Cafe Sketching

If you are an urban sketcher, you probably find yourself sketching in a cafe at one time or another...after all, it's a perfect opportunity to observe people.  A prefect place to make a quick sketch over a cup of coffee, or with the luxury of some time, a wonderful place to develop more of a story.   I encourage beginners to sketch in cafes, since you can usually find a quiet corner to be fairly discreet.  Amazingly, I've yet to have anyone ask me to leave, even when I've taken my time to finish a sketch...I'm very thankful that instead I'm either politely ignored, or encouraged with another cup of coffee or kind words! 

Saturday mornings over breakfast... or at the opening of the new Civil Coffee in Highland Park...

Breakfast on the road in a neighborhood cafe with the regulars in the desert town of Twentynine Palms...or back home in Los Angeles, at a local cafe or the wonderful Grand Central Market downtown...

At G&B Coffee in the early evening at the Hill Street entrance to the Market...

Pasadena...

Greeting the New Year at the Autry Museum...

More Catching Up!

More catching up here with sketching people around town--in cafes, at meetings, museums and other places...              

At newly opened Blue Bottle Coffee in Echo Park above...

Below...quick sketching at a bakery in La Canada and Lamill Cafe in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles...

A couple of sketches from the Highland Cafe, out on the sidewalk in Highland Park...

...and cafe society back at Lamill in Silver Lake...

If you're a  sketcher, you probably sketch in meetings!  Here, at Otis College...

Faculty...and students too...

The Rodin Sculpture  Garden at LACMA is a favorite place to sketch...occasionally someone stops to look at a sculpture, or has a picture taken mimicking the gesture, but most visitors seem to breeze by...

And the Sculpture Garden at the Getty Center...

Nothing better though, than sketching musicians...my talented friend Christina Ortega performing with her band at a fantastic Dia de Los Muertos celebration concert that she also produced in Pasadena, California...

Catching Up!

With the beginning of the new year, it's time to start catching up here!

So, I'll start by sharing sketches of people out and about from last year...
Some quick sketching...

A meeting at Otis College...




and sketching in downtown Los Angeles near the Central Library, where Robert Graham's "Source Figure" graces the top of the Bunker Hill Steps...

I began studying Notan (the harmony of light and dark) in preparation for my workshop for the Singapore Urban Sketchers workshop, so I did lots of monochromatic studies, including people in urban environments...

At Mission San Juan Capistrano...

...and at one of my favorite places to visit and sketch, Olvera Street, sometimes adding a punch of color for emphasis...

A pencil and watercolor sketch at Heritage Square on "Museums of the Arroyo Day"...

...on a Pasadena street corner...

Sketching at another favorite downtown Los Angeles location, the Grand Central Market...

...And then back to Olvera Street, sketching the Aztec dancers who perform in the plaza...









And a surprise appearance of a tour bus and a news crew from Telemundo, interviewing the group La Adictiva from Mexico, in their elegant, shiny gray suits...I was caught sketching and was interviewed in Spanish...sorry to say I wasn't at all sure exactly what was said there!

 More practice with Notan with some color added...

 

Spending a bit more time pencil, watercolor and gouache on tan paper to try to catch the flavor of this wonderful place.  Olvera Street is the oldest street in Los Angeles, and in spite of all the tourists who come and go, there is a feeling of community here.  

And finally, my favorite Olvera Street moment...late afternoon on Friday in the Plaza, and wonderful cumbia music begins to play.  Couples start dancing in the shade of the huge fig tree...

Studies in the garden

What a pleasure it's been to teach workshops at Descanso Gardens in La Canada...and a great place to try out different ways of using color...but mostly a lovely, relaxing place to sketch!










Watching people (and crows) at the cafe...

...and a school group entranced by the back hoe in the Rose Garden...







I couldn't resist the way the reds played off the greens in the cafe...

 Saturated colors on a warm day in the Japanese Garden...

...and an experiment with super-saturated QOR colors in the cafe...

 In late fall, the gingkoes are glowing gold...