Macrina Cinnamon Roll

 

3/7/24 Macrina Bakery

After dropping off my car for servicing before breakfast, I walked the few blocks to Macrina Bakery. (It was 29 degrees that morning, and I had no intention of sketching outdoors!) It was early enough that I got a good table facing the large side windows where patrons were nicely backlit.

Without necessarily planning the contents of each panel in my comic-like spread, I briefly thought about how I wanted the pages to look before I dove in with the cinnamon roll at lower left. (I always start with the food, regardless of its placement on the page, so that I can quickly get on with the business of eating, which was especially critical on that morning because I hadn’t had coffee or food yet.) As a lefty, I tend to start on the right and move leftward. The young woman, the man who looks like the comic character Dilbert and the vased flower fit nicely into those spaces.

I was then left with a narrow horizontal space at lower right, which was awkward to fill: Most elements in my view seemed vertical or squarish. Remembering tips from Drewscape in his YouTube video that inspired the comic approach I’ve been using, I zoomed in on the arm of the woman I had already sketched at upper right. I’m not sure what it adds to the “narrative” of my Macrina story except that her continual texting gave me plenty of time to sketch her twice. I really like that this compositional approach “forces” me to look for subject matter or views that I might not otherwise consider sketching.

Skeptical yet ever-hopeful: the Pilot Juice Paint Marker

Material notes: After it went dry shortly after I had started using it, I finally got around to refilling my Pentel pocket brush pen. It’s good to have it back in my hand.

In other news, I’m trying yet another white pen: a Pilot Juice Paint Marker. From its description and appearance, it’s likely to be the same as the Posca I finally gave up on after cursing it regularly. But my white pen hope springs eternal.

By the way, remember Murphy’s Laws of Urban Sketching No. 4: Ten minutes into your sketch, a large delivery truck will park in front of you for the next 30 minutes? It happens in cafes, too.

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