The Power of the Sketchbook

Part II: Expeditionary Art

Looking Down Yosemite Valley Albert Bierstadt

Perhaps the single most important tool of the traveling artist is the sketchbook. In the days before the development of a portable camera, artists were hired to accompany exploration surveys of new or remote lands to capture visually what words could not. Conditions in the field and the need to be constantly on the move made the sketchbook the primary repository of travel experience. In the hands of accomplished artists, like those profiled below, beautiful and detailed pencil or charcoal studies could be made rather quickly. Watercolor was the natural choice for a coloring medium because of its portability and this was often layered over the top of these sketches to record the colors of the terrain. Additional field notes were usually made alongside these sketches, which could then serve as the basis for larger oil paintings executed later in the comfort of the studio.

Many of these artist-explorers were hired bec…