UNLOCKED Brighton Vlog & Summer Sketchbook Tour 2024

A proper CHUNKY video and chat

2025

Hello friends!

A year ago, I went on a solo creative weekend to Brighton to visit my friend, and to meet with the wonderful

Beth Spencer

Sarah Dyer and

Emma Carpendale

.

Over the course of the trip, and for the rest of the Summer, I filled this Pith Cara Cara Sketchbook.

I keep a select number of my Sketchbook Tours for paid only members, because it allows me to get personal, vulnerable, rambly and intimate. At the time of filming, I needed the private space to share rather than it be too public.

Now, a year on, I was reflecting back on the work I made. I’m having a sort of ‘mid year creative reflection’ on everything right now, and looking back to sketchbooks of last year is so helpful.

So this is a little gift to you all to enjoy: a rather long video, but hopefully an insightful one.

Grab some cake, a beverage and your favourite cosy spot - and enjoy!

Note: I have so many Sketchbooks filled since then, and am planning to film them ‘properly’ for YouTube, to serve as an archive of work. Those will be less intimate, and more suitable for a wider audience - but if you like my rambly personal chat - jump into the paid membership and binge watch the back catalogue. There’s so much to dive into!

Pith Cara Cara and my Summer gouache palette became good friends

2024

The rest of this post is as is was written a year ago…

The Pith Cara Cara is my new love in Sketchbook form. I know, everyone goes on about the Pith, you must be sick of hearing about it. But everything they say is TRUE! It proved to be the perfect travel companion: just the right size for lap drawing, sitting on grass drawing, desk drawing and for coffee shop drawing. Never too big to feel clunky, never too small for ‘cramped hands in awkward spaces’. It held all the materials I wanted to use with ease, and the dreaminess of how flat it lays…Oh Cara Cara, you’re the ONE!

A summer family day out, captured in gouache and pencil

The video takes you to Brighton with me. The purpose of the trip was a self styled creative retreat of sorts, and I had a clear objective of structuring my time to allow maximum focus on my creative work, and of ‘filling my cup’ with dear friends. I also just needed to be ‘home’ for a bit (UK), and to be with old friends and some new!

In the sketchbook you’ll see:

• My approach to planning colour for the trip

• On location drawings and paint sketches

• Continued sketches that I worked from photos on back after the trip

• Capturing the rest of summer with the family

• A lot of chat and reflecting on the work

What happens when you give yourself permission to draw and sketch anything you want, any way you want to, in your ‘perfect sketchbook?’ This video is my answer to that question - and I think I’ve (almost) filled it in record time!

I know it’s a long one! Stick with me! I would LOVE to know what you think.

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