Every year my friend who runs a travel agency (Shoutout to Houria Travels and events :D) plans a mystery trip. No one knows where we’re going or who else is coming until the journey has already started.
This year took us through a few stops; a pottery workshop where I made a clumsy little boat in a hostel that sparked more ghost stories than sleep 😀
Then the beautiful surprise was when we arrived to Imsfrane.. I’d been to this region four times before, but never to Dar Tawda — the hostel I’d fallen for through photos, especially the ones taken in snow. I was secretly hoping it would snow for me too. It had already melted by the time we arrived.
It was a cold night, but a warm and delicious dinner was awaiting us and we immediately forgotten the cold or the road.. We felt at home.
The next day, and after a beautiful hike up to Imsfrane (aka Cathédrale) summit (1868m), I led a workshop for the group on travel journaling using watercolor techniques where we learned how to carry places home through sketches, the way explorers always have.
I gave them the tools. I told them the stories. And was so proud to see their results and how the next day everyone was still practicing and sharing their work with me.
Then while everyone else went off to activities, I pulled a chair to face the mountain. Just me, my sketchbook, and the view.
I don’t know how long I sat there. People peeked at my sketchbook, filmed a little, left me alone. They thought I looked calm. Really I was fighting the colors, fighting my own perfectionism, fighting the fear of a blank page, quietly, the whole time.
Yet despite the struggle, painting a place on location does something the studio never can. There’s a sense of relief I cannot explain… Carrying the place with me there and then.. not in the studio, not as a memory but while the feelings are raw.. in a hurry.. under pressure.. no planning or overthinking.
Every place has a feeling.
The light at a certain hour. The air. The stillness of somewhere you’ve never been before.
I’ve been chasing those feelings on foot for as long as I can remember. And somewhere along the way I realized the only way I knew how to hold onto them was to draw them.
Not to capture them perfectly. Just to carry them home.
This is Creative Voyages — art born on trails, carried home on paper. Postcards, field notes and slow art for curious explorers.
A voyage outside and a voyage inside.
Welcome. ⚓
