Melbourne is known for its cafe culture – great coffee and food – and so cafe sketching is always a big part of a visit.

As mentioned in my previous Melbourne article, I’m not going to be sharing every sketch from my recent trip as I was filming (with Chantal’s help) for my new course – Travel Sketching. So, in today’s article, I will put together my food sketches from the period when we were focused on the new course.

All of these sketches were done while I was with Chantal and some other friends over three days. It looked like I ate a lot of food, but really, it wasn’t that much! (I often only eat half of what I draw – sharing the other half with others.)

Aside: Sketching my coffee and food is an important part of travel sketching as it’s a time when I’m sitting down in comfort and can easily get my watercolour palette out..

When I’m with friends (non-sketching friends in particular), they normally get out their phones so I then have time to sketch without appearing rude. (Just for the record I check my phone too, but it’s normally a brief look before opening up my sketchbook!)

If I’m traveling solo, sketching my food is a good way to occupy myself when eating on my own (my sketchbook becomes my companion). It often results in making new friends (sometimes even free food!). I used to find going out for dinner on my own a bit awkward, but now it doesn’t bother me at all!

Before sharing my food sketches I have to issue a warning: Don’t look at this blog article on an empty stomach! 🙂

Brunch on Day 1 at Time-Lapse Brewers.

After a big filming session (4 demos!) we treated ourselves to afternoon tea at a very well-known spot – Brunetti – and then went out to do some more filming.

A fun Spanish dinner – my sketches got looser when the shared mains came out as the food was disappearing fast.

Here is a closeup of the croquettes.

This was the moment in the trip when I switched from the small palette to my normal palette. My washes with the waterbrush immediately improved. See more in this article.

Day 2: Morning coffee. I wanted to try Traveller Coffee, but there were too many people waiting. So, we went to an institution instead – Pelligrinis. We sat outside to drink and sketch, which is pretty amazing for a Sydneysider visiting Melbourne in winter!

After a morning sketching session, we walked up to Fitzroy, and I had my second coffee and a pastry. Some nice watercolour magic is happening, huh?

BTW, unless I say otherwise, all sketches are done with a waterbrush.

More talking, walking, sketching, filming and a visit to an art store. It was then time for lunch!

I particularly like this little sketch of our smoothies.

Some more filming and then we walked a long way to find somewhere for a late afternoon tea – somewhere that served tea (and not just coffee).

After all our filming in the last few days, I was pretty tired. So, at dinner, I didn’t sketch each plate of food!

Day 3: It’s quite funny that we had to walk around for 30 minutes to find somewhere for breakfast. There are lots of great hole-in-the-wall ‘brew bars’ in Melbourne – but they only serve coffee and don’t have comfortable places to sit. In the end, we stopped at Urban Deli and sat outside in the sun.

After doing two more mini-demos, we went off to another cafe!

I have lovely memories of hanging out at the Auction Rooms in past Melbourne visits.

More food… and sketches of the views while catching up with Angela and Rooi from Sydney.

So there you have it – a food diary from a few days filming demos for my upcoming Travel Sketching course. Thanks to Chantal for all her help – we got so much done in only 3 days!

I can’t wait to share with you all these demos in the new course.

Find out about the Travel Sketching course here!