Rooster Cafe

The Rooster Cafe, my latest cafe drawing and the toughest one I've done up to this point. I knew it would be a doozy to colour when I was black lining it and it was true.

sketchbook 08/01/10

The newest addition to the Toronto's public spaces, Sugar Beach. It's be located on the old industrial lands, along the waterfront, across from the Redpath Sugar processing plant. There's still some construction to be done tot he space, but the actual beach is open to the public and was used by many today. I'm going to try to get down to this space when the tankers dock and unload their load. It'll be a great sketching opportunity!

St. Lawrence Market

I'm branching out from my coffee shop series and trying to capture a few other places in Toronto. This is the St. Lawrence MArket. A great people watching place and a lot of eye candy to sketch.
I thought I'd show the process of how one of these micron pen and watercolour drawings come to be. I've changed my process a bit and when I want to capture people I try to sketch them in with pencil quickly and then black line it.

The Good Neighbour

Here's the Good Neighbour drawing, in part for M.B., but also I wanted to post something since it's been ages since my last one.

This image and the "Voulez-Vous Cafe" drawing were actually black lined quite a few weeks ago but I only finished colouring them yesterday. A slight burn out with the cafe drawings, but here they are. It's funny, but when I look at any drawing that I've invested some time in, I could remember exactly what was going around me when I drew it. With this one, there were two gentlemen sitting beside me talking about the nature of love. Actually it was the younger of the two men who was asking his friend what love was? Was he in love? I believe when they did leave, the younger man did think he was in love with his girlfriend. Isn't that sweet.

sketchbook 06/20/10

I didn't realize how much energy setting up two shows can drain from me. I didn't have any desire to sketch after the Sunnyside show and I took a lazy man's hiatus after that. However, now that I think about it, as my aikido teacher says, it's at those times when you don't feel like practicing, is when you should be going to practice the most. I guess I slipped on the drawing and I should have been putting down the lines in my sketchbook.

So with that said, this is my first real sketch since that time and hopefully I'll be back on track and uploading something on a daily basis.

Naco Cafe and Gallery revisited

So a few days ago I noticed Naco Cafe redecorated their interior, namely moving their bar to accommodate a few more tables. Reason enough to sketch it again, no? Looking at it now, I think I preferred the first attempt at this space. It's unfortunate that the back of the chair in the foreground rides directly up the man's back side...live and learn.

Blondies

Blondies is a cafe during the day and club during the night. It's quite evident what it was with the disco ball and strippers pole in the back. I particularly liked the antler chandeliers.

All Things Tea

I did this drawing a few days ago and just finished colouring a few minutes ago. I had fun doing it and found out that the green tea I ordered should be steeped for two minutes in 170ºC water. Well I did just that and it tasted like… green tea. The gentleman in this image was on the first day of his job. The three hours I was there he acquitted himself well with the customers coming in. Good job!

I also continued using the minion pro typeface. Had a hell of a time eyeballing all those letters and I found that it was ok that each letter that was repeated didn't have to be identical to the previously drawn one...gives it some character.

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!

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.

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 04/04/10

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!

Orange Alert cafe

Well another day, another cafe. The jury's still out on this one. i know I don't love it, nor do I really hate it.

Cafe Bernate

One of the grand dames of the West Queen West neighbourhood, Cafe Bernate has been around since 1991. One real cool feature of this place is the concrete counter that the owner had poured himself. It's embedded with various items like keys, shells and even a bottle. Very cool.

sketchbook 03/10/10

I ventured down to the St. Lawrence Market and three separate people said sorry when I asked them if I could sketch them. What was really funny was the second lady. When I asked her she immediately put her hand to her hair and started preening it self consciously. Hilarious! So I was left with sketching people from the back.

sketchbook 03/07/10

Alternative Grounds Revisited.

As promised I returned to Alternative Grounds, an indy coffee house in the Roncesvalle neighbourhood, which I had sketched previously and this time in an attempt to grab a seat that would afford a window view. However, the coffee gods were not on my side and I had to grab a chair in the backroom. Despite the lack of a window view, there was this great chair that I was able to sketch. Right as I was settling down to sketch it, the occupant of the chair got up and left. I think she was nervous being the centre of my attention.

sketchbook 4x3

I've realized something drawing the cafe images. I get pretty uptight using the micron pen and it definitely translates into the line work. No fluidity and looseness at all. So to combat my nervousness using the micron I decided today that my sketches would be based on quantity versus quality. So here are 12 images I drew over the course of the day. The first 9 are images drawn at the Future bakery and the last 3 are drawn at the Royal Ontario Museum. It was a great challenge for me to be loose at the ROM because everything I've done up to this point at that location has been pretty tight. I actually caught myself a few times tightening up. The image I like the most is the buddha because it's the least favourite of the lot. It's so unlike my style that it makes me cringe and I think doing something that is outside of my comfort level will eventually help me expand my repertoire.

El Almacen

El Almacen, in Spanish, means a general store. Silvio, the proprietor of this new cafe along the Queen west strip was kind enough to talk to me about what made this place stand out from the other indy cafes in Toronto, even though it's only about a month old. The draw of this cafe is its mate in a gourd tea. Mate is a tea that has a lot of medicinal value to it and traditionally it's drunk from a gourd. Not to slap tradition in the face, I did just that and sat at El Almacen for a few hours sipping this tea while sketching this place.

The gourds can be seen on display on the two shelves in this image. According to the small leaflets available at the cafe the mate tea's benefits include:
1. It has the same amount of caffeine as coffee but doesn't have the same side effects like jitters and yellow teeth.

2. It makes you look younger. It has antioxidants and a higher concentration of polyphenols (a strong antioxidant)

3.Boosts the immune system

4. Helps you loose weight. (I don't think I need to loose anymore weight)

5. You look cool drinking the tea straight from the gourd. (That's why so many ladies were staring at me...I was cool)

Sketchbook 01/23/10

Some random people that were sitting in my cone of vision when I had my sketchbook out.


To celebrate the sale of my 4 drawings, I treated myself to a bit of dim sum at the Kim-Moon Bakery. This place has been around since I was 10 and is still thriving. It's a cheap, quick place to grab something filling and it holds so many memories for me. The wait staff, regardless of how many have passed through these sumptuous smelling halls of goodness, all have been direct, a bit gruff, women who get to the point and tell you how it is. This is not French dining, folks, it's quick and dirty dim-sum and that's how it should be!

On the celebratory menu was a steamed beef patty and over easy egg on rice, with a side of beef tripe with scallions and ginger and deep fried squid tentacles (or as my friend calls them, the french fries of the sea)