Coffee Shop Sketching: Micro-Lesson and Sketchbook Project.
Boost your habit and build your observational skills
Every week I give you a short Micro-Lesson and a Sketchbook Project. Having a project is the best way to learn. This week’s project aims to help you strengthen your habit and give you tools to practice on the go
Hi, I’m Adam Ming, Startup Co-Founder turned Picture-book Illustrator. I write to help Intermittent Creatives build a Creative Habit and this is Ten Minute Artist!
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Micro Lesson: Coffee Shop Sketching
I’ve been out of town for a week, and the only time I’ve managed to get work done was at the coffee house of our hotel.
Sharing the hotel room with my wife and toddler made it difficult to use the space for work. It was only on the third day of the trip that I decided to use the coffee house as my ‘office’. This has worked out so well that I’ve decided to bring this back to my practice when I get home.
That has been my inspiration for this week’s theme: Coffee Shop Sketching
Unlock 3 Habit Boosters
Choosing to work in a cafe immediately confronts the three biggest challenges of establishing a sketchbook habit, time, place and motivation.
You’ve given yourself a place to work that is naturally conducive for sketching. You’ve chosen a time, and will be bound to some degree by the time it takes to sip your beverage. And the experience is enjoyable enough that it provides a motivation for starting or continuing your habit.
Tip: Set a particular sketchbook goal for each visit, take advantage of the natural benefits of the location: Ready made subjects.
Develop 2 Observational Skills
You walk in to the cafe except to you it’s an art studio.
There are two modules in your ‘education’. Quick Sketching and Detailed focus. The curriculum of each is deep and every time you visit your chosen ‘art studio’ you get to pick a module as well as an even narrower focus.
Let’s explore the modules:
Quick Sketching: Quick sketching trains you to capture the essence of a subject swiftly.
In the ever-changing café scene, you're surrounded by fleeting moments begging to be captured. The natural time constraint of a coffee break pushes you to sketch quickly, making decisions on the fly. This practice refines your ability to distill complex scenes into simple, impactful sketches.
Here are some ideas you can focus on: Poses, Portraits, Hands, Gestural Drawings, Compositions, Lighting - Pick one for each session, or even a series of sessions.
Detail Focus: Simultaneously, cafés are treasure troves of details—from the texture of the furniture to the subtle variations in patrons' expressions.
Sketching here, you learn to zero in on these details, enriching your sketches with realism and depth. Paying attention to detail not only improves your sketching but deepens your appreciation for the beauty around you. You can focus on details in particular cafe’s and over multiple sessions collect details from a variety of cafes.
Where quick sketching aims to capture impressions and relationships of objects. Detailed focus aims to spend a lot of time looking at a smaller range of subjects maybe even a single object.
You can expand this focus by drawing a single object repeatedly!
The café setting challenges you to toggle between rapid sketching and detailed observation, enhancing your versatility as an artist. This approach not only helps in building a solid creative habit but also sharpens your observational prowess, essential for your growth as an artist.
One way to stimulate creativity
One way to stimulate creativity is through constraints.
And cafe’s offer no shortage of constraints.The table might not be the ideal height for drawing, space might be limited. You might have a limited number of tools to use.
View these as opportunities to be creative.
Make this creative response a habit.
Sketchbook Project
This week’s project is to draw daily in a cafe and post a picture in the gallery.1 The picture should include both your sketch and your beverage. If you post on social media use the hashtag #TenMinuteArtist so we can find each other!
You are free to interpret the project however you like based on the micro-lesson above, or you can use this cheatsheet:
Day 1: The Essence of Movement
Focus: Poses - Capture the dynamic movements of café-goers, from the barista working swiftly behind the counter to customers navigating the space. Aim to convey motion with minimal lines.
Day 2: The Soul of the Café
Portraits - Sketch the patrons and staff, focusing on their expressions and moods. Try to capture the essence of their character in quick sketches, reflecting the diversity of café life.
Day 3: Hands at Work and Play
Focus: Hands - Concentrate on the hands of people around you. From the delicate grip on a coffee cup to the barista’s skillful pour, capture the story told by hands.
Day 4: Composition and Café Corners
Focus: Compositions - Observe the layout of the café, the arrangement of furniture, and how people occupy the space. Sketch various compositions, playing with perspective and depth.
Day 5: Capturing Light and Shadows
Focus: Lighting - Focus on how light enters the café and interacts with surfaces and people. Sketch scenes that highlight contrasts and shadows, enhancing the mood of your drawings.
Day 6: The Detail in the Décor
Furniture Texture - Select a piece of furniture or décor detail and spend your session capturing its texture, material, and form. Observe how light plays on its surface and the shadows it casts.
Day 7: Repetition and Variation
Focus: A Single Object Repeated - Choose an object, like a coffee cup, and sketch it multiple times from different angles and in different lighting conditions. Explore the subtle variations and what makes each sketch unique.
Each day's prompt is designed to improve your sketching skills and deepen your engagement with your surroundings, making every café visit a rich source of inspiration. Remember, the constraints you encounter are opportunities for creativity—embrace them and let them guide your artistic exploration.
Post your sketches (and observations) in the gallery, and share a little about the experience, I’m looking forward to meeting you at the cafes!
PS: Last week’s gallery was amazing and busy! GOOD JOB YOU!
34 Sketches were submitted!
If we can beat that number next week I’ll do an additional recap post to debrief and collect the learning from our cafe experience and some thoughts about making these cafe sessions a permanent part of our practice.
During the pandemic I would simulate a cafe experience by packing a small bag of materials and walking to the kitchen while my wife prepared me a beverage. If you cannot make it to a cafe consider simulating the experience, be creative!
Now, THiS could be most expensive week for the one who doesn’t drink coffee that often neither eat out that often! 😂 having said that I’ll try if I can do sketching in town centre but it’s freezing outside! 🥶 Am I making excuses or I just find it comforting to sketch from YouTube videos??? Lol 😝
I really like this, Adam. Especially these two points:
1. Extracting the essence and the detail as separate things that are both fundamentally important to the task.
2. How constraints and restrictions are just as able to enhance things as abundance and unlimited possibility.
Thank you for sharing a valuable lesson!