In a very short time, roughly two weeks, I will be embarking on a six-week journey to Europe. The challenge to myself is to blog that trip here and add images and musings; sketches and ideas. We will be traveling to Venice-Athens-Istanbul-Naples-Rome-Barcelona-Madrid-Lisbon and many smaller ports and places in between, some of them my very favorite places in the world.While not taking much beyond a sketchbook, watercolor pencils and pens, my goal is to get some of the most memorable impressions of these places on paper. It has been my experience that small experiences make the greatest impact and are revisited time after time -- like finding a small chamomile blossom between paving stones of an ancient walkway in Rome or a perfect apricot-tinted sunrise over a nameless Greek island. Revisiting those memories in my mind over and over again has encouraged me to try to capture future images and express them artistically whether by drawing, painting, or photographing them -- iconography, in a way, for an amazing journey.
