This sketch journal records a two week winter''s solo journey to the tropical paradises of Costa Rica and the upper Amazon in Peru by an intrepid naturalist in her late sixties.
Complete with a detailed tutorial describing the surrounding circumstances, why she created each page as
she did, advice on overcoming sketching barriers and problems, plus
extra ideas for journaling. The tutorial is a treasure trove of photos,
too, creating an engaging scrapbook of a naturalist''s Costa Rica/Amazon
adventures.
Each page of the sketchbook is
reproduced life size, so you can examine it in detail, while the
tutorial shows what the sketchbook page looked like at the time of its
original sketching/painting and how the page metamorphosed to get to its final form ~ including
corrections, watercolor pencil coloring (with lots of technical tips),
and several eye-opening descriptions of problems encountered.
This journal is full of good advice: pleine air
sketching in a jungle setting, page design, incorporating sketches of
such local items as vine tendrils onto a page as page dividers, what to
take on a tropical sketching trip, how to use travel time wisely, how to draw from a moving airplane, creating highlights to produce shiny
or wet effects, etc. With eighty-nine pages, there is plenty of opportunity to
cover every aspect of this amazing adventure.
The sketches are in ballpoint pen, and many of them are colored with
watercolor pencils (one is shaded with graphite pencil ~ the baby boa eating a bird). They are surrounded by observations and written
details that transport you headlong into the journey with Irene.
Walk with Irene on a Costa Rica beach to pick up a
brilliant macaw tail feather and draw it in the journal. Creep up on a
flock of turkey-sized Great Curassows near El Remanso Wildlife Lodge in Costa Rica.
Feel the moist, warm air on your
face as you boat down the Amazon River for nearly 50 miles. Let the
croaks of the Giant Monkey Frogs and the amazing liquid melodies of the
Yellow-rumped Caciques, large birds which build hanging nests in the trees around Otorongo Lodge
on the Amazon, lull you to sleep or accompany a sketching session in the
Hammock Room.
If you''re planning a
tropical vacation ~ or even if you only WISH you were, this is the
perfect armchair travel journal for you, full of verve and excitement,
and joie de vivre. You won''t be able to put it down.