I’ve always loved traveling; I was immensely fortunate to have this interest embedded into me at a very young age from my parents who took us on incredible trips to places like Egypt, India and Argentina! Unfortunately I have a shocking memory, was a very fussy eater, and a moody teenager, so I felt a lot of these cultural experience were wasted on me, but if anything, it’s taught me to appreciate it all so so much more now as an adult, and I try and get away somewhere new as much as possible.
Unsurprisingly, I’ve always loved art too, so it was only a matter of time before I wanted to articulate my love for the both of them in my illustration practice.
I dabbled in this theme here and there, (see below for my first attempt at capturing memories of a trip to Oslo in 2021) but I felt it wasn’t that doable until I purchased my iPad towards the end of 2022 as it allowed for a far more transportable option!
Adapting to Procreate from my previous very comfortable approach of using Photoshop on my Wacom Cintiq was a fairly slow process, but after a lot of practice and finally completing a few commissioned pieces using just my iPad, I felt confident enough that I could create illustrations to the same quality as I did before, and so I set myself the goal of illustrating scenes and capturing memories of my two month trip around Australia and Bali which was planned for early 2024!
See below for my first travel illustrations captured on the go on my trip Rio, Brazil in February 2023 where I was just getting the hang of things… and my first commissioned piece completed solely on my iPad from a returning client, Elle Decoration in July 2023, funnily enough also on the theme of tourism, with the title Hotel Wonderful, exploring the realities of traveling with children.
The most important and also hardest lesson I learnt through this process was, don’t try to do everything, because you will pay the price.
It was during my trip to Australia and Bali in early 2024 where my ADHD burnout came to its biggest head. I’m sure it would have come about eventually regardless, but at least it enabled me to learn my limits when it comes to navigating travelling as a someone prone to sensory overload.
The constant inspiration from being thrown into a colourful and exciting new world pressured me to capture it all in drawings, but this riddled me with exhausting overstimulation. I felt I couldn’t waste this trip because it was a privilege to experience it, and then this spiralled into rumination and self torment, because how dare I feel miserable experiencing all of this?!
First of the series, an observational illustration capturing the first part of the journey to Sydney, a flight with Singapore Airlines, stoping for a lay-over in Shanghai! Featuring some surprisingly tasty plane food and my boarding pass. This illustration was made much more achievable thanks to a 30 hour journey with minimal distractions.
Sydney summary! This 2nd illustration is unique to all the others that just capture one scene or a still moment, because instead with this one I chose to cram as many of the features of Sydney I could into one image. Showcasing the train interior, busy beaches like Byron Bay, Sydney Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, the famous ferries, and a sprinkle of wildlife.
Rugged shower scene from a campsite in Misty Mountains, Kunghur. At this point of the trip I was feeling quite overstimulated after travelling in the van for a short while and not feeling the cleanest, although pretty grimy, the stillness of the view through the corrugated sheet window and the sounds of the shower head spraying, calmed me down massively!
A personal favourite and popular print with customers at markets too, Van Views. Capturing a windy but calming scene of our bikini and swim trunks drying in the sun post swim, out the back of the rented camper van.
Peach Farm, was one of the first campsites that we stayed at whilst travelling in our lil rented van, driving up from Sydney to Cairns. As somebody completely obsessed with animals, it was also probably my favourite of all the campsites we stayed on. So I decided to draw this image capturing the best part of the day, feeding time!
I crashed hard after about 5 weeks, and then again multiple times throughout the last 2 weeks of the trip after accidentally deleting a drawing I’s spent hours on… so the main takeaway was that 2 months is too long for me. As someone incredibly emotionally led by their menstrual cycle, that long away from my normal life and routine was very destructive. I felt that 1 month was probably my maximum, and although this seemed like a less efficient way of traveling especially somewhere new and so far away, because there’s SO much to see and do, being annoyed at myself for not experiencing it all was never going to work out well.
It’s not super often that I choose to draw people, but these two were proper characters so I wanted to capture them as a significant part of the incredible memory! K’gari (also known as Fraser) Island Tour guide and fellow curious traveller in her incredible tie dye fit!
