In 1997 when I was just 26 and living in Bristol, I travelled to Honduras to stay with a friend who I’d shared a house with. We’re still friends now.
I have rediscovered this sketchbook because I’ve just moved house and found all my sketchbooks in the loft. And when I say all my sketchbooks, I mean ALL of them – every one since the age of 16.
I actually had to throw some away. I simply don’t have the space to keep them all. In this move I decided to ‘accept’ the fact that I am in my middle age by ‘letting go’ of some of my past (this meant dumping many sketchbooks and past letters) – However, this is one of the sketchbooks I saved.
And why? Because its a travel sketchbook (I think it might of interest to my children one day when they start thinking about venturing into the wide world). But also because I particularly like these three sketches. They are perhaps some of the most unselfconsciously ‘illustrative’ sketches I can recall doing. Linear, and playfully so. There’s a deliberate lack of precision and a conscious editing of detail in order to create a sense of the ‘otherness’ of the scene – the unEnglishness of it (I don’t know if that’s a word, but I like it!). I don’t think I often see that in my old sketches. Anyhow, I figured they deserve to be on here, so here they are.
Natalie Eldred 