Day 4 of Sketch Tour Portugal, and we’re still in Peniche. João heads back to the surf competition but I steal away from the action at Super Tubos beach and head off to draw the local fishing boats. Portuguese fishing boats are small vessels in bright colors, all built of wood.
Day 4 is a big driving day (which means not much sketching): we are going to head down the coast to the area south of Lisbon. But before we head out, a quick stop at a little chapel by the sea, The Chapel of our Lady of Remedies (Nossa Senhora dos Remédios). On a quiet and spectacularly clear morning, I know why the Portuguese love this particular shade of blue so much: the sky exactly matches the brilliant blue of the trim today, as a man with a cane slowly makes his way into the chapel.
In Portugal you can have the busiest of days but you will still sit down to lunch. Before our long drive south, we lunch at Noah’s near Santa Cruz beach.
Our drive down the coast will take the rest of the day, so we stop on our way, just before sunset, to sketch at the riverfront in Alcácer do Sal. The sun is setting, the buildings are bathed in gold. 
I can’t resist a second, super-quick version as the light fades away…
And that ends Day 4 of Sketch Tour Portugal.
So many of you have written in to ask about the sketchbooks I’m using. I wish I’d taken a photo at the start of the tour when these books weren’t so battered, but I didn’t so here they are as they look now. 
Handmade in Portugal (but available to ship anywhere in the world), Laloran made these books especially for Sketch Tour Portugal. The books I used were a 220 gr. paper called Conqueror Stonemarque High White.
I also got myself 2 custom-made sketchbooks in different sizes, one that is a 1:2 proportion (so it opens to a square) and another one that is square. You know you have a Laloran sketchbook when the inside cover has a little hand-drawn logo.
These two books are 180 gr paper Clairefontaine paper. You can either buy a sketchbook you like on the Laloran website, or use the link on the right to customize your choice.
Day 5 of Sketch Tour Portugal is up next. Meanwhile, here are links to Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.
Sketch Away: Travels with my sketchbook 
I love the sketches and the colors!!! Is this your usual palette? Thank you so much for sharing.
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same palette, different book, subject, paper, size… 🙂
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😊😊😊
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These are my favorite of your Portugal sketches, with the fishing villages, chapel and boats. Really shows the architecture and flavor of these towns and colors. Lovely!
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Thanks Patricia. I agree, I love this side of Portugal. I hope to go back and sketch and see more of it. My 6-day assignment was specifically to cover surfing culture in Portugal, so the focus was beaches… but I hope to be back to see and sketch more!
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Brilliant work. You have a unique style and I love the way you draw people so fluidly. Many people have probably asked (I may have even asked myself!), but what do you draw with? Looks like some kind of pencil?
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I draw with a pen: usually the Sailor Bent Nib Pen. No pencil, unless I’m doing a couple of lines of setup to make sure I’m going to fit my composition o the page and get the perspective to kinda work.
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Ah thanks – hmmm. What kind of ink then? It doesn’t look that black?
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it’s deAtramentis Document ink, in black. I guess on watercolor paper it sinks in a bit and looks grey? there’s one sketch in this set that uses some pencil: the waterfront one. But the pencil came last, for details. And then that last one is a Pentel Brush pen.
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Thanks Suhita. Yes it does look a bit grey. But it works. Thinking of getting one of those sailor pens. Not expensive and I like the line variety
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