The most detailed illustration of the collection, Coral Sea (available to purchase as a print), a slightly more vibrant depiction of the scenes I saw whilst snorkelling around coral reefs on a boat tour by the Whitsundays, combined with a few additions spotted at Cairns aquarium!
Pool Table Pit Stop, capturing one of our slower more chilled out activity choices, with my usual semi-photo realistic style, but a bit more oil-painting vibe, something that I’ve always loved in the work of other artists so wanted to give it a go!
Birds of Aus!
Showcasing a collection of most the wild birds I spotted whilst travelling Australia; minus a cassowary as I couldn’t really fit one in and I’m also still not 100% convinced they are actually birds rather than dinosaurs…
Plan a mixture of action and rest, and embrace going with the flow. Having a plan is obviously great, but you can’t plan everything. You can’t plan the weather, the random disruptions, the unexplainable mood swings or energy shifts. Despite doing SO many incredible things whilst traveling America, we also factored in a good chunk of slower rest days. I did lots of reading, watched a few films, napped, and spent hours scrolling on social media (which I normally wouldn’t encourage) but I did it to avoid this pressure I put on myself to constantly be productive. What my previous self would have probably described as boring and wasteful when in a new place with so much to explore, I now recognised as an essential task to fill time alternatively. Thankfully too, I was surrounded by the most incredible, understanding and supportive company that made leaning into how I was feeling on a day to day basis, far far easier.
I was encouraged of this general attitude throughout my 2 month trip around Australia, both by myself and my partner at the time, but ADHDer’s don’t learn from being told, we learn through trial and error! Only you know what is too much for you.
Sunset Swims at South Beach, Fremantle. I had such a strong vision of what I wanted the illustration to look like, but after multiple re-starts, I had to accept the reality that I’ll never be able to truly capture the endorphin fuelled magic that it was. I’m pretty content with my attempt though!
Observational drawing at a cricket game. Whilst in Perth we attended the WACA to see West Australia vs New South Wales. I barely paid any attention the sport, as I was much more interested in people watching and drawing.
Lazy River illustration was inspired mostly by a trip to Waterbom waterpark in Bali, but the main aim was just to capture the exquisite, care-free feeling that comes with floating on a rubber ring amongst luscious greenery.
Today Was a Good Day, captures the tropical winding roads in Ubud Bali, via one of my favourite modes of super safe transport, moped!
Despite creating a total of 13 illustrations for my self directed project, “Through My Eyes”, encapsulating 8 weeks exploring Australia and Bali, only 4 were actually drawn whilst on the trip! The rest were completed throughout the year that followed from returning home.
I did start sketching up the ideas of most throughout the trip, but getting them to a standard I was happy with, was interrupted by the burnout, it probably didn’t help that I also took on 3 commissions for Transwilts, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Just Breath Magazine during the trip too!
Now, over a year later, after a breakup from the partner that I travelled around Australia with, moving cities from Bristol to London, loosing my job, rehoming my cat, a lot of therapy (in many forms), and an ADHD diagnosis, I can finally draw a line under this project and feel I’ve gained far more confidence around understanding my ADHD.
I experimented with so many new techniques, approaches, ideas, and explored a theme that I’d wanted to for years! And despite this being a solely personal and mostly unpaid project (other than sales of a few of the designs I made into prints) I’m hoping it will attract an audience of like minded travel obsessed clients and companies! Many of my friends assumed I’d be creating illustrations of my American road trip, which of course I’d love to, and I’m not saying that I never will, but I’m looking to prioritise paid gigs at this point in time so I’m working on sharing this collection as far and wide to make that happen!
I’d love to create some more tourism themed editorial illustrations, or even capture travel themed stories for writers and publishers. I previously wasn’t interested in kids books, but now I’d absolutely love it! I’d also love to create covers for adult fiction or even non-fiction such as semi-realistic wildlife illustrations! (Book covers and more publishing directed work is another personal project I’m hoping to push at some point).
The ultimate dream would be to create some commercial advertising for big names in travel such as Air Bnb, Hotels.com, Eurostar, or British Airways, (with a free all expenses paid trip thrown in for good measure), but for now I’ll enjoy reminiscing on the travels I’ve been so lucky to do, and continuing manifesting a life of endless possibilities. ✈️
