It was September, 2021 and I was meeting up with my husband, Reuben, for an eagerly anticipated long-weekend in Paris.

I decided to take along a small travel set of watercolours and a sketchbook no bigger than my handbag. At the time, I had no idea that this simple decision would profoundly change the way I experience the world.

Arriving in such an iconic city was both exhilarating and overwhelming. Everywhere I turned, breathtaking architecture demanded attention. Ornate facades, hidden courtyards, grand boulevards and centuries of history seemed to compete for my gaze. The sheer abundance of beauty felt almost paralysing.

Where does one even begin?

Fortunately, I had anticipated this feeling. Before leaving home, I had already distressed the pages of my sketchbook, adding layers of spray-painted texture and weathered marks to remove the intimidating perfection of a pristine blank page. The pressure to create something “good” had already been softened.

Permission to Play

It didn’t take long to realise something liberating: no one was watching. This sketchbook was not destined for an exhibition wall. It wasn’t fodder for social media. It was simply for me.

A place to pause.

A place to pay attention.

A place to play.

As I sat on street corners, café terraces and park benches, I began making quick, imperfect sketches—capturing not exact representations, but fleeting impressions and emotional responses to the city around me.

Instead of rushing from landmark to landmark, collecting hundreds of photographs I might never look at again, I found myself slowing down. Observing. Noticing. I became less concerned with seeing everything and more interested in truly seeing something.

Falling in Love Again

And so I took the leap. Brush in hand, I began recording fragments of a city that had first captured the imagination of my fourteen-year-old self many years before.

Paris had once enchanted me as a teenager. This time, through the pages of a sketchbook, it captured my heart all over again.

And now I am completely hooked.

A Different Way of Seeing

Since that transformative weekend in France, I have now try my best to travel everywhere with a sketchbook close at hand. What began as a creative experiment has become a way of life.

Sketching has trained me to see the world through an entirely different lens—one coloured by curiosity, gratitude, awe and wonder. It has reshaped my relationship with everyday moments and ordinary places.

Red traffic lights no longer automatically send me reaching for my phone. Congested city streets have become opportunities rather than inconveniences. I find myself looking for intriguing intersections, weathered facades, unexpected colour combinations and architectural details that invite a second glance.

The world has become infinitely more interesting.

Becoming an Architect of Hope

In many ways, this practice has become my way of being an architect of hope.

Every day we are confronted by stories of brokenness, division and uncertainty. It is easy to allow these realities to dominate our attention.

Sketching offers me a gentle act of resistance.

It encourages me to seek out beauty rather than overlook it. To celebrate what is life-giving, meaningful and lovely. To notice the extraordinary gifts hidden beneath the cloak of ordinariness.

The beauty was always there. I simply needed to learn how to see it.

An Invitation

My hope is that these sketchbooks do more than document places. I hope they invite others into this way of seeing too.

To slow down.

To pay attention.

To rediscover a sense of wonder.

To cultivate gratitude for the small, often overlooked moments that quietly enrich our lives.

Because beauty is rarely absent from our world.

More often, it is simply waiting to be noticed.

(P.S. My latest sketchbook celebrates the less-travelled, less-touristed side of Cape Town’s remarkable cityscapes. If you haven’t already explored it, I’d love you to check out my socials and discover these familiar streets through fresh eyes.)