Sunday, March 6, 2011

A Dif' Caf' Shif'

It was raining today, which left out biking. Being a stubborn goat, I walked, and got my feet thoroughly soaked. I didn't care, though, since for the entire 20 mintues from my house to Mudhouse, I had "Singing in the Rain" stuck in my head. If it weren't for the stachel of precious, precious watercolors on my shoulder, I do believe I would have eschewed the umbrella and splashed, Gene Kelly-style, all the way there.

This guy existed last week, which is good, since it would worry me if people were born looking like this. I decided today that he looked more like a craggy Daniel-Day Lewis/James Brolin than Eastwood or Bardem. I tried something new too, with a ballpoint pen, or the mention that my stuff sketching doesn't look like the swoopy, cartoony stuff that I usually draw. I knew that. The pen frees me up tremendously. Lines are cool.

There weren't too many people in the cafe today, because of the rain. But these folks were at the same table. The girl was interviewing the guy on Strathmore college. Or Swarthmore. Whichever one is in Philly. She wanted to know everything, from the tools in the engineering dept. to the phys. ed. requirements to the microwave situation in the dorms to which local acts (local to Philly) would play at the college. The guy kept up pretty well. To give you an idea of how long they went at it, I started after they started talking, and finished drawing an hour before they left.

It occurred to me around this point that while certainly my favorite caricaturists are guys like Steve Brodner and Gerald Scarfe, when I pick up a ballpoint pen, the results look more like Edward Sorel. The guy at the bottom moved before I could get to watercolor. His head was alot skinnier from the front.

This was, quite literally, the last person in the cafe that I could see. There was a couple behind me, but both their faces were obscured, and they were behind me. So I finished this guy, and left. On the way back, I stopped at the Market Street Market and bought a zucchini. Sarah, the girl I drew last week, left before I got there for an exciting career in massage therapy, and the fellow who replaced her was not as photogenic. Good luck, Sarah!

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