Artists say travel sketches like these express more meaning than a digital picture because they capture the artist's emotions. Photo: Courtesy of Yi Lin

Artists say travel sketches like these express more meaning than a digital picture because they capture the artist's emotions. Photo: Courtesy of Yi Lin

Thanks to advanced technology, one can instantly and accurately record eye-catching scenes with the click of a digital camera or a mobile phone. Practically every moment - every meal, every mundane interaction, every breath, even - is captured this way, leaving people with thousands of photos digitally stored away. However, artists like Zhao Peng are calling into question how many people actually go back and look at these photos, let alone recall the moments they photographed.

Zhao, 26, is a cartoon illustrator from Zhejiang Province who goes by the name of Satan. He has long abandoned the use of a camera when traveling, instead choosing to bring along a sketch pad, pens and a set of watercolors. His expertise lies in drawing ancient architecture, and when he traveled to Lijiang in Yunnan Province, he spent entire afternoons sitting quietly, illustrating the buildings he liked.

"In the digital era, camera lenses have replaced the eyes through which we perceive the world," Zhao said. "I used to not have much patience when observing a place, but drawing pictures made me slow down."

Sketching and painting landscapes and other scenes when traveling has grown popular among a group of artists and everyday journeyers in China who prioritize slowing down. These artists choose the pencil or paintbrush over a camera for different reasons, but they all aim to do one thing: to give meaning to their images in a way that couldn't be done with a photograph. 

Recently, a series of color pencil sketches of hutong areas and scenic spots in Beijing have gone viral on the Internet. The sketches come from the book 500 Colors of Travel, by Zhang Jieke.

"The colorful paintings, featuring buildings like the Drum and Bell Towers, Baihu Hutong and Beijing Railway Station, help people rediscover the beauty of the city, especially during a time when its colors can often be dominated by gray as the result of being shrouded in smog," Zhang said. 

When weather permits, Zhang draws his pictures on blue sky days.

"Beijing has fewer days with blue skies than before," he said. "I hope the bright and plentiful color in my sketches will remind people how to better protect the city we live in."

Local lifestyles that might otherwise go unnoticed are also captured by these illustrators. Yi Lin, author of the illustration album Go to Macao with Me, humanizes stationary scenarios by vividly illustrating people on the streets. In Macao, an old woman making almond cake became a protagonist in her paintings.

"Photos taken by digital cameras look almost the same, but sketches are more personalized because they express the emotions of the artist," Yi said. "For example, if a building is being sketched by two artists, the foreground and background may be different because the artists can cut out or add in items according to what catches their eye in the scene. Each picture records the unique moment between the artist and the place."

 Amateur fine arts enthusiasts are joining in. On the online community douban.com, more than 96,900 people belong to the group "Travel Sketching." Sketches and drawings are shared by Net users through this group.

Zeng Zheng, 32, began sketching landscape pictures when he traveled to Anhui Province in 2013 after he became obsessed with Hui-style ancient architecture.

Unlike using a camera, painting and sketching require basic training in fine arts. Zeng, who only studied drawing when he was little, discovered he could not draw exceptional pictures.   

"I would still like to learn how to sketch and use a pen to watch and depict the world," he said.

Inspired by Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known as "Grandma Moses", who was known for painting realist scenes of American country life, Zeng said it was never too late for him to start.

Moses, after all, began painting when she was 76 years old.