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Friday, December 2, 2016

Warming Up at Zoka Coffee

11/23/16 ink
I’ve been itching to get back to life drawing sessions at Gage, but the school takes a long winter break between Thanksgiving and New Year. With no other nearby options, I’ve been going to the second-best life drawing opportunity: Zoka Coffee in my neighborhood.

Noticing that my coffee shop sketches tend to lean more heavily on male “models,” I made a conscious effort this morning to give equal time to women. During actual life drawing sessions with nude models, I find female bodies easier to draw than male models, but for portraits, it’s the other way around. The softer facial structures and more delicate features of women’s faces are much more challenging for me to draw than those of men. Another difficulty is that women seem more aware of their surroundings and look up more often, so I have to work harder to avoid being caught when I’m sketching them. (The young man, below, working on his laptop was so oblivious to his surroundings that I managed to sketch him twice – and he hardly changed twice either time!)
12/2/16 brush pen, colored pencil

It was fun sketching at Zoka Coffee this morning, but that was just a warm-up for the main event: tomorrow at Gage Academy’s 17th annual Drawing Jam! It will be my fifth consecutive year (here's last year's post) attending Seattle’s biggest art-participation event, and I’m looking forward to it as much as ever!

12/2/16 brush pen

12/2/16 brush pen

12/2/16 brush pen

12/2/16 brush pen

12/2/16 brush pen

3 comments:

  1. Good sketches!!! Thank heaven there are coffee shops for sketching people indoors. It is funny that you think the women are more aware of their surroundings. lol Have fun tomorrow!

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  2. I find it nearly impossible to draw females in a coffee shop setting, unless I'm drawing them from the back. Women have a sixth sense of when a male is looking at them and it always spoils things :-)

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    Replies
    1. I think, as a man, you are definitely at a disadvantage in that way! Fortunately for both of us, there are plenty of oblivious males we can still sketch. ;-)

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