An artist's sketching kit, a journey into the Northern Flinders Ranges, and the pleasure of seeing what happens.
Before setting off for Arkaroola, I made a little video about the art materials I was taking with me.
I'm a Planepacker. I travel light, and I've become quite good at deciding what deserves a place in my bag. I don't want to carry an entire art studio around with me. But neither do I want to arrive somewhere extraordinary and wish I'd brought the very thing I needed.
So the challenge is to pack thoughtfully: enough materials to give myself choices, but nothing that doesn't earn its place.
Here is what I took to Arkaroola.
What I packed for Arkaroola
Then I arrived
Arkaroola, in South Australia's Northern Flinders Ranges, is an extraordinary place to draw.
The landscape is ancient, rugged and immense. Rocks, mountains, changing light and unexpected colours are everywhere. It's the sort of place where you could spend your entire visit looking, without ever picking up a pencil.
But of course I had come to draw.
I had imagined the sort of work I might make before leaving home. Once I was there, though, the landscape began to suggest its own possibilities.
I drew the places around me, including the view from my accommodation and the remarkable Pinnacles. I experimented with ink and brush. Some drawings were observations; others became opportunities to play with marks, colours and materials.
And that's what I love about keeping a sketchbook. It doesn't have to become a collection of finished artworks. It's somewhere to explore, make discoveries, change direction and occasionally surprise yourself.
What came home
I made another video after my time at Arkaroola, this time looking at what I'd actually produced.
It's an interesting companion to the first. One shows my intentions, the other shows the results.
What I made at Arkaroola
Looking back, I'm pleased with my packing decisions. I used the materials I brought, and I didn't find myself wishing I'd travelled with less.
The real discovery wasn't that I needed fewer materials. It was seeing what I could do with the materials I'd chosen, once I was surrounded by a landscape so different from the familiar places I draw at home.
Perhaps that's the pleasure of travelling with a sketchbook. You prepare as well as you can, and then you let the place have its say.
A sketchbook in deep time
I've since gathered some of this work into a small online exhibition, Arkaroola: A Sketchbook in Deep Time.
It's another way of sharing the experience: not just the finished drawings, but something of the looking, experimenting and discovering that went into them.
