After the symposium in Toulouse, I had a four-day road trip with my friend Francoise. She was driving back to Belgium and dropped me off at Charles de Gaulle Airport on the way.

We visited a number of gorgeous places on the way – all fairly close to the most direct route, which you can see on this map.

There was a fair amount of driving between destinations, so we felt constant time pressure every day. We had to keep moving!

As a result, we ended up setting time limits for most of our sketches. Sometimes as little as 5 minutes!

I know that some people get stressed by crazy short time limits, but for us it became a fun game. Full disclosure: on a number of occasions we extended the time limit but the initial timer forced us to simplify and start with the big shapes or the important lines.

Most of our sketches weren’t complete (and we finished them back home), but setting the timer meant we got something on the page at the time. I’m quite amazed by how much sketching we got done!

Here are the highlights…

(I’m including the time taken for the sketches when we set a timer and noting any additional work to finish the sketch)

Saint-Cirq-Lapopie

An incredible first destination! A 20-minute sketch from a cafe. I later extended the sketch on the righthand side and adjusted the hue of the background hill.

A 5-minute sketch standing up in the middle of the town.

A 6-minute sketch on the walk back up the hill to the car.

Cahors

Sketching the cathedral at night (10pm)

Getting the tyres fixed the next morning.

A 30-minute sketch of the gorgeous bridge at Cahors.

Collonges-la-Rouge

A gorgeous red town with lots of towers. So many sketchable views!

This was a 20-minute sketch done before we hit the road again.

Limoges

A quick sketch of the lovely train station before dinner.

Next morning – 5 minute sketch inside the cathedral.

And then a quick sketch outside.

We then did a longer sketch (with no timer!)

Fontainebleau

We had an hour for sketching at Fontainebleau so I used the first 15 minutes doing a quick collage.

And then spent the rest of the time doing this sketch. I had to work very rapidly to draw all those windows in multiple layers. It wasn’t finished, but it was a great last sketch for this road trip.

Thanks, Frannie, for a fun 4 days of sketching! And for doing all the driving!