When you don't feel like starting anything, grab 4 or 5 poor sketches and try to fix them. Use contrast, color, focal point. Great review: two may get better, while 3 get worse, but they weren't good anyway. Great review of the importance of the basics.

The difference is words. The addition of words doubles the meaning. Date the entry. Leave space for words that tell what's important. Can be extremely personal and a private journal just for you. Can be a shared travel journal. Greeting cards as a travel journal. Also, how to pick a paper that will work with the pen.

No timer needed. You've paid for it, you're hungry and it's getting cold. Start with a mark and possibly include any background. It's ephemeral, fast and fun. A bit about drinking and sketching.

For extreme speed, go with just grey scale or use color for only the focal point. Convert a colored photo. No expensive equipment is needed: just "miles on the brush". Your pen will allow the grey scale made famous by Ansel Adams. You have a huge range of effect.

Because you can't always go somewhere, why not relive the best places? Using a photo from your travel, isolate focal points and sketch only one. Always use the timer to stay within 25 minutes. (Architecture takes an extra 5 minutes.) As your mind can visualize only one thing at a time, you will escape into the trip. When you review your sketch, you will remember far more than is in the photo. This is a fabulous meditation.

Too much 'stuff' will wreak anything and take too much time. Find what caught your eye. Stay within 25 minutes. The sketch will remind you of everything you didn't sketch right down to the smells.

Find a photo of a painting or sketch you like. There is a reason you like it, usually subliminal. Copy it in 25 minutes or less. In the process you will find out why you picked it and how it was made. You will incorporate this in your own work in the future.

Using an area already wet with water, scrape with any tool to clear an area. We used a credit card to clear rocks in a stream, then the end of the pen lid to scrape out bushes and trees. Thumb nails work well as scrapers.

John Singer Sargent, and others in the 1800s used a candle stub for wax as a resist. It is perfect for wind on water, bright reflections, and trees against the sky. Can be done in layers, holding each color as you build layers. It is never messy and is archival so you don't remove it.