Last week’s urban sketching was a whimsical experience, but when you add sketching passersby into the already unpredictable concoction that is live art, we end up with a very different result. I will be the first to admit this week challenged me, and took far longer than I expected, partially due to feeling a bit burnt out and partially because the perspective completely confounded me.
To begin with, I went to a local bookstore where I had the bright idea to sketch the cafe from above. I thought this would bring a nice change from my typical horizon line, and it definitely did. It made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever, and I didn’t even bring a ruler to make a grid with. Even now I’m not entirely sure what this perspective would even be called, it looks a bit isometric, but could also just be two point perspective. On top of it all, the cafe made me the wrong drink…twice. However, frustration aside, it was a fascinating process deciding which “characters” to place in my scene as they interacted with the landscape. The people depicted showed up throughout my time sketching, but now exist in a singular moment. There was a mom and a very bored little daughter who didn’t want to eat her food, an old man sitting alone, a girl with bright pink hair and another one with long curly hair, some remote workers, and a guy who kept on texting. There were also shoppers walking swiftly around, and while I have placed a few here and there, these were decidedly less interesting. However, they are all in their own little snow globe now, strangers to each other in real life but existing on my paper as one connected story.
For my second attempt, I chose a cafe at school that I could observe between working hours. This time, I went back to my usual perspective. Desperate times call for predictable measures. I went into this one feeling a bit more confident, even though the amount of detail looked more intimidating since I was sitting closer. However, there is a certain charm in the random flyers and bags of chips and cookies displayed on the stand. It wasn’t very crowded, and customers didn’t stand around for long when they did show up. However, there was an older man who looked like a mechanic that rested against the counter for a long time. It was enough to capture the wrinkles in his clothes and the general sense of weight in how he was standing. There was also a girl with red curly hair and a bright green dress that stood out to me as well. As I enjoyed my (correct and delicious) drink, I pondered how to properly depict the depth underneath the coffee stand. I ended up using cooler colors in order to portray shadows, which would provide great contrast with the overall warm tones of the scene. The watercolor part of this assignment was by far the easiest for both instances, and reminds me of how much I enjoy working with it.
This exercise, while it did frustrate me, also helped me notice the small interactions between ordinary people in my day to day life. In a way, it felt like paying attention to a Studio Ghibli film, where even the most mundane moments contain rich storytelling and a sense of humanity. It opens your eyes to how interesting a passing stranger can be, whether they give off a sense of loneliness or hurriedness, or whether they have a unique style or bold hair. Truly, I’d like to try doing this again in the future and capture even more of a sense of frozen time in ordinary, but richly detailed places.
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