After exploring north, south, east and west, it was only natural that I headed straight for the heart of Sydney for this week’s SketchingNow adventure.

I jumped on a ferry from Woolich Wharf and spent the day in the CBD (Central Business District – what we call the downtown!).

In the last few weeks I have been fairly exhausted and not felt the urge to sketch non stop, but somehow, getting on the ferry was the stimulus for me to go a little crazy. Memories of the Sketchbook Skool filmshoot day!

I was using my watercolour pencils, waterbrush and Sailor calligraphy fountain pen with a mixed grey DeA ink in it. And I was sketching at a furious pace.

It was really interesting to see the buildings of Barangaroo from the water and to realise how much it will affect the skyline Sydney that we know so well.

There a special urgency to sketch the bridge and the opera house and I do like to try to capture the moment when I can see both, but didn’t manage it on the way in.

After arriving at Circular Quay, I headed straight for Ground Control – a new-ish coffee shop that I had read good things about. Many of the new coffee shops in the CBD are ‘hole-in-the-wall’ type but at 9.30 the queues were for takeaways not seats.

Loving the new trend of turquoise cups…

and although you can’t tell because I have left this as line work, I LOVE their white coffee machine.

Time to head to Martin Place where I was meeting Chantal. This week, I was filming a few demos for my Foundations class so I can’t show you yet what those sketches were (some of you from Sydney might be able to guess what I was sketching!).

Here is a photo of me outside the Armani store and Chantal in action (thanks again C!). It was a fairly full on sketching/ filming session and then it was time for a late morning tea.

I think Chantal’s idea of Laduree was a good one!!

I will admit that with all our chatting and sketching, my tea was cold on this occasion.

I didn’t even fully sketch my teacup or my teapot!

I headed back to Martin Place right in the middle in of the lunch hour (crazy busy) and tried to calm myself to do a measured sketch of one bay of GPO Sydney. It was one of those occasions when everything seemed to go wrong – the numerous interruptions were fun but they seriously distracted me.

It was then time for afternoon tea – who needs lunch?

An overdue visit to the Teacosy. Lovely Christmas ice tea…

and time to chill while sketching my tea and scones.

We have been having daily storms lately and the clouds were building so I decided to head home.

A few more crazy quick sketches on the ferry….

got the bridge/opera house sketch this time.

And then driving home into the storm – very dramatic layer clouds. Very thankful I got home moments before the downpour!