To Bean or not to Bean?

This week's theme, as much as I have a theme, is "Use up all my Payne's gray." I do believe I succeeded.

So I started out thinking of sumi-e painting, and the economy of line. I figured I'd do a little of that, and immediately broke that rule, adding whole bunches of little lines in an attempt to fulfill another little goal of drawing more of the people. Looking at this, I wonder how I'd do with a marker. I'd try it, but can't find one that doesn't bleed like a stuck pig.

Two regulars, and a guy who just came in from church and didn't sit down. I drew his reflection in a mirror as he stood in line to get something that sounds French/Italian.

This bloke here, whose hair I admire, was talking to the girl whom I never seem to be able to draw from the front. He quickly went back to reading his book and shifting his right hand all over the Goddamn place.

Having grown tired of drawing regular people in a humanistic way (this is called deadpan), I attempt caricature and fail miserably, even with a few of the most caricature-able people on the planet sitting across the way from me. I am shockingly pleased at how well I was able to give individuality to an attractive woman, something that is usually hard to do. Pretty girls tend to all look the same (insert joke about how they especially look the same when you aren't looking at their face, etc.)

And despite the fact that it was only noon, I grew tired with this mortal coil, and started to freak out and see thought bubbles over people's heads. The small child was particularly interested in engaging me in a staring contest, and I'm sure he could have induced a seizure in me if I hadn't torn my gaze away at the last moment. On the top left is primary reason I don't draw baristas.

Back to moleskine

I don't know why the notebook is called a moleskine. I imagine they were originally made of the skin of moles, and the producers added an "e" to the end to avoid the ire of PETA. Suffice to say, my reasons for turning to the moleskine were entirely practical: I had to go shopping afterward, and the moleskine is about 2 pounds lighter than my other sketchbook.

We start off with a blonde. She was not a happy blonde, but she wasn't as sad as I portray her here. On this scale, being off by a millimeter can mean the difference between someone smiling over a muffin, and someone smiling over baby rape.

This guy was not as badass as he looks here. But he was as nerdy.

Turning my head 90 degrees, I saw these people. One was reading a book/texting/tilting her head to allow her hair to flop around, solely to allow her the chance to run her hands through it and pull it back in a completely different style, and the other was sitting ramrod stright/staring vaguely into space/frowning/thinking about 'Nam/lunch/inappropriate use of slashes.

And we end the tour with this comic-style drawing of a very, very respectable looking woman who became less so when she turned her head. Faces are weird like that. Another woman ordering mochaventilatteccino walked by at some point expressing interest in my water pen, which you will never see here because it moves to much to draw.

Friends Who are Cold

If there's a theme to the sketches this week, it's: "What the hell?! It's snowing?! Two weeks ago I was playing frisbee on the mall with no pants on! This requires coffee." I gurantee something like that was running through everyone at the Mudhouse's mind at some point this morning. So you get another bunch of people wearing sweatshirts and scarves.

All right. I like to start off by loosening up, like an Olympic runner, or a green rubber band. That's why the fellow on top has a head shaped like malformed croissant. The bottom show my fourth (?) unsuccessful attempt to draw this woman. Seriously, I got this far, then a girl with really big hair comes and sits in front of her, and then she leaves. Do you see?! Do you see what happens when you leave!?

In between not finishing people, I did these people, the top two being lit most magnificently from their laptops. Aware of my sliding hand during the drawing process, I'm just going to go ahead and say that the woman looks "Picasso-esque". The Beard (that's his name now: Beard) has devoted his entire life to displaying his powers of lustrous hair growth to the world. Even his eyelashes blew around when someone opened the door. Clearly, he was a wizard, so I put sparkles around him.

