When travelling, I always carry a sketchbook and spend a lot of time looking at the ground, searching for small objects to draw. The sketchbooks have become a source of material for later works, and instantly revive memories, taking me back to some wild, remote places. Below are pages from some of my most recent sketchbooks.
Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia, July 2024
New South Wales and Victoria, 2022-23
Queensland 2022
New South Wales 2020
anna warren portfolio 
These are beautiful sketches, so fresh! Thanks for sharing!
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Thank you so much – I do love doing them, they form a good memory bank.
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I just had to revisit this section of your portfolio. Again as I was looking I thought “fresh”. You are so light with your approach, it’s really beautiful to wander your work, thank you again for sharing all of this.
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Thank you Cathe, I aways appreciate your comments, and always enjoy visiting your blog too.
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Great work Anna, such a wonderful resource!
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Thanks Richard – I come back to the sketchbooks regularly for inspiration and ideas. They are also a good opportunity for loose work, most of my other work is very tight!
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these are brilliant sketches! keep going.
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Thank you Jo – I sometimes have to push myself to get started, but then its hard to stop. I find them a great memory bank, as generally I only sketch when travelling.
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glad I found your blog – we are not alone 🙂
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Likewise – I love your work!
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Having a little more of a peep at your work Anna 😉
What mountain of bountiful sketch books you must have !
Funnily enough I was having a try out with some shells yesterday … yours are gorgeous .
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There is something about shells isn’t there? I can’t resist them, even when I have drawn similar ones before! The pile of sketchbooks is slowly growing, but I only really do them when I travel. We are doing a big camping trip later in the year so hopefully there will be more!
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Thank you for stopping by and following my blog. It’s so wonderful to discover your work. I particularly love the loose, free quality of your sketch books!
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Thank you! I was amazed at your work, the beauty of the images that you are creating, I look forward to seeing more!
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Hi Anna, I really liked your sketchbook, so much eye for detail! great!
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Thank you so much! I do like all the little things, sometimes they can sum an place up.
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That’s so true how sketches take one back to the places visited. When I look through my art from on location, I can remember sounds, scents, colors, what the weather was like, who I talked to, what animals I saw, etc. It’s such a great activity simply for keeping memories alive.
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You are so right – its astonishing what comes back to you when you go back through a sketchbook. It really does keep memories alive. I think the act of drawing somehow cements them in the brain!
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Anna, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you’ve published any of your books. I would love to be able to leaf through them at will! Such gorgeous work. You inspire and humble me with your skill and imagination and the sensitivity of your handling of subjects and materials all the time.
xo,
Kathryn
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I have never thought of publishing the books Kathryn, I really didn’t think they would be of interest to anyone else! I will think about it though.
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I can’t imagine you haven’t been pestered constantly for this! One way to go about it would be to do a print-to-order kind of publication; one of the many online companies that do photo books and vanity publications would probably even have a template into which you could insert your images and text, maybe much of it simply altered from blog posts, without huge effort on your part, and then you could offer it through your blog and any other channels to subscribers and friends and whomever. If you do it that way, you don’t have to go through the agonies of finding a publisher/publicist/manager/marketer team, and the book doesn’t necessarily require the same sort of up-front expenses. I used Amazon’s publishing system (CreateSpace) to do my book, and while that one’s not nearly as beautiful quality a book version as one of the sites like Blurb or Shutterfly would have, I opted to go with the least expensive thing I could offer ($12 USD) just to get it ‘out there’ for my first try. The next one will be full color, and probably hardcover as well, but I may still go with Amazon merely because they have such wide distribution channels. We shall see. I have friends who use the aforementioned alternative services, where the books are much more pricy, but the quality is lovely and they still don’t have to buy minimum inventory at great cost.
In any event, your work is so gorgeous that it deserves not only a much wider readership but also a long-term format like a physical book to showcase it. My subscribers are relatively few in number, but I’ll gladly give you a shout-out in a post any time if you decide to offer any books. Small but free advertising! 🙂
xoxoxo,
Kath
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You have inspired me to really investigate this Kath! Thanks for all this great information. I will be home in about a week and am going to follow up your ideas. I think it could work – I’ll keep you posted! Xxx
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Cheers, hip-hurrah, and (as some are heard to say on this side of the pond) Yippee Skippy!!! 😀
xo
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😀😉😊
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