This was a 10 minute sketch this morning – part of my new regime- walk and sketch. I turn up to work 30 minutes early and go for a 20 minute walk, stopping for a 10 minute sketch along the way. The walk gets the blood moving (we are just coming out of winter and I feel the cold) and the sketch gets my creative juices pumping… what a great way to start the day. I have sketched this building before – a brutalist landmark in Crows Nest, Sydney.

I still can’t control what the colour will be like (you can’t do anything if you put on darker colour) but you can layer and layer to your hearts content…(pity I only had 10 minutes so a limit on my layers) AND… a great great thing about them is that you don’t have to wait for them to dry (actually they are a little wet… but not like watercolour)

I am very happily living with the bleed through on the other side of the page in this sketchbook as I am in an experimentation mood…and anything goes!

And then I marker-ed at lunch….I tried my markers in an extreme reflex type situation- chatting and looking at my friends great sketchbook from a trip to Spain Portugal in June.

I am having a ball… and this is just the beginning of the journey!!!

Last year when I was in Lisbon, I was in such a rush that I didn’t get BB a friend (this is very shocking!). Jenn, the organiser of our Sydney Sketch Club was in Portugal/Spain in June and very very kindly agreed to get a friend for BB to make up for my neglect. It was a very big commission – so thankful that she agreed to do it.He was bought at Belem (which is where I should have bought one myself)so I am looking for a good Portuguese name for him – Belem would do fine…but it there another usual name that any of my Portuguese friends could suggest?