On our journey back to Manila, we stayed one night on Mactan Island (where the airport in Cebu is), in an out of the way, tiny little AirBnb house. My wife took the opportunity to meet with some colleagues on the mainland…and I went to pick her up in the evening. I did this sketch while waiting for her in a car park. I enjoy drawing cars, but this time struggled to get the proportion right and it ended up looking a bit sausage-like!
Thu-4-Jan-2024
This sketch was done on the ferry from Sta. Fe on Bantayan Island to Hagnaya Port in northern Cebu. We got on quite early so could take some of the bunk-beds (the two other decks just have hard wooden seats)…where everyone seems to get in a quick nap. I think there are at least 5 people in this sketch. The person in the foreground had a photo taken together with me and the sketch…it’s always nice when people want to do that.
Thu-4-Jan-2024
Here are some more vignette sketches from our last day in Bantayan Island. We decided to go to Paradise beach again…and this time on a relatively quiet day, early enough to nab a good shady spot. My daughter is reading ‘On Beauty’ by Zadie Smith…and the cacti around us (which have all all lost their thorns) were covered with carved-in graffiti!
Wed-3-Jan-2024
Having enjoyed doing faster vignette sketches the day before, I continued this on the day our daughters went scuba diving. While they were doing that we went to get a coffee…at a tea shop (top sketch). The second sketch was done while we waited at #DiveXtension. Afterwards we had lunch at Tristans’s Pizza Hauz (yes, pizza yet again – we failed to find anything else with veggie options), on the coast not far from the port.
Tue-2-Jan-2024
This sketch was done when we went for a walk down the beach on New Year’s Eve. After walking for quite a while (and not reaching the fishing boats I had hoped to sketch), we stopped at a random spot and I drew this. I tried using my lovely new #RosemanyAndCo dagger brush to paint the overhanging palm tree.
Sun-31-Dec-2023
This sketch was done while we had lunch on Kota beach. It was so blisteringly hot that sitting out on the sand (there was very little shade on the part of the beach that is public) was not an option, so we had lunch at the “The Hungry Beach Co.”. This little restaurant had some veggie options, so that suited us fine….it was still Christmas!
Sat-30-Dec-2023
We spent most of our Bantayan Island holiday visiting different beaches. This beach is another popular one, but as I and my daughters are lazy to get up in the morning, we arrived late…during the hottest part of the day. Boy was it hot. After lunch (I did another sketch before this one but it’s not finished yet) we had to go back to the port to collect one of our bags that was not loaded on our way to Cebu…thanks Cebu Pacific! Then we came back to Kota beach and found a shady spot in front of a resort to chill out, where I sketched this.
Sat-30-Dec-2023
On our first full day in Bantayan we walked a few hundred yards up the beach to the Baigad lagoon, which is a popular attraction. We weren’t particularly impressed …it’s a bit crowded and people were playing intrusive music – certainly the photos on-line make it look much more picturesque. Although there was a bar with food, we found better veggie choices at a tiny little beachside cafe nearer our AirBnb. Anyway, we did find somewhere to sit in the shade, so I managed this sketch.
Fri-29-Dec-2023
Here is the first sketch I did when we arrived in Bantayan Island. It’s a pretty terrible reproduction as the scanner app on my phone didn’t get the colours right – I’ll replace it on my WordPress blog with a proper scan when I get home. We are staying at a quiet and secluded little AirBnb cottage – apparently a converted boat house – the owners of which live in one of two houses, which are directly on the beach front (one of them is in my sketch).
Fri-29-Dec-2023