Solo Drawing Trip to Madeira

Last month I went on a solo trip to Madeira, for 5 days of drawing and exploring the beautiful gardens. Even without visiting the gardens, Madeira is such a beautiful place with colour and florals everywhere you look. Even the taxi drive from the airport was a scenic one. Looking back over these photos I just LOVE all of the colour and pattern.

Day One

It was an early start, with a 3am drive to Gatwick (thank you Jamie!), but that meant I was checked in to my Airbnb and on my way to Funchal by 11am. I spent my first day wandering around the old town, exploring the painted doors, and sitting in the Municipal garden where I drew a few of the flowers (before I had to retreat to the shade because I was getting sunburnt!)
I loved all of the patterned tiles, painted doorways, and the patterns in the cobbled streets. The geraniums in hanging baskets on lamp-posts, and the endless supply of colour palette inspiration.

Day Two

On day 2, I woke up early and headed to Monte Palace Tropical Garden. I’d visited this one before, on a day in Madeira last year during a cruise for my 30th. This garden was the the starting point of the idea for the whole trip, as I walked around it with Jamie I knew instantly that I needed to come back and spend the day drawing. So that’s exactly what I did this time round. As with all of the gardens in Madeira, Monte Palace is on a steep hill, so I headed straight down to the bottom of the garden in the morning, and wandered back up throughout the day, stopping to draw (and take several hundred photos) as I went. I could spend a whole week here, it’s such a beautiful place and there’s so much inspiration. The only downside was this day was the busiest for big groups of tourists - and lots of them wanted to stop and watch what I was doing!

Day Three

For day 3 I headed to Madeira Botanical Garden. I had no idea what to expect form this one, as a Google image search shows mostly the same part of the garden - the beautiful mosaic/topiary garden with the green and purple foliage. While I definitely wanted to see this, it’s not the best for drawing so I was hoping there’d be lots more to see. And it didn’t disappoint.
I started my day in the Palm tree area, sitting on a bench in the sun and sketching various types of Palm Tree & Dragon Tree. Then I found a lovely little shaded garden with some gorgeous flowers including a bold orange Lion’s Ear plant. There were some beautiful view points, lots of hibiscus flowers, a huge cactus garden, and beautiful florals everywhere.

Day Four

For my last full day, I visited another garden - this time Palheiro Gardens. This one was totally different to the others in that it wasn’t a “tropical” garden. It felt much more like the RHS gardens I visit here in the UK, only the Madeira climate meant that everything was in bloom at once, and yet again there was colour everywhere. The rose garden was a particular highlight, I sat amongst scented rose for a couple of hours, drawing the florals and the rose covered archway. I also loved the little waterfall, the “Ornamental Pincushion” plant, and all the little architectural details throughout the garden. Again there was plenty to fill my sketchbook so I spent the whole day wandering around and drawing just a small fraction of the plants on display.

Day Five

My last day was a bit of a hectic one as I had to check out of the Airbnb and take my bag to the luggage storage at the airport, and get back to the airport again in the afternoon. I spent the few hours in between at the incredible Quinta Da Boa Vista. It’s a very small garden, more of a nursery, specialising in all kinds of orchid. There’s a huge greenhouse full of rows and rows of orchids. I walked up and down the rows, taking a picture of every single orchid they had (it wasn’t the best environment to draw in, so I’ll be drawing from the photos I took later on). I was sat on the terrace in the small outdoor garden (with a beautiful view out to the coast) and the owner came out to check if I had any questions. I told him I would love to know anything he had tell me, so we got talking and he showed me back round the orchids, telling me all about them and how they grow best. It was a fascinating couple of hours and I learned a lot (although I’m still not sure if I can keep an orchid alive!) I left feeling super inspired to draw orchids - an orchid themed pack will be coming to the shop soon!

I had so much fun on this trip, and I will definitely be returning again one day. Madeira is definitely up there as one of my favourite places in the world. And I’ll be taking inspiration from my sketches and photos for years to come.