One of the best things about going on a road trip (rather than flying) is that I can take more books.

I’m going to be focusing on exploring the country towns in NSW and VIC for the next 6 weeks and my reading includes:

• History: Architecture in Australia – JM Freeland
• Style Guide: Identifying Australian Architecture – Apperly, Irving and Reynolds (I shared these two books last week here on the blog but now you all know why!)
• Ideas: Five Minute Sketching Architecture – Liz Steel 🙂

It’s hard to believe that it’s five years since I wrote my book. At the time I included a lot of ideas and tips which I wanted to do more of in my own work. So I thought that this road trip will be a great opportunity to revisit these especially as one of my goals is to document the towns I’m visiting and driving through.

At the time when the book launched, I published four articles to summarise a few important concepts in the book. It’s really fun to revisit these again now as part of my trip prep:

• 5 Minute Sketching Architecture: How to see
• 5 Minute Sketching Architecture: Looking for stories
• 5 Minute Sketching Architecture: Line and colour
• 5 Minute Sketching Architecture: Using fast tools

BTW if you have the book and want more detailed instruction and step-by-step demonstrations please check out my SketchingNow Buildings Course.

 In my own work, I think the aspect of story is the most powerful concept to focus on. By simplifying a complex building to the most important aspect of it (the story) I’m able to sketch more quickly and loosely.