Tag / cafe drawings

by Leonie Andrews

Finding space

I had one of those ‘duh’ moments this week when several observations just clicked into place for me.

I was watching a sketchbook ‘tour’ video by British artis Lis Watkins (link below), admiring, yet again, her excellent use of white space and the restrained use of detail in her work.

Borrowed from Lis Watkins Instagram account ‘lineandwash‘

Later in the evening I was sketching online with friends and was really happy with the outcome of my sketch of this bowl of peeled limes. Of course I’d left lots of space around it and felt no need to include all of the bowl in my drawing.

A bowl of peeled limes

Obviously I was reacting to seeing Lis’ work and when drawing objects this approach seems a pretty natural one for me to use.

On the other hand when I sketch on location,  wearing my ‘Urban Sketchers’ hat I often fall into the convention of ‘filling’ the page. I think if you look back to my previous post ‘Practice, practice‘ you can see what I”m referring to. I took a photo early on in the process and the sketch was pretty much ‘there’. I then kept going and looking back on it now, I  realise I should have stopped much sooner!

So this week I’m consciously trying to save some white on my page, while simultaneously keeping sufficient  ‘location’ information in my sketch*.

My latest ‘urban sketch’ at a local cafe on Monday.

I am liking the look of this sketch. It’s certainly a challenge to balance both space and location. I’m sure I can do this.

*If you’re not familiar with Urban Sketchers, the international sketching organisation, it’s primary goal is to encourage people to sketch on location, and that location needs to be visible (in some form) in the sketch.

Lis’ video of her sketches from recent travels is linked here:

by Leonie Andrews

Progress?

The one thing I’ve noticed with the new sketching technique I’ve been trying out is that it takes a long, long time fir my paint to dry. In turn, this means it takes me way longer than normal to complete a painting. Indeed, it takes me longer than I usually spend having a coffee.

Last weekend, I  got this far with my sketch, probably 15-20 minutes longer than my coffee lasted.

As I finished sketching, I realised that there were several sections that really annoyed me. However, I couldn’t be bothered to spend even more time at the cafe than I had already.

The updated version

So last night I fixed the bits I wasn’t happy with. Extending the umbrella canopy to make more sense of the top left corner and adding the darker section along the bottom. “Don’t be afraid of the darks, [colours that is]”, as a sketching friend often says.

I’m happier with it, but is any artists ever truly happy with what they do?😀

On a more practical note, I also realised that one time saver I could do was to paint a base layer of high-tone colour onto my pages before I went sketching. This should save me 10 to 15 minutes of drying time at least.

Pre-painted pages

by Leonie Andrews

Two cafes

I’m currently thinking about two cafe sketches that I did this week. The sketches both included obscured figures but have a very different feel to each other.

The two sketches

The looser composition of the one on the left gives a much wider view of the surrounding scene. It also reflects that I was sitting at some distance away from the people I was sketching. I always do the figures first, just in case they get up and leave – which they did before I finished the background. On reflection, I can also see that the proportion of the obscured person is not in keeping with the main figure. I think the composition would have been stronger if I had corrected this error.

My sketching set up with a small palette, travel brush and small sheets of watercolour paper.

The second sketch is much more focused,  not only because the main person was sitting at the next table. Her focus was elsewhere and that big collar on her parka meant that she wasn’t noticing me sketching her. Again, the second obscured person was of interest to me. They also left shortly after I sketched them in.

One thing that I think helps make this second sketch pop are the dark shadows behind the cups. Many of us are ‘afraid of the dark’ when it comes to watercolour painting and yet, in the majority of cases, it’s just what a sketch needs to bring it to life.

I’ve also been trying to apply some advice from Singaporean sketcher Andrew Tan, who is an illustrator and comic book writer in his day job. He notes that to get a story across in a comic, you need to focus attention on the main character. You can do this by ensuring that there is a strong contrast between the focus of your attention and what surrounds it. Hence, the dark wall behind my person. There was indeed a shadowed wall behind her, but I dialled it up to help bring even more attention to her.

I think this is a much stronger composition

I regularly sketch at both these cafes. So, having these two side by side has prompted me to consider bringing a much more focused view when next I’m cafe sketching.

by Leonie Andrews

Walks, Cafes etc

We have been doing a lot of walking since the pandemic started, originally prompted by restricted exercise periods for months at a time. Now walking is a regular activity and each week we try and do a slightly longer walk. We often break this up with a coffee, in our Thermos, or at one of the pop-up coffee carts that seem to be proliferating along popular walking tracks around the city.

Covered with a nice paperbag from a local bookshop

I hate carrying too much on these walks so I now carry this home made 10×14 cm sketchbook made of paper offcuts. Here are some of my recent sketches.

The sketches are adding up!
Late afternoon around Lake Tuggeranong
Coffee at the pop-up coffee cart Mt Taylor. In reality the Golden Retreiver wasn’t quite that long in the body!😄
A Thermos of coffee when we walked around the base of Mt Taylor
Patrons at the local coffee shop, a stop on our walk around Lake Tuggeranong
Bonus Black Swans with an almost fully grown cygnet.