Sketching in Seattle's coffee shops

And the final image…


Not quite sketching in coffee shops… but hey!

Sophie, what kind of software/app did you use to put that video together?

Hi Brian, I just pulled it together really quickly in Premiere Pro.

This week I ventured out of coffee shops to a bar for a ‘drink and draw’ evening, it’s a monthly meet up in Seattle, so I’m definitely going to head back to try this again!

I’ve never drawn with charcoal before, or done any life drawing before, so lots more practice needed!



And a couple more…


Nice! It is good to switch it up!

I need to get to that meet-up. Not sure how effective either the drawing or drinking would be when done simultaneously, but sure sounds fun. Could devolve quickly. Or who knows? Maybe make a masterpiece while buzzed. Were they timing the poses?

I was surprised how busy it was, it had a great atmosphere. They started with shorter poses, and the timing increased up to about 20 minutes per pose. I’m not sure I’ll be creating any masterpieces anytime soon, but will definitely be back next month! Feel free to shout if you head over.

That is such a cool idea for a meet up! My town has a studio where people can pay money to test wines and create a guided painting. Yours looks a lot more fun!

That pour over render is really neat! I love the copper detailing. It makes me wonder how copper might affect the flavor or brewing of coffee. . . I’m not a coffee drinker myself, so I wouldn’t be able to tell, but I have a copper coated water bowl for my dog to reduce bacteria growth, and she drinks twice as much water from it as she does from a stainless steel bowl. I always wondered if water (and maybe coffee) tastes better that way.

Do you regularly follow your sketches all the way to rendering for practice?

I feel like I’ve neglected this thread a bit… then I saw Yo’s new car sketch tutorial, so figured I’d give it a shot! It feels a little on the heavy side compared to Yo’s car, and a little skewed in the top section, so I might have another go and see if I can get a more fluid version going.

Is it perhaps a bit tall as well?

I’ve been to that Drink & Draw event at Capitol Cider in Capitol Hill few years ago. Something about 20+ choices of cider and endless supply of charcoal sparked confidence to fearlessly sketch through the night. Glad to see the event continue

I tried the car sketch again… I’m really struggling with the top left section, and the fact that it looks quite fat and warped, like my front perspective has twisted to my back?! Any tips?!! Help!! :smiley:

Hi Sophie,

You sketch suffers from a bit of the toy designer sketch syndrome of shorting the proportions and puffing things up a bit.

Check out the below. I took you sketch and highlighted in red where the perspective lines are tampering to. They are tapering in the reverse direction. The green lines show the direction they should taper to as well as better positions for the centerlines of your ellipses. The lower version I took you sketch and stretched, warped, and liquified it into a more reasonable perspective and proportion. It takes time to get used to it. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s i was dong a lot of toy design and I found it incredibly hard to draw a car! The two styles are so different in how they exaggerate.

Ah! Now I see it!!! That’s brilliant, thank you. I’ll give it another shot. I could see it was all squished and wrong, but couldn’t work out how I’d gone so wrong!! Thanks. :slight_smile:

I feel like I’ve neglected this a little, I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time at work sketching, so was a little sketched out in the evenings. But back on it now!!

Back to my old thick lined Sharpie sketching for the Weekly Design Challenge on Instagram. I don’t usually put lots of thumbnails on one page, I tend to build out more of a concept, any tips for arranging pages with numerous images? It didn’t feel very natural!


nice stuff Sophie!

Thanks!! :slight_smile:

Had a very very quick shot at adding a bit of colour too…

Photoshop and multiply layers.

Barring that, I think varying the scale of the sketches and views, as well as line quality and amount of shading or color, will get the effect you are looking for. Mix between orthographic “side/front/top” thumbnails, and perhaps one or two larger 3-qtr or gestural sketches in the corners.

So I feel bad for dropping this thread a bit…! But full time work has made me lazy outside work! However… I have been playing with sketching in VR, and wondered if anybody else had? I’m still very novice, and struggled switching from perspective sketching to volumetric sketching! But hey, here’s to exploring different sketch styles!!

Any pointers, tips, examples, experiences?
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I haven’t but that looks kind of mind-bending.