Put Some Color in Your Cycling Adventure Journal

Cycling is a wheelhouse for creativity. It’s easy to notice things from the saddle—without a windshield, without reservations. I’m not new to documenting my adventures: I’m a photographer and writer. When traveling solo in Southeast Asia for six months, I filled three journals and carried dozens of rolls of slide film around wherever I went.

Since shifting my adventures to cycle touring, the pace at which I roll gives me time to think. Thus, I’ve also been writing while riding, sometimes even stopping on the side of the road to write or talk to my phone notes app. I like jotting the details of my journeys: the rambling river, the fragrant roadside vegetation. Once, I paused to memorialize the flattened dragonflies, whose golden wings shimmer on the pavement on the right side of the white line. My paper adventure journal (typically a Moleskine Cahier Journal) often contains rudimentary sketches or maps, lines and dashes, chicken scratches of places, points of interest, and items that piqued my curiosity. I make a sketch where words fail or are otherwise too slow.

I’m relatively new to watercolor, but a Pocket Palette from Art Toolkit now accompanies me on every adventure. In the fall of 2020, a friend brought an extra paint palette on our bike overnight trip and provided me with a quick tutorial. I was hooked. A month later, I treated myself to a birthday gift of a small set of supplies, including the Mini Aquash Water Brush, from Maria Coryell-Marin and her team at Art Toolkit across the Sound in Port Townsend. I haven’t looked back!

My friend helped me fill my pans with paint, allowing me to choose from her huge stash of colors. “It’s not about replicating what you see; it’s a tool to help bring memories back,” that friend said. “Because you sat and looked, you remember more sensory feelings than if you had just taken a photo.”

It’s true. I’ve learned to linger, listen, and love where I am when I sketch.

To keep my skills up and practice paying attention to my life off the bike, I participated in #HomeboundSketches, where the prompts invited me to look at details of home, little vignettes of living. Inktober gave me another way to practice and create connections again with words and watercolor. I could play with techniques and experiment freely. Later, I learned from online tutorials from Max Romey, an Art Toolkit Ambassador, and learned more techniques from John Muir Laws about nature journaling, which, in some ways, as a trained naturalist and science educator, I’ve always done.

My sketches don’t take a long time. I can be quick and learned to start small. A whole scene can be overwhelming or takes too much time. So, I begin with an object—a shell, bike gear, a favorite piece of clothing, or a small scene. I work on just an ⅛ of a 12x18 watercolor paper, as I’ve folded those student grade sheets into two mini accordion booklets. This format gives me the freedom to go beyond the page, spill into the next one, and present scenes as if in a scroll.

Incidentally, I did my master’s thesis on scrolls as science journals. A bonus to these folded works, this orihon or concertina, is that they can stand up to be presented. When I’m bike touring, I like to document the landscape, clever road signs, a notable meal, and, since I’m finishing the Pacific Coast Highway as I write this piece, the ocean. Maria herself said, “A picture says a thousand words, and it doesn’t hurt to add a few, too.” I’m a fan of all sorts of documentation of the journey, and I’m glad I have a colorful way to do that. Ride on, write on, right on.

~ Jessica Levine


Thank you, Jessica, for taking us along for the ride! We love sharing stories like yours, of adventure, wonder, observation, and delight. Follow Jessica on Instagram, and follow these links for features and articles by and about Jessica and her travels by bike.