Have you tried memorising or sketching views while travelling in a car? I’m sure you would find it good training for developing fast looking and sketching skills. However, you do need a chauffeur!

This sketching technique grew out of sketching in the car over a couple of years. Long trips watching the landscape pass by and being inspired by what I saw had me thinking. Even though the subject would waft past quickly I decided to give it a go. Here’s a very early one. (That bird had a takeaway coffee cup!?)

Initially, the sketches were not so loose, but they developed into a technique that worked really well with mixed media – collage, coloured pencil and gouache as in the beach boxes painting below.

Sketching on the move became addictive and I longed for lengthy trips in the car. My bag became fatter and heavier as sketching gear became a constant companion. The kit has since been refined – sketchbook, fountain pen and water brush, plus extras in a small bag if I want.

No time for being careful. I still remember what this countryside looked and felt like.

The waterbrush was put to work in this one. Now …. how to use all these sketches?

Abstract ambitions had surfaced somewhere along the road and the simplified sketches of that wafting scenery were perfect for interpreting in an abstract or semi-abstract manner. The mixed media painting below is one of an early series that these sketches have inspired.

From here on, things start to snowball, but more on that later!