Artist-led Greece tour inspires traveller to sketch every trip, reviving grand tour tradition

Since travelling with Teresa Lawrence on a Luxe Sailing making art in Greece tour, the author takes a sketchbook and watercolours everywhere. Slow observational drawing revives the 17th to 19th century grand tour habit and changes how places are remembered. Since travelling last year with Geelong-based artist Teresa Lawrence, who collaborates with Luxe Sailing on making art in Greece tours, I have taken a sketchbook and watercolours on every trip. It was one of the best experiences of my life. The practice revives a 17th to 19th century tradition. Young British aristocrats once set off on a grand tour of Europe, sometimes spending months meandering between cities, and many carried a sketchbook or an easel and paints. Touring was seen as an enlightening cultural experience that let travellers absorb European art, considered superior to art at home. Grand tourists believed that sitting for long periods, sketching classical sculpture and architecture, and writing detailed diaries would give a moral education. It was meant to improve their tastes, intellectual habits and manners. With no cameras, the sketches and paintings from these journeys served as postcards and ways to pin down memories. Modern habits tell a different story. The camera killed sketching, and the selfie killed the appreciation of a monument or artefact for itself. People like to get themselves in the frame. During the tour, I sat in a cafe in the town of Oitylo and made a watercolour sketch of its ceiling covered in frescoes of angels. I find it calming to slow down and draw what I am seeing. It is better than photographing a place and filing it away with tens of thousands of other images in my phone, never to be looked at again. I did not imagine I would have the chance in a busy travel schedule to sit and draw, but now I make time for it each day if I can. It is addictive. Back home, I flip through my little Fabriano notebook and feel far more connected to the place through my own funny little interpretations than through the camera's. It is a new skill and a source of profound pleasure. I am not just consuming a thing or place; I am making something original out of it. Drawing and other crafts can be immensely satisfying as an antidote to all the fakery around us. Short holidays, especially weekends, are welcome circuit-breakers and a kind of rest and relaxation with family and friends. But another kind of travel uses the break to develop a skill, learn a craft, or practise an art that gives pleasure. Longevity experts say challenging the brain throughout life with unfamiliar tasks helps keep it sharp. Learning complex things such as a new language or musical instrument can slow cognitive ageing. People undervalue creative moments: time to dream, to sing, or to make something non-essential such as a pottery sculpture or a painting. Many people feel they have no time, or say they are not creative. That is not true. We are all creative; it is part of our human makeup, and our frontal lobes produce new thoughts. Being creative simply means putting something new, even if only new to you, into the world, whether it is an idea or a knitted sock. People with a good life-work balance often do something extra with their hands and minds for pleasure, whether knitting, sewing, embroidering, carving or making pottery. On precious weekends away, the message is to get creative: go solo or with friends, and learn a skill that brings the fulfilment of making something yourself. There are dozens of retreats and artisan-guided tours across Australia and the world. For painters, one Australian company offers an intensive selection of artist-led tours for short breaks and longer overseas travel. Travelling with a professional artist and teacher such as Teresa kickstarted my new passion. I came back with a whole new way of seeing the places where I travel, not a small thing after 40 years of it. I know it is very 18th century of me, but I think the grand tourists and their slow travels had it all figured out. The writer was a guest of Luxe Sailing.