Niche Cafe

i am still amazed at the number of indie cafes in Toronto. Niche Cafe is the latest one I have been to and they served the most amazing green tea with a coconut infusion... had it with a bit of honey... spot on!

sketchbook 04/29/10

This spread consists of a series of people who I've drawn over a period of three days during my meal breaks at Starbucks.

sketchbook 04/28/10

I went up to my dad's place today and it was the perfect opportunity to sketch some unsuspecting victims...errr..models on the subway ride up and down.

sketchbook 04/26/10

Meeting a friend for a coffee today, I thought was a perfect opportunity to get in another indie coffee shop. However, it wasn't up to snuff so I just drew it in my sketchbook. Oh, it's called the Coffee Tree

sketchbook 04/24/10

While waiting for a friend at the St.Lawrence Market, I had a chance to black line this scene in of Peter's bulk foods. I had a chance to briefly talk to Peter and he told me he came to Toronto from Greece in 1968 as an 18 year old and started this store in the Market in 1975. Impressive that it's survived over all these years considering the economic ups and downs.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to colour it in and to be honest there was so much colour going on here that I don't remember any one colour other than the lady's blue jeans and her green apron.

sketchbook 04/24/10

The last addition to this spread.

Wagamama Cafe

Wagamama, in Japanese means "selfish". That's what Miwa Yamada's parents called her as a child. So when she was old enough she was so "wagamama" that she opened up her own cafe.

This is my sixteenth cafe drawing, and it was feeling slightly burned out, so I thought i'd take a different approach to it. I laid down some yellow ink splatter and integrated some text. Not feeling it on this one.

sketchbook 04/20/10

Building on top of the previous post.

sketchbook 04/18/10

John Mosely, the sole patron of Starbucks during my dinner break...and my model.

Dark Horse Espresso Bar

Another indie cafe, the Dark Horse Espresso Bar, located a bit further east from my neighbourhood in the Arts and Design district. I decided to do this drawing while I was waiting to pick up my free copies of Spacing Magazine.

Quite the set of characters.

Lit Cafe

Lit Cafe is another fine addition to the collection of small independently run cafes in my neighbourhood. The one eye catching feature is the long bar made out of reclaimed Douglas Fir. As you could each length has been left in its rough form and combined to form a monolithic bar with a lot of character.

The bar name,"Lit", was bandies around between the owners family as they were all driving in a car and the owner said every time she drank one of her coffees she was lit up. Hence the name.

sketchbook 04/08/10 - killing time

The one good thing about working at Starbucks are the people. More specifically the chance to sketch them. When I take a meal break or a "15", I'll take my position in the place i like to call the "hot seat". It's two cushioned armchairs facing each other and the person who sits across from me will be my model for the duration of my break...Up to this point all these men have agreed to pose for me. It's funny, the one woman I asked said "no". I really think my shaven head is holding me back when I ask a woman if I could sketch her.


This is done while I was waiting for aikido class in a nearby food court.

Suzanne Collage

Suzanne Ernst is a friend from university. We've been hanging out recently and she mentioned that her birthday is coming up (tomorrow in fact) and she was lamenting the fact that no one has ever made her a personal birthday card. It was surprising to hear this because she lives in and is surrounded by creativity at work and friends. So I told her I'd make her a personal card...she actually mentioned that a scribble on a piece of paper would make her happy...so I hope this does the trick for her.

Plus, I also hope she doesn't stumble onto this before it arrives in the mail in a few days.

Plus, plus, all the words I've used to describe her are not true...they all should be multiplied by a factor of ten… then we're getting near to what she really is like...however the "freak of nature" should be multiplied by a factor of 20 (kidding...really..ok, maybe a little freakish, but in a really nice way!)

Happy birthday, Suzanne!

sketchbook 04/04/10

With the warm weather upon us here in Toronto, people were out and about. I returned to Dragon City to sate my craving for some really bad chinese food and the old men's club were out at the picnic tables, playing a form of Chinese chess. I had captured them previously and it was nice to know some things in life never change. This time around, I thought I'd draw them from above.

With this generation of Chinese men, smoking is as much as their respective lives as eating and drawing them from above was a real challenge in breathing for me. Oh, the things I do for my art!

Spacing Magazine

It's finally out! About three months ago I emailed the art director of Spacing Magazine, a local magazine about Toronto urban issues, about my café illustrations. He loved them and asked if he could feature them in this Quarter's spring issue. Of course I said yes and the rest is history, as the saying goes!

However, as a newbie to the paid illustration world, the 3 months leading up to today, when I finally saw my drawings in print, I was wracked with paranoia. I emailed the AD a few times asking where I stood with it over the last three months and he never replied. I of course thought they regretted the decision of putting my illustrations in this issue and this was their way of saying, "beat it". Well the paranoia was vanquished today when I saw them finally in print.

I'm pretty stoked right now.