Oh no, one of my favourite cafes is closed for renovation! So today I had to find a new place to draw. I’m also drawing on my new book. I’ve been doing a bit of re-cycling of old magazines and envelopes to make drawing surfaces. This square-ish book has been made from a magazine which promotes its ‘green’ credentials, so I feel well justified in re-using its pages. Anyway here is the new view.
The view from the new cafe.
It’s always a challenge to come up with a new ‘take’ for Cafe Wednesday drawing. Among the many drawing blogs that are now available online I’ve read an interesting post from UK illustrator Lynne Chapman, on Sketches that Sing. Lynne suggests several ways to free up your sketching. I’ve used her approach that ignores ‘local’ colour and instead draws the focus of the sketch in warm colours and the remainder of the work in cool colours. The idea is that if you get your tones right then you can pretty much do what you like with colour.
Cafe Wednesday, tonal study, 12 February 2014.
While I still need to work on my composition aspect, I’m liking the colour approach.
I love my cafe umbrellas. When I recently found myself at three cafes in the one week, a bit unusual for me, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to draw my favourite subject matter. One twist however, I decided to draw each one with a different medium.
The first was in my black ball point pen. I had already completed a drawing inside the cafe when I glanced up to see this group of furled umbrellas.
Repetiiton, furled umbrellas at the Italian Bakery in Mawson, 2 February 2014.
The next was drawn at our regular Cafe Wednesday watering hole. This time I used my phablet to draw using the SNote function (Samsung Galaxy). Very simple.
Umbrella drawn with SNote, 5 February 2014.
Finally, at the Beaver Galleries cafe I drew using my new fountain pen. I’m still working on using up the blue cartridge it came with.
Cafe umbrella at the Beaver Gallery, Deakin, 6 February 2014.
Looking down the shops at the Fyshwick markets.
A quick pen sketch at the Fyshwick markets.
A highlight of any week is a visit to the local tip shop, where all manner of stuff gets re-cycled. I’d planned to sit inside the big shed and draw, but got diverted finding pre-loved items for our garden.
Inside ‘Tiny’s’ Green Shed, Hume, 14 January 2014.
Icame home with several items including this weird looking contraption which is actually the top of two bird cages that have been wired together to form a protector that can be placed over plants to save them from the ravages of the local fauna. In our case this is saving our beetroot from being anihilated by our local brushtail possum.
Plant protector made from the tops of two birdcages, 18 January 2014.
From a drawing perspective I was attracted to the colour contrast between the duck-egg blue wire on top and the black metal on the rest of the cage. The repetitive lines of wire also get the big tick from me.
leonieandrews 