Sketchpacker Diaries: Sketchpacking Western Australia 2012: Rottnest Island

The second leg of our trip was a one-night stay in Rottnest Island, about an hour's ferry ride from the Barrack Street Jetty in Perth. The Jetty is pretty near to where we were staying, but I had a load to carry, so we took the free CAT bus there.

While waiting for the ferry, I started sketching. And guess what? I got my timings mixed up. This time we weren't late, but my buddies walked off to queue for the ferry before I realised something was amiss. I quickly snapped a photo and finished the first sketch below on the boat, including the colours.

The people sketches below were done during the ferry ride. The other two were done later from photos. Both these sketches and the one above were done with my trusty Hero. The quokka sketch took references from a couple of photos. The angle of the 'shot' was imagined.

Quokkas are so cute!
Copyright © Favian Ee Sept 2012

We spent the afternoon riding bicycles round the island. After returning the bikes and collecting the keys to our cabin and settling in, we went to buy some dinner before the shops closed at 5 pm. Before eating, my buddies gave me some time off to go sketch. I did the following sketch in pencil and watercolour on-location:

Same scene taken the next day under different lighting
Copyright © Favian Ee Sept 2012

We stayed one night at Rottnest. It was too short. I will stay at least two nights the next time. We took the earliest ferry back to Fremantle, which was a shorter journey back, and picked up our car for the long drive down to Margaret River. We stopped at Busselton on the way with intentions of visiting the 1.8 km-long jetty and the underwater observatory at the other end, but I forgot to call to book in advance, and they didn't have any more tickets for the day. We settled for ice-cream instead, and bought some nougat when we reached Margaret River before checking in to our accommodation. The sketches below were done from photos using my Hero pen.