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Confessions of a graphomaniac.
Faithful to the old adage “Don’t run before you can walk”, my first attempt was comically simple. A one line, describing the coast of South-West Sri Lanka, and another to define our itinerary. Then a step too far, a map of Nuwara Eliya that I found mildly pleasing but utterly useless at navigating through the valley.
This entry was posted in Odd ones out, Random memories and tagged Asia, Beirut, Central Asia, Drawing, Graphomania, Graphomaniac, Italia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mapping, Maps, Memories, Middle East, Mitsubishi, Moleskine, Norris, Note, Pamir, Pen, Sri Lanka, Staedler, Travel, Travel literature, Travelling, Writing. Bookmark the permalink.
Love it! I love paper too! Still carry a daily diary, still can’t bear to buy a kindle, still bring a travel journal on every trip. I’ve just bought my daughter her first travel journal for our upcoming trip. Nothing beats paper!
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Well done! I, too, don’t quite see the point of a Kindle. You read one book at the time, so why having 100? Where are you off to, if I may ask?
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We are off to Nice/Monaco to visit hubby’s brother who is studying at the oceanographic institute in Monaco, then over to Madrid to visit some Peruvian friends who now live there. Miss 6 is super excited to meet her cousins for the first time!
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Sounds like fun! Enjoy, and if you can have a look at Marseille, please do, the Mucem (Musée des civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée) is brilliant, as well as is the city. Personally I think it stands head and shoulders above Monaco or Nice.
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You may claim to not be good at drawing, but compared to me you are a Caravaggio. My drawing approximates what you’d see from a 6-year-old on his Mother’s refrigerator.
I do, at least, have a small notepad I use to record impressions of each day while on longer trips. That’ll be feeding a new set of blog posts in a few weeks…
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Thanks Dave, but somehow I doubt the description of your drawing skills! Looking forward to new blog posts from you.
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Yay, hand-drawn maps, these are awesome! Thanks to our previous discussions on the matter, I now can’t bring myself to publish a post if it doesn’t have a map on it.
I too am thorn between the Moleskine and OneNote, and between the pen and the stylus.
– Verne
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Thanks Verne! I have to say, yours are beautiful in a way that mine can never be!
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You’re too kind! What I often find challenging on hand-drawing maps is getting to a scale and shape that are even vaguely accurate.
I remember once seeing a street artist drawing a perfectly proportionate basketball player by starting by the tip of the foot and working his way up. That guy would draw some killer maps 🙂
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Whoa! That guy seriously has some skills. I’m also in awe of those cartographers of times gone by. Think, for instance, at those who mapped the coast of Australia, or Brazil… There they were, bobbing along on a ship that was little more than a glorified washtub, tooth loosened by scurvy, and yet they did some marvels.
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I’ve always liked Verne’s maps and yours are really good, too! I’m very much a map person and a pencil, notebook, get-it-down-on-paper person, so I have a little collection of these things also. I’ve always thought about incorporating them into my writing but never got beyond the fleeting notion! I’ll just enjoy yours.
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Hi Lexi! Please, join in the map club, I’m sure you’ll have lots of great maps to draw and share… You could, for instance, prove me that not all American cities look the same!
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Ha! I’ll keep you posted on that project …. If not for my upcoming travels, I’m sure I could finish off such an assignment quite quickly and easily! 🙂
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It’s a promise then! 🙂
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Wow, this is what I’d call neat. I’m tempted to show my notebook-diary-planner-quotation gatherer that I used to love keeping. I might take some photos of it but then you will all know what a mess my brain is. Whereas yours, as we can plainly see, is tidy. Alas, I’ve only got my blog now.
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Hi Manja, please share it! if it’s good stuff, who cares if it’s not neatly arranged in alphabetical order?!
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Need to return to Italy for that. I’m in Slovenia now, two more weeks. I don’t have any maps though.
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Ok, then when you’re back!
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I’d call these treasure maps. The treasure is in wandering the lines you scrawled from your imagination, who cares if they match reality. I hope you keep these forever as mementos.
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Indeed I will, Julie. I’ve got my small – but ever increasing – stash of notebooks and, in there, are the treasure maps 🙂 thanks for stopping by.
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Absolutely love your maps! I always keep a travel journal, but are rather envious of those who can add sketches to theirs. 🙂
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Thanks a lot Jolandi, I wish I was better at it though…
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I guess we always wish for that, no matter how good we are at something. Your drawings, though are excellent.
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Thanks, you’re too kind!
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I think you’re being modest, Fabrizio – even your earliest maps betray an artistic flair. There is something wonderful about the simplicity of the Sri Lankan coastline as you’ve drawn it. And it looks completely proportional to me. Have you heard of the website “They Draw and Travel”? It has a fabulous collection of illustrated maps that might inspire you to take them to the next level. Of course, only if you want to start drawing buildings and scenery and possibly even food as well. 😉
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Hey James, you’re waaay to kind! no I didn’t know about that website but, upon checking, I think you’ve massively overestimating my artistic capabilities!
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