Remembering when we could travel

This is my watercolor kit for traveling. It’s small, fits in my laptop case, and I can paint almost anywhere with it. Clockwise from top left: Sakura Sumo Grip mechanical pencil; Aquash Watercolor brush; Windsor Newton travel paint box; Handbook Artist Journal (5.5″ x 5.5″).

(Note: I wrote this blog post in the middle of the first wave of covid. I’m still not flying through an over abundance of caution.)

I admit, we are stay-at-home types. I didn’t use to be, but after we bought the Tree House, it seems like I never want to leave. As a result, we don’t travel much. So this last year of lock-down wasn’t a terrible hardship for us, save that we couldn’t visit our kids and they couldn’t visit us. We are really hopeful that in the coming new year, we’ll feel comfortable flying once again. (As comfortable as anyone is when flying.)

I was flipping through some old images and I chanced upon these little fantasies from a travel sketchbook from happier years. I painted the other passengers, then proceeded to while away the hours at 30,000 feet telling stories to their portraits.

I took it upon myself to be the dream giver, but one of the other passengers was my proxy model.

I would love it if my stories could have seeped into their dreams and made their flight naps more fun, more pleasant. Can art move through the membrane of time and space and spread out into dreams?