Walk Booklet: A Loop with the Loopers

With pandemic restrictions, I became the classic “tourist in my own neighbourhood”. Walking around locally, with or without a particular goal, I began noticing views and details that I’m sure have been here for the decades I’ve lived in the area, but that were suddenly enticing. Was their appeal just because I didn’t have the option of jetting off to Venice or the Amazon – no canals or canopy walks, so I had to appreciate weathered fences and rhododendron flowers? If so, that was a great gift from the plague.

Like a tourist, I snapped photos of things that appealed to me. But I’ve never really got much out of snapshots when I’ve been travelling, which is a big part of why I took up urban sketching. So I started doing little sketches from photos I took on my local walks, six per walk in little accordion booklets I make. I normally draw on site, enjoying the full experience of being in a place. But I’ve also come to love my little ritual of collating six photos after a walk – thinking a bit about composing bigger views and details, bright and subdued colours, nature and the urban scene, the overall feeling of the walk. Then going to my little backyard studio with a cup of tea and doing the six 10-minute pen and watercolour sketches. (Remembering to dip the brush in the water and drink the tea, not vice versa.) I have about 15 of these booklets in a heap on my shelf – some wood-box carpentry is in my future. I can’t promise I’ll remember every sketch in 20 years, but I can look at a booklet from last year and remember the walk, the day, and what I noticed along the way.

Walk booklet 1: Retired RV They don't die, they just get covered in vegetation and compost away. Walk booklet 1: Looper moths Loopy indeed - and lethal for hemlock trees.  These ones may not be so effective on a metal light pole. Walk booklet 1: St David's garden This was a bare wasteland in April, now a flourishing sharing garden feeding people in need in North Vancouver. Walk booklet 1: Grain terminal A bit of old-school industrial infrastructure on the North Vancouver waterfront. Walk booklet 1: Queensbury village A block or two of local businesses, still hanging in there. Walk booklet 1: Purple house A member of the Society for the Promotion of Purple Houses

Geeky note: I make the booklets from a full sheet of a nice 140-pound watercolour paper, in this case Arches Aquarelle. The softer paper gives a gentle look to the pen and watercolour sketches. I cut an 18-inch by 3-inch rectangle, then mark vertical lines at 3, 9, and 15 inches on the front, and at 6 and 12 inches on the back. I lightly score those lines so that the paper will fold in, out, in, out, and in every 3 inches. This gives the six 3×3-inch panels. I like the images to fold to the inside, but I forget about half the time and sketch on the side that folds outward – it still works!