Today’s article will focus on just one small town – Gulgong – which I visited for a few hours after my time in Mudgee. I think this is the most interesting town I’ve visited this trip so far and I managed to fill 5 double-page spreads in a morning. 

The unique thing about this town is the main street – called Mayne St – which is curved and narrow!

Two cars can’t really pass in places!

Lots of typical Australian historic buildings too. I walked around a little initially to work out what I wanted to sketch and where I could sit.

I decided to do a quick line drawing from the main intersection first ! These are definitely great warmup type sketches as I have to think about perspective lines and relationships between edges.

Next, I walked down to the Gulgong Pioneers Museum but it didn’t have good lighting. However the building across the road did…

So I sketched it instead.

Ah! a typical Aussie building with verandahs and rusty roofs! That was fun!

Here is a photo showing where I was sitting and a screen shot of a great app which I use often when I’m out sketching.

It’s called Sun Seeker and it helps me work out when to visit a building. I have a really good general feel for what the sun is doing (thanks to all my years doing shadow diagrams as an architect) but this app really helps at times.

On this occasion, when I checked the app at 11:43 (when this screen shot was taken) I knew that the sun had moved enough so that I could make my way back to the museum (in the centre of the screen).

Here is the full spread with my first two Guglong sketches and a map of my route that day.

I then found an old mill…

… I really enjoyed this sketch as the building had lovely big shapes! As a bonus I was able to do this from the comfort of my car as there was a carpark opposite.

Next up was the Gulgong Gold Experience. Sadly it didn’t open until 1pm and I wasn’t going to wait around until then.

But I was able to see this exhibit (behind wire gates) which included a dray! (As discussed a few articles ago!)

There was a cute original miner’s cottage… but it wasn’t interesting enough to tempt me to sketch it.

Instead I did a very loose one of a stamper battery – alternating between line and colour.

And here is the finished spread with a sketch of the Gulgong Gold Experience building.

Back on Mayne St… a water tank on the back of a truck.

Lots of sketchable buildings here!

I ended up having a yummy brunch at the Butchers Cafe and sketching the corner building. Just for the record: I added the food sketch to the page at the end of the day as it was too awkward to sketch it at the time on a small table on a sloping narrow footpath (sidewalk). I normally don’t add sketches from photos to my pages like this… but on very rare occasions I do!

Back at the Pioneer Museum – the lighting was great but my energy levels were low… so I just did a line drawing.

And oh! somewhere between the Goldr Experience and the Butcher’s Cafe I did two quick small sketches of other buildings in Gulgong!

Note: I’ve made a conscious decision not to bother going into any museums. A big reason for this trip is to ‘case the joint’ – to find places that I want to return to. So leaving museums for a return trip is part of my plan!

Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed seeing part of Gulgong – an amazing town!