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My sketchbook is a constant companion on business trips and vacations, most recently on a San Francisco to New York Amtrak journey. The majority of these sketches were drawn on site, often with details completed later, such as trees, shadows and textures, frequently in a hotel room or on an airplane. Others were sketched based on photographs and notes made on site, when there was no adequate time to sketch. The more successful images, I think, are those drawn on site, with time constraints. With too much time, it is easy to draw too much. While most of these sketches are fairly detailed, the simpler, quicker sketches are often the more successful and often most descriptive … drawing only enough to capture the essence of the subject.

These one hundred sketches are arranged in chronological order. The actual sizes of the sketches vary, but are reproduced here at approximately two-thirds actual size. Many of these sketches were completed during family trips and vacations. There are references in the descriptions to my three children, Ashley, Tyler and Turner, and their mother, Marilyn. They may recognize some of these sketches from family trips.

I rarely look at old photographs I have taken, but quite often I look through my sketchbooks. The few seconds spent taking a photograph are rarely remembered, but I will always remember the circumstances and time spent drawing these images.

It is easy to draw a line, or a series of lines, on a piece of paper. Drawing those lines in such a way that they capture the essence of a subject is a different matter. Those lines require much more thought; those lines must be carefully placed.