My friend E (who I was staying with) loves taking me on day outings whenever I visit Melbourne. She has been doing this since 2006 (before I started sketching) and these outings are always a highlight.

On this trip, we went on two outings – the first to Queenscliff on a beautiful sunny winter’s day.

E is happy for me to sketch, but we always have so much on the agenda that I normally don’t get much done. On this particular occasion, I filled many pages (some had colour added that evening once we were back home).

The first stop was a cafe in Geelong. As mentioned in my last article, cafe visits are always a time for sketching. On this occasion, I also attempted a quick sketch of the counter.

Next, we did some local shopping (gifts and clothes), and I didn’t bother trying to squeeze in a sketch (though I’m sure that I could have!)

Then we visited a lovely nursery, and E bought some bare-root roses. These two sketches were done in a few minutes, and colour was added later back home.

We drove to Queenscliff and stopped three times for lovely views over the bay. I just did a quick line drawing on location and then decided to add a bit of quick colour later.

At the next lookout, I also didn’t get to add colour at the time, but I decided to leave this sketch as an ink drawing for ‘sketchbook design‘ reasons.

We decided to watch the ferry to Sorrento leave and then watch the ferry from Sorrento arrive, so I had time to add colour to this sketch. However, my first washes did not dry quickly enough (I’m not used to the cold Melbourne weather), and I ended up having to add more layers than I originally intended.

It was then time for lunch and I attempted to sketch the interesting cafe interior, while waiting for our food to arrive. I made the wrong decision about the view to sketch and ended up abandoning the sketch.

I had more fun with the food! Some nice watercolour magic using a waterbrush in this sketch.

We then walked down the main street…

And then back up the other side. I’d love to return and sketch some of the views on this street.

Our final stop for the day was the lighthouse at Point Lonsdale.

I did a sketch of this, but as it was directly related to one of the exercises in my upcoming Travel Sketching course, you’ll have to wait to see it! 🙂

Part of my plan for the Travel Sketching course exercises is to encourage non-sketching travel companions to participate in the sketch process. E helped me with this particular sketch, which was really cool!

   
Looking towards Antarctica, there is no ship in sight. (I’m not sure why there were no ships around all day!)

It was a beautiful day and a fun outing, and I was very happy with how much I managed to capture in my sketchbook even though we did a lot of different things.