Travelodge - sketch and travel in Folkestone
What and how did I sketch during trips to Folkestone, a beautiful coastal town?
In August I visited Folkestone twice (one day-trip and one staying for a night), and it has become one of my favourite coastal towns in England.
1/ A coffee shop with a lot of books: Steep Street Coffee
There are lots of cafes with books and Steep Street Coffee is one of them. With a lot of customers inside I decided to sketch them first as they could leave suddenly, and when sketching humans it is inevitable that there will be new people coming in too. That's why the sketch can include people showing up in different times, which is also possible in photos thanks to double/multiple exposure. I accept this happens because it's not necessary to be perfectly realistic or accurate when sketching.
Although I don't do draft before sketching, I do have rough plans before drawing: I will need to consider how big the area I need to capture, and use my finger to see how large the related objects and humans will be, and then go for it.
Sketching in a crowded environment can be disruptive: by the people moving around, by the noise, by the complex elements in an environment... you name it. That's why we are reluctant to sketch sometimes. You can refer to Why are we reluctant to sketch (sometimes)? How can we cope with it? to see my explanations in details and ways of how to deal with the challenges.
2/ Folkestone Harbour station
Folkestone used to have a railway station next to the sea so that passengers could transfer to their ships to Paris. Now they no longer have that rail-sea-rail service and kept it as a public space with bars and food courts nearby.
I pictured when a train (even the high speed train I took) got here, and believed that it should be the most beautiful train station on the planet. There are still carriages preserved and they now have a new life as a restaurant providing oysters. Thus I have an idea to sketch the station trying to include the harbour arm and the lighthouse.
The weather was a bit hot that day, especially the sun was behind me, and I decided to stand rather than sit. Not too much distraction as not too many people walking through. A little bit of "fish-eye" technique was applied in an attempt to put all the elements I want.
3/ Low tide
The third sketch in my day trip. As the daytime was still long in early August, I grabbed the chance to do it after dinner. What attracted me to draw was the low tide: when I just arrived at the coast around 2pm it was still full of water, and it was dried out within a few hours!
4/ Guesthouse
As I love Folkestone so much, I decided to have another trip but stayed for a night in a single room of a quality, affordable and friendly guesthouse. The room especially bathroom is so small but everything is spotless and comfortable.
Drawing in a bird view perspective is always a challenge because I have to show everything in one sketch! In order to achieve the goal I have to find an “angle” showing three sides of the room. I started from the bed and then the ensuite bathroom and finally the chair, radiator and the artwork.
I spent around an hour finishing the drawing, but spent around 40 minutes for annotation because I had an idea to measure the length of the shower, TV and the artwork. As I don’t have any ruler, the only way was to use a stock iPhone app called Measure with AR technology, although I couldn’t expect it to be accurate.
5/ Harbour Coffee Co
I sketched the harbour arm when I drew the railway station, but didn't do the white cliff side to Dover until I visited a coffee shop close to the coast called Harbour Coffee Co. Even though I could sit outdoors and I had two jackets, the weather was so windy that I still felt chilly and had to stay inside, but because of that I was able to include some customers in the sketching.
I always prefer sketching people first followed by still objects and landscape most likely to avoid overlapping in my sketch, however they can be included during the process if I still have space to do so. The customer on the bottom left is an example.
After finishing everything I want, I tried to sketch the clouds. To be honest I am still learning to capture them as they have so many shapes and they are keeping moving. Birds too! Although the easiest way is to take photos, I wanted to train my memory and tried to capture with a few lines.
6/ The Pilot Beach Bar
Being a coastal town, it's always enjoyable to have a beer near the sea during the dusk. There are some bars at the beach but the best setting is in The Pilot Beach Bar which has a lot of wooden deck beach chairs facing the ocean.
I ordered a half pint on the first evening, however I later realized they closed at 7pm weekdays. Thankfully I could have another attempt on Friday as it would close two hours later.
The weather was just too windy, by the way I still did the sketching. As usual I started with people, and thankfully my decision was correct because they left so early. I still managed to include everything I want, while I felt I was too greedy to include too many things in a piece of drawing. Maybe next time I will sketch two instead giving more context and story instead. Let's see if I can find another lovely beach bar in other city or town.
In total I did 6 pieces. 3 in the first day trip and another 3 in two days. It seems like the first trip was more productive than the latest, but sketching is a creative activity while we are always tempted by the quantity.
Life is always uneven with ups and downs while humans always dream of the best average (stable all the time). Creativity is something not necessarily in quantity or quality but it's something that can spark our joy and even satisfaction. It can happen unexpectedly that makes us love. Thus it is not a big deal that you can find anything to sketch, and it is okay to not sketch anything in a trip.
