My ‘crazy’ trip continued after Lisbon by going straight into a week long church conference in Cardiff! It was wonderful beyond words!!!!!!

The emphasis of this week was the wonderful addresses and spending quality time with my friends in Cardiff and meeting new people….and NOT sketching.

BUT despite sketching not being the emphasis of the week, I still tried to design my pages of notes with images and I did manage to sketch in the afternoons. The first two days I was somewhat exhausted (not at all surprising!)

The friends that I was staying with were the minster and his wife of the church that was holding the conference…so I spent the week in really wonderful company.

Sketching my lunch on this occasion was a little daring even for me.. for I had not met most of the ministers and their wives around the table and they didn’t know anything about my crazy habit. I had my sketchbook on my lap but of course, after I had finished it got shown around the table and signed.

Wonderful deli – Deli Rouge.

A truly relaxing afternoon- a nap and then a beautiful warm afternoon sitting in the garden listening (yes listening and NOT talking… hard to believe I know!) to very uplifting conversations.

Just another summary page… finding time to do these pages was a struggle all trip!

Lunch in my friends favourite cafe…Herb & Ellies at Cardiff Bay

I sketched this building last year (from the other side)

Very strong colour and glary but flat lighting certainly affected my painting.

Also was a little surprised at how bad the drying shift of the Daniel Smith Perylene Maroon was.

A few very interested people stopped to talk to me… I do love that but it can throw your concentration at times (especially when you have to meet your friends at a certain time and then start rushing!)

A simple page with a detail from the pier head building. I was always on the lookout for an element that I could do a very quick sketch of to use as page decoration.

the pages of the final day of the conference…From a sketchbook/journally point of view I was very happy with the way that I was fairly easily able to weave sketches in amongst all my notes. And it is nice having friends that let me go off on my own to sketch – or let me into the church early to sketch etc.