Irish illustrator Harriet Yakub has discovered an innovative approach to conquering one of artists' most common fears: the intimidating blank page. After three years of living in the Netherlands, Yakub decided to return to her hometown of Dublin, but not before embarking on a transformative solo journey through East Asia armed with nothing more than colored pencils and a simple notebook.
The Dublin native deliberately packed minimal art supplies for her travels, carrying only a pencil case filled with Prismacolor pencils, a sharpener, a notebook, and a rubber eraser that could only remove light strokes. "I didn't want to bring too much with me, but wanted to ground myself in physical work as I'd been yearning for it for a long time," Yakub explained. This intentional restriction proved to be the key to overcoming her creative paralysis.
Yakub had long struggled with the overwhelming possibilities that a blank page presented. "Sometimes when I look at a blank page I feel like I have too much opportunity and then do nothing," she admitted. However, the combination of constantly changing scenery and limited material choices during her travels helped reduce that creative pressure. With a different view every day and no choice of materials except for the pencils in hand, the decision-making process became simpler and more instinctual.
The journey wasn't without its initial challenges. Yakub recalls feeling tentative when first starting her travel notebook, a hesitation that becomes visible when examining the progression of her work. "I was quite nervous to start, cautious with strokes and colors and afraid I'd ruin a page. It didn't have the energy of my digital work, but it had something new and I wanted to get to know it," she reflected. The notebook's early pages reveal this uncertainty, appearing light, sparse, and disjointed compared to her later, more confident work.
As Yakub continued her travels, her artistic confidence grew substantially. The notebook's pages gradually became fuller, with bolder colors and a noticeable loss of hesitation. "It just took practice and learning to trust myself again," she noted. The transformation is evident in the progression from tentative initial sketches to dynamic, energetic drawings that capture the essence of her experiences across East Asia.
The notebook opens with a collection of stickers and stamps that Yakub gathered from fruit vendors, shops, and festivals during her journey, serving as a colorful introduction to her adventures. The pages then transition into vivid drawings of sandy Korean beaches, streetside signs and symbols from Taiwan, and the bright, bustling convenience stores of Japan. Each sketch serves as a visual diary entry, documenting not just the places she visited but her emotional response to them.
One particularly memorable moment occurred while riding Tokyo's metro system, when Yakub noticed a group of young schoolgirls and began sketching them. The children quickly became aware of her artistic attention and started an impromptu game of peek-a-boo, playfully hiding behind their school hats while stealing glances at the foreign artist. Rather than taking a photograph, which felt intrusive, Yakub chose to capture the moment through her drawings, sketching each child individually and documenting the various emotions and moments within their lighthearted game.
This experience proved to be a breakthrough moment for Yakub's artistic development. "The drawing is rough and mostly gestural, but in that moment I felt like I unlocked the sense that things don't have to be picture perfect," she explained. "I didn't always get the faces right, but I captured the feeling." Her distinctive technique of layering multiple lines gives each drawing a sense of energy and movement, enhancing the impression that each sketch is a snapshot of a moment frozen in time.
Yakub's artistic approach during the trip involved a careful curation process, selecting only the most meaningful moments to commit to paper. "Looking back at what I chose to draw, it felt like my personal collection of moments, things I picked out of millions I saw and thousands of pictures I took. I only had so many pages and so much time, so I captured my top things," she reflected. This selective process became a form of self-discovery, helping her understand her artistic preferences and personal aesthetic on a deeper level.
The travel sketching experience served as more than just artistic practice; it became a form of introspection and self-exploration. Yakub views the completed notebook as a visualization of the time and mental space she had to look inward during her travels. "In that, I started to see myself and got to know what I like on a deeper level," she said, describing how the process of choosing what to draw revealed aspects of her personality and artistic vision that had been obscured by digital work and professional obligations.
Now back in Dublin and working in a branding office, Yakub has been permanently influenced by her analog artistic experience. Inspired by her time traveling and sketching, she has rented a personal studio space where she can continue working with physical materials. She's even considering working at a larger scale in the future, determined to keep what she calls "that analogue fire burning" as she balances her commercial design work with her personal artistic practice.
Yakub's story demonstrates how creative limitations can paradoxically lead to greater artistic freedom. Her experience suggests that sometimes the best way to overcome creative blocks is not to add more options, but to purposefully restrict them, allowing the artist to focus on the essential elements of their craft and rediscover the joy of creating without the pressure of infinite possibilities.
