SKETCHES/SKETCHBOOKS

AFRICA 2025 SAFARI JOURNAL

On our recent trip my husband and I and a few friends went to Africa for photographing and to sketch. We were a small group safari of six with Wilderness Travel to Zimbabwe’s green season and Botswana with Wilderness Travel organizing our whole 16 day adventure. It was a naturalist filled expedition with a focus on supporting community conservation projects, led by a brilliant guide Vusa Ncube. There was abundant wildlife viewing including many young ones and of course, beautiful tented camps and lodges for our stays. We flew to our locations in bush planes. Everyday we had wonderful light for photography and sketching. Besides the game viewing drives, we did two visits and amazing walks with the endangered white rhinos in the Hwange Rhino Sanctuary and learned about the various conservation projects in the local community and county. Most supported also by Imvelo, the local safari company, from building wells and solar panels to ball fields, schools and hospitals. And we had time to explore the Zambezi River and majestic Victoria Falls. In Botswana we explored the Okavango Delta from the Moremi Game Reserve with Camp Xananka as our home base for four days and then spent two days at Chobe National Park. There was so much wildlife in the Delta. It kept us busy trying to capture them all with photos and sketches. I started my sketchbook with water color and ink maps I drew of where we were going before the trip began and I planned two to four pages per camp for the drawings I would draw on site. Oh, and an unplanned part of this trip was that I ended up wearing a blue sling on my left arm the whole safari! On the way to Africa, I ended up in the ER in Atlanta as I tripped and fell with my 20 pound back running to catch the next leg of our trip. The nice ER doctor informed me I fractured my arm. Crazy!