Mari's Brittany sketchbook page
Mari sketching in Brittany
Schedule - 2010
We came back from 9 months in Mexico with the intention to return next winter and finish the project that we had started with a migrant center near Puebla. However, life is full of surprises.
Early July, I was told that for the months to come I would have to concentrate on my own health. Twenty years ago, sketching saved my life. I started sketching everything I saw, every change of shape and color and while recording in my sketchbooks, the weight of reality became lighter and lighter. In 2007, I created : "The Art of Travel with a Sketchbook”.
Twenty years later…what matters is still being in the moment and accepting “life as it is”. I will have to suspend my workshops for the next six months to take care of myself. I know that sketching will save my life once more and I will spend the winter working on a new title : "Sketching my way to health".
I am planning to resume my workshops in the spring of 2010. France is definitely in the plan . I will have the dates posted by Christmas.
Today, we can travel anywhere in the world and find ourselves in a totally different culture in a few hours, but in this fast paced world, we need to slow down and better see and record what's happening around us.
In recent years, people seem to want to add a new dimension to their travels, making them more meaningful. Artists all over the world publish their travel sketchbooks, but what about those of us who are not 'artists' but also want to record our travels?
After years of leading sketching workshops and seeing people with no art training become so bold and confident, what at first was an intuition, is now a certitude: Sketching is not about being artistic.You do not learn how to sketch, you sketch... and your eyes learn to see.
By observing my participants over the years, I have developed an approach to sketching that is very simple as it only requires trust in oneself and, ultimately, the desire to travel differently.
From "Carnets de Bretagne", 1999