is quite pricy so for me it’s not the best sketchbook to bring, because I’m precious about it, don’t want to ruin it with “bad” drawings. I got two really cheap A6 sketchbooks to bring with me to Greece. They were perfect for what I needed, small enough to bring in every bag, cheap enough to allow myself to just draw without pressure.
Small sketchbooks are also great if you don’t feel comfortable drawing in public - it’s much harder for people to see what you’re drawing if your hand practically covers it.
you don’t need much
I’ve written about this before, but one of the things that help me most to sketch more is to limit the choices I have to make before starting. Similar to how Steve Jobs always wore the same outfit so he didn’t have to spend anytime deciding what to wear in the morning - I find I draw more if I don’t first have to decide what pen I wanna use.
one of last year’s few paintings (not shown: ruined pants and tote because the ink fell over)
practical drawing supplies are key!!
last year I stuck to the rule above and only brought one drawing tool with me - but my dear, it was the wrong one! Learn from my mistakes, don’t bring ink and dip pen if you want to draw on the go.
My go-to sketching tools: 2 colored pencils, a mechanical pencil with a soft lead, a black brush pen, a muji gel pen, cutter knife (for sharpening pens)
Nice to have: some oil pastels (better if they’re water soluble), a water-brush-pen-thing, mini watercolor set, some more black pens, some more colored pencils
above the sketch on location // below a photo
I packed my bag and in it I put: a small sketchbook and no expectations.
As I touched on before; I am a person who draws, and most of the things I draw, I share. This leads to the thought of ‘people are gonna see this’ always being in the back of my mind when I create. I try not to let it influence my art, but I guess it some way it does. I wish it didn’t, but we all know the algorithm blabla, it wants regular content, drawing takes time, alas there’s not much time for me to draw with the intention of not putting it somewhere on the internet.
I could have made a lot of Greece content, it probably would have done really well. But I did not want to!!! As I said, being there I felt the insignificance of social media and I couldn’t have cared less to make a reel of me drawing on the beach. So I didn’t. I filled my whole sketchbook with the intention of not ever showing it to anyone. (I know this blogpost kinda goes against that, but I did not plan on writing one, so it doesn’t count?)
I really did not care at all - wether my sketches turn out good, wether the style is consistent, wether the colors match, wether I chose interesting subjects, wether I manage to capture my holidays, I didnt’t even care if I liked the drawings. I just sketched because I like doing it.
You might think this relaxed approach would lead to either really bad drawings (not caring about the outcome) or really good drawings (being able to let loose) - I think it’s somewhere in between. There are a couple of drawings I like, there are a couple that I don’t like. But it doesn’t really matter, what counts for me is that I kept this sketchbook, I even filled it without having to force myself to draw. I didn’t really ever question it, but it feels good to see that I haven’t lost my passion for drawing, that I keep drawing even if it is just for myself.
In a blog post about personal work illustrator Rebecca Green writes:
“For some professions, practice and improvement seem built in - athletes train at the gym and have scrimmages. Chefs test recipes, again and again just to find the perfect texture and flavor. (Though I'm SURE we were simplifying and assuming.) For artists though, it felt and still does, like practice has to be on display. This has only gotten worse with an exhausting pressure to be performing every second on social media.
We NEED to practice without the idea that it will directly translate to something A. finished or B. for display.”
I have definitely noticed that I draw differently when I make art with the clear intention not to share it - I think less and draw more intuitively. It also means that more mistakes happen, but that’s okay, practice is important.
I cannot exactly point to one thing I learned through filling this no-pressure sketchbook. Maybe it was letting loose, trying out new things, not caring about the aesthetic of a sketchbook page, allowing room for experimentation but also allowing myself to stay in my comfort zone without feeling bad about it.
But I can say that I know that I had more fun filling this sketchbook than I would have if I had turned it into content. Also, there were a couple of drawings I made whilst on the ferry back from Greece to Italy that I really like. They were done very quickly in colored pencil, but I like the looseness in the lines, the level of exaggeration in the body language and I feel like I managed to capture my friends’ characters. It’s only a small thing, but I want to try finding a way to bring this carefreeness into my more refined drawings.
Okay, this turned out to be more of a long letter than a postcard - I hope you don’t mind. To me it was really interesting to look back at these sketches and see how they were quite different from how I usually go about sketching. Do you keep a sketchbook? If yes, do you also keep one when you’re on holiday? Do you share your art on Social Media and if yes, do you feel like that influences your art-making? I’d be really interested to hear what you think about all this. Also - I’ve shown you so much of my personal holiday sketches, it’s be only fair if you showed me some of yours if you’ve made any ;) My DMs on Instagram are always open, if you wanna send me a picture of your travel sketchbook!
I hope you’ve had a lovely summer so far.
