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.

sketchbook 03/31/10

This is the last image I drew for today at the Yonge/Dundas Square. It's the major open space in downtown toronto and what you're looking at is the north west corner. It's really grown on Torontoians and it's home to free open air concerts, farmers market's and great spot to sit and people watch.
Trying another drawing without the micron pen. Poor planning resulted in the lady in the foreground painted rather harshly on an established background. Kinda like the effect though.

Warm up sketched at the ROM.

people

Over two days, I drew a few heads. The one on the left was done during my 15 minute break. I find it's a good way to draw quickly and with a little abandon.

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.

The Keyhole Sessions

Another frisky night at the Keyhole Sessions.

Green Beanery coffee house

Another installment to my coffee house series. What I didn't capture was the other half of this interior. They sold every piece of coffee equipment you could imagine to make, drink and play with coffee.

sketchbook 03/23/10

I returned to Balzac's and sketched on the second floor.

The Keyhole Sessions

Another great, colourful night sketching at the Keyhole Sessions.

sketchbook 03/17/10

It was such a warm, beautiful day today, that I had to get out there and draw. I decided on the round house down by the lakeshore. It once was the building that housed all the trains during our "golden age" of train use. However, now the building itself houses a brewery in the east part of the structure and a furniture store in the west. I'm not complaining about the brewery but the furniture store decided to wreck a beautiful, industrial, concrete silo with their name perched onto top of it...Whatever happened to tasteful, subtle design? The drawing captures the bottom portion of the silo but fortunately my non-existent sense of proportion allowed for the omission of the name.

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 03/09/10

This is Pedro, a regular at the Starbucks I work at. He typically orders a tall hot chocolate with whip cream, but not tonight. He opted for Jone's root beer. Must be the spurt of warm weather we've had recently.

The Keyhole Sessions

Warm-up sketches.




The Keyhole Sessions are an on going figure drawing class that occurs every Tuesday night at 8pm. It's advertised as "Not your grandma's life-drawing session" and rightly so. I attended tonight's session and Mara and Mattea were the models for the evening. Their poses were provocative and to some, could be considered a bit racy. However, I found them to be refreshing, a nice change from the traditional stuff done in academic type figure drawing sessions. So here are a few pages from tonight.

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)

Ideal Cafe

It's been a few weeks since I posted so I thought I'd return to the blogosphere with a cafe drawing. This time around, I got a chance to sketch the Ideal Cafe. It looks like a hole in the wall, and it is, however, they make a pretty good americano and the place is a great magnet for interesting looking people.

Moonbean Cafe

I heard Mr. Warden's mantra over and over in my head as I drew and coloured this image. He was my grade 7 art teacher, who always told us never to over draw an image and know when to stop. Well, Mr. Warden, I guess I wasn't listening to you back then and I wasn't heeding your advice on this image. A bit too finicky but I throw this out into the ether known as the blogosphere.

I've drawn this cafe before, in one or my earlier sketchbook pages and I have to say I liked that one a bit better, even though it wasn't an interior image.

For Dan Kent…

Hi Dan. I'm a visual kinda guy, so i thought i'd post my beloved companion. Here's the Bic round stic Grip, fine tip.

It took some getting used to at the beginning, but i'm loving how it feels. It tends to bleed after a bit of use, but i find the bleed spots add a bit of texture to my drawings. I can't find the fine tip in blue so it's a little frustrating to do the black and blue drawings with a medium tip blue pen. But, life goes on and so shall i.

Sketchbook 01/31/10

A common theme running through these two spreads. They were both drawn while waiting. The cafe was done while waiting for a friend at the Moonbean Cafe and the laptop gentleman was done waiting for my shift to begin.