Waiting For Food Redux

A few years ago I began to sketch in cafes, inspired by the work of cartoonist R. Crumb. Since then I've continued the habit, which often means sketching very quickly and often completing a sketch from memory. Contrary to what you might think, drawing in such a compressed time period forces considerable study and care in placing marks, whether they're pencil, ink, or paint. The object of interest must be well understood before you can make a sketch or remember the object--hunting for lines and shapes again and again makes muddy drawings, in my hands. Instead I force myself to be deliberate and to draw only after spending time concentrating on details.

Here is an example of a cafe sketch I did in the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon last year. I spent a great deal of time studying the man in the sketch, not only for his unusual face but for the expression there. He was the patriarch of a fairly large and multi-generational family who were also visiting the museum that day. We had stopped in the cafeteria for lunch and the man in the hat sat opposite our table. With his mustache, white hair and cap, his bright blue eyes and dark vest, he was a striking figure. I was lucky to be able to capture his expression of bemusement as well.

You don't have to sketch your fellow diners, of course. A table can provide opportunities to study simple shapes--a napkin dispenser is a cube, a salt shaker a cylinder and so on. This is a watercolor and ink done on the spot in the East Lake Bar & Grill in Seattle a while back. In this case I laid the drawing in with a pen and painted over it. The sketchbook page in this case is about 3x5 and was previously toned a buttery yellow. The lighter spots here and there were painted with white gouache afterward.

A cafe is often a chance to sketch the interior or groups or people, or sometimes both. We had lunch in a cafe last week and I took the chance to do a quick sketch (above). The light from the big window was good and the place uncrowded. No one really paid much attention as I made this watercolor and ink sketch. The big column next to the bar gave me a chance to do two individual figural groups in the same wide sketch. The individual figures were added and posed based on the comings and goings of other patrons and wait staff. This is about 3.5x7 in a pocket sketchbook.

And here is a cafe sketch done almost entirely on the spot with watercolor then accentuated with technical pen. The fellow I saw was having breakfast next to a big window which admitted the diffuse grey light of a rainy Seattle morning. In spite of the rain, the light was quite bright and seemed to glow in his enormous, bushy beard. I laid in the basic shapes very lightly with pencil, then broad washy strokes for big shapes. After spotting in the nose, cheeks and hand I used a tech pen for a few edges, the ear. Even though tech pens have uniform tips you can vary line weight if you're very careful with pressure.

For anybody who likes to sketch, my recommendation is to keep the sketchbook open, even if you're in a public place. In the past I've sketched in airport waiting areas, diners, museums, and on the street. Really, any place is fair game. Most people don't even notice you and those who do almost always don't mind.




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Previously
Waiting For Food
Drawing in the Airport