And our last batch of folks here represents characters from places as far away about seven yards from me. One thing about it being cold is that a lot of people who would otherwise have gotten their coffee to go and drank it while riding wild stallions up sheer cliff faces suddenly found themselves exchanging blows and razor cuts over the few empty seats in the Mudhouse. I got my seat by tripping two nuns, a pregnant woman, and a legless orphan. The smug looking guy on top looks that way because he got a table all to himself, near an outlet for his laptop too. The girl, who name is apparently Rose, as overheard through an introduction by her sister to a fellow with glasses and a suit, who, let's safely assume, works at UVA. Now at that point, I was ready to go, but there was still an empty space at the bottom of the page, and a high school girl sat down at the empty seat at my table and we started talking about experiences drawing people in public, and hell, that guy wasn't moving too much, and he had a hat on, so why the hel not draw him, huh? He actually came over and complimented the likeness, which is cool, and I gave him a card. If he cares to identify himself in a message, well, that's cool, but I won't give him candy or anything.

More Coffee sketches

For some reason, the cafe was emptier this week. There was a greater proportion of women in too. Now, might this have something to do with the Superbowl? I don't know. It was 11 AM. Do people who usually drink coffee on Sunday morning also take entire days to prepare for TV sporting events ("It's not an event, it's the event!"). There were more cars than I usually see in the church parking lot. "Let's go, Steelers. Steelers, let's go. Amen."

Ignore the girl on top. These are sketchbook pages, whole and unedited. And I drew her last week. The woman on the bottom was reading children's books, and she had on a huge sweater. i assume she was a librarian or a pre-school teacher or something. Perhaps a decade or two ago, she might have been a social worker or an arts coordinator. I'll bet she was a liberal too. All this I got from the way her hair was tied back.

The bloke on bottom was working on equations or Physics or taxes. Whatever he was writing, numbers, and words combined in a singularly unpleasant way, I could see because he was sitting right next to me. He was also muttering in such a way that the vein on his forehead popped out. It made me think he didn't want to be disturbed, so I had to draw him very sneakily. Then he got up and left before I could get to his beard. He had a beard. Imagine a white beard on the bottom of that face. The girl must have been studying too, on the other side of the room. I only saw her smile once, when a toddler wandered by and said something darndest.

Here we have a short girl, a tall woman, and a man in a hat. The girl on top was sitting in a big easy chair to the left of me, doing what I assume was college work, completely undisturbed by the two other girls on the couch next to her, who were moving too fast to draw, and who were talking about either a fantasy ficiton or a game or possibly both. They were havinga grand time. She was not. Neither was the short-haired woman. She was more contemplative. Long periods would pass with her staring into space. I drew her hand in that position while she did that once, and she never did it again. At one point, she got up and left the cafe. Then she came back a few minutes later and sat in the same spot. Huh. The fellow looks like one of those kind of guys who thinks he plays more sports than he actually does. His hat was not really crooked.

Way far in the back of the cafe was the girl with the swoop of hair over one eye. I couldn't see her very well, and was therefor immediately consumed with the desire to draw her as detailed as possible. Why she was wearing such a light dress in 40 degree weather, I don't know, but I appreciated it. My attempts to capture the pattern of shadows on her shoulders were only semi-successful, but only because the lighting back there was so complex that every twitch changed it completely. I have the notion that I had seen the short-haired girl before. She came in late and talked for a long time with her two friends (backs to me) about this other friend she knew who was totally gay, and totally didn't know it, even though he accepted a date from a guy, and oh my god! And y'know, his fraternal twin sister is a lesbian. So, like, that might be the genes, do they share genes, if, y'know, you believe the genes, like, dictate whether you're gay. I'm trying to figure out how to tell him.

Coffee sketches

If I can make it, I'm going to start a new "thing": Sundays, go down to the Mudhouse cafe and sketch until I get hungry. Here's the results of today.


Having forgotten my pencil, I started straight sketching with my water pen and payne's gray. The guy on top was reading a book. When he left, I drew his chair. The guy on the bottom looked like Andy Serkis, but he left before I could finish.


The skinny guy looked like he was writing a book. Or studying, or something. The other two girls were playing chess on the other side of the room. For some reason, the one with the ponytail ended up looking Chinese, but she isn't.


This girl was very good and barely moved the entire time I was in the cafe. Except her hand.


I dropped too much water in my color tray and made up for it with broader strokes to soak it up.