Hard to believe it’s already several days into 2016. I had a great holiday trip to Florida–got to hang out with family in the beautiful, warm weather and missed the crazy rainstorm that drenched the midwest with massive amounts of water.

The thing I love most about traveling, aside from trying tasty local foods, is getting to experience a new environment for the first time. There are so many interesting things that surround us but unless I’m actively making myself notice my environment I find myself becoming desensitized to my everyday surroundings. Going some place new jolts me into noticing things again and it’s nice to feel new-ness of it all. I kept a visual journal while traveling just because I wanted to keep giving myself things to sketch, but I think it also really helped cement some of the experiences in my head. Normally everything seems like a whirlwind whenever I travel because the days are so full, but taking time everyday to sit and reflect on what I did that day made everything stick with me a little more.

Finally got a chance to capture some beautiful sunsets. We went to the beach and a couple of parks and got to see a lot of great scenery. I added my favorite shot from the trip to my Etsy shop, a photo of the ocean waves meeting the sky in the horizon just before the sun went down.

I’ve still been working a bit on the other Scooter Trek sketches. If you follow my Tumblr blog, you know I did a test sketch using both my limited palette of Copic and Prismacolor markers. I’m sure there is a way to use these markers together well, but not with the colors I had. The Prismacolors are so much more saturated in general and I was using pretty pale copic colors so they just did not work well in combination. Everything became so washed out compared to what I colored in using the Prismacolors. I did really like the way the Copic markers blended, so I think I’m going to invest in a few more so I actually have a decent set of colors to work with.

For the record, I also tried out a Blick Studio Brush marker, which is basically the same as the Copics and a lot cheaper in price. I really didn’t notice too much difference between them, but I did read a review where someone complained the Blick brush markers were smellier and gave them a headache. In my opinion, they did have a stronger smell, but it wasn’t like opening up a some of those really nasty smelling permanent markers. I honestly didn’t notice until I read that review and then gave each marker a small sniff. As long as you don’t draw with your nostrils right next to the marker, it’s probably not going to be that noticeable. Either way, I plan on getting a set of these as well just because they are so much more affordable and I can have a few more colors that will work better with the Copics and I’d also like to do a better comparison later on.

Looking forward to what 2016 brings me! I’m going to try and fill it with as much sketching and photography as possible!