Inking Abroad was born out of a creative recipe of frustration, hope and play… And we’re still tweaking the recipe!
We, the founders of Inking Abroad (Ben Crothers and Axelle Vanquaillie) are both graphic recorders, strategists, facilitators and trainers. We’ve given loads of training sessions, and done a wide range of graphic recording gigs for a wide variety of clients. We’ve also been to more than our fair share of conferences of various topics.
We’ve both always strived to elevate the experiences of people attending our training sessions, always offering something new and interesting.
There was always something missing
But when it came to our own professional enrichment, we’ve found that there was barely anything available. Both of us wanted to go way beyond the fundamentals, as well as some help in pushing ourselves creatively, and pushing our craft in ways that might show some new directions or flavours of visual storytelling.
There wasn’t any training available like this… we could only get so far with books… and as fun as conferences are, they still didn’t cut it either…
If we could wave a magic wand…
So, one day we asked each other: “If we could design our ideal experience, what would it be?” We very quickly landed on this recipe:
- Walking around in an inspiring city, or in nature
- Taking time to sketch and draw what we see
- Some advanced instruction that we could scaffold in ways that everyone could take it in a deeper direction that suited them
- A bit of individual coaching per person
- Time for all-in activities as well as individual quiet reflection
- A spirit of play, fun, and courage with like-minded souls
What emerged was – well – a retreat! After that, the first edition of the Florence Visual Storytelling Creativity Retreat came together very quickly. And full credit to Axelle for having the courage to just go ahead and do it.
The rest is what you see on our Florence retreat page now. We do everything we can to use each city as the canvas for creative exploration, to show the city’s own story, and create the best environment we can to help everyone be as adventurous and creative as possible.
It’s something we find more and more fulfilling. Here’s to continuing to tweak that recipe!