Last Wednesday 2 September (the day that Edges started) I jumped in my car and headed north west to the limits of Sydney’s suburbia to the locality of Glenhaven. Once again the reason for this location was a good cafe that I wanted to visit. The Tuckshop

Ah! there is nothing liking seeing the Blue Mountains to feel like you are escaping the city for the day!

Glenhaven and adjacent suburb Kenthurst are semi-rural areas so there isn’t really a town centre for me to explore. Instead I spent most of my time driving. I stopped a few times to take a photo, but none of the images in this post can describe how pretty the area is.

Here is out of character page… a map and watercolour wash that goes to the perimeter of my pages. As this day was all about driving and old memories, putting this page together was very important to me.

Some wattle and scribbly gum….

Yes, scribbly gum – the scribbles are made by a worm!

Lots of large properties with fences that would cost more than some houses to build! Despite some of them looking a little dated, the houses from the 70s and 80s are often more sympathetic to the land. The modern ones are huge and bulky, fully rendered light coloured boxes.

More ‘fences’

And another one! Nice to see horses, sheep, cows, goats and alpacas during the day.

I continued my drive to the lovey suburb of Kenthurst. I pulled off the road on this rather nice street … hmm, VERY flash yellow sports car in the distance.

I kept driving and came to this sign… not the usual “No through road” but “Road Ends”…and that is exactly what it did!

After turning around and getting back to civilization, I found this lovely old house…

and a nice safe sunny soft to sit to sketch. Rather than sitting in my car to sketch I pulled out a folding chair and sketched next to my car. For some reason I don’t think I have ever done that before.

My sketch was a fun rambling exploration of different ways of painting landscaping (something we are looking at in Edges Lesson 2 this week). After doing this I was ready for a coffee…The Tuckshop here we come!

First sketch in the famous cafe “The Tuckshop” while I was having a large skinny latte. This is a very out of character sketch. Hands up if you were following me (on flickr) in the days when I sketched like this? Funny to do again, but I am much preferring a cleaner look with my lines these days.

It was totally gorgeous sitting out in the courtyard doing this.

Ok, another sketch looking into the cafe through the big opening.

The sign of a good cafe is staying long enough to have a second order. I had a lovely chat to a local couple who were sharing the table with me… and then it was time to head home.

The drive home included going through Kellyville (big boxy houses!) and then behind the mammoth Castle Towers shopping centre. There is a good cafe there too – The Baron (by the same guys that run The Tuckshop… actually it is the other way around, The Tuckshop is run by the same guys that own The Baron).

Ok another fun morning even though I felt like all I did was drive 30km to visit a cafe! Sigh – it WAS good to get away from my computer!

More details: http://sketchingnow.com/edges-course/