At the start of this month I took a couple of day off from sketching Davis and went to San Francisco for an overnighter. I took the train down as you do, the Amtrak to Emeryville, followed by the Amtrak bus over the Bay Bridge. And because I’m on the train for an hour and a half I have to draw it, even though I’ve drawn it before about a million times. In fact you know what, I was going to tell you about my trip to San Francisco but I’ve decided I’d rather bore you with a bit of trainspotting. Here are my other Amtrak sketches, or as many as I could find, the story of sketching just to pass the time. Training in perspective.
And some other trains elsewhere in the world…
And that is quite enough scrolling through train sketches for today.
petescully 
Great to see the journey through sketches
Cheers! Seeing them all together makes me feel like I’m on the train still
Drawing puts me back into a place far more effectively than photographs
Fabulous! You’re sketches really show the feeling of the journeys you’ve made. :-)
Cheers!
Love the one done on the timetable :) And the different views out of the windows – hard to capture when you’re moving! The Virgin train and the London tube are instantly recognisable – amazing subtle differences between train nationalities…
Yeah, the view changes by the time I get to add the paint so you gotta be quick. The timetable one was fun, the paper was easier to draw on than the newer Capitol Corridor timetables (bit too glossy).
great; now my wife and I will probably start another summer of short-hops by train. ha! Brought me back instantly to riding the train in southern California, and mid-Atlantic region (DC to Baltimore). We both love trains. How we got around Ireland a couple years ago. There’s a lot to sketch in San Diego should you pass this way.
I was down in San Diego last year actually, family vacation. Didn’t get downtown though, but the zoo was amazing. Yeah I love the train journeys, the one down the coast to Santa Barbara was a lot of fun. When I was 22 I took five weeks around Europe on the trains…that was an experience! I wish I had been sketching more then…
I was in Ireland a couple of years ago, the only train we took was the DART from Dublin to Bray, and they kept repeating the phrase “Please Keep Your Feet Off The Seats” over the tannoy in English and Irish, over and over. Me and my son are still repeating it now!
I am always inspired by those sketches made during travels.
I am planning also to do the same on my blog.
Yes, travel sketching is fun! I sketch inside planes as well, and I got bored of that at one point, but I like to look back at them, the sketches are filled with the anticipation of the journey (also notes to myself reminding me never to fly United again…)