Drawing at cafes in Portland and London/The beauty of drawing quickly and letting go of perfectionism.

There’s something magical about drawing at cafes. Not only does it improve my skills at drawing from life (which is great for my clients) but it’s atmospheric and inspiring. I love coffee, so that helps- I’m not sure if the caffeine does anything for me anymore, although if I consume too much of it it’d still be bad for my cardiovascular system- I love the taste of the drinks, the smells in the air; I love how the environment changes as others move throughout their day and I get to indulge in a little bit of people watching.

Drawings at Sisters Coffee with a friend- her work is on the right. I love her minimalist style.

Conté pencil sketches done in Blank Street Coffee in London.

Not every coffee shop is the same, but they all tend to be a little similar- people are hunkered down working on laptops, reading books, engaged in conversation; often they’re in line waiting for coffee, all of which provide great subjects for sketching quickly.

The former allows me some time. Even if the person moves their head and body, I can still manage to sneak glances to capture them a little more accurately, and really try not to be creepy about it (if anyone has noticed me looking at you repeatedly while hurriedly moving my hand in a sketchbook, sorry, but I’m going to keep doing it).

The latter is more of a challenge - these people are not going to stick around for long, and that’s actually part of the beauty of it. During my fine arts major at college, we were taught to let go of the preciousness of a drawing, to capture the movement in form in bold, confident strokes, and to not let yourself be overly fastidious. In fact, when working with charcoal, we would actually use our chamois cloth to erase the figure drawing we’d just completed and start all over.

The reason I mention is this because it trains your brain to not only have your hand to draw quickly, but to allow yourself to let go of the need for a precise, perfectly drawn figure at all times.

It allows room for not only error, but also growth - you’re not obsessively drawing and erasing and drawing and erasing. It creates a confidence in your strokes. The more you build your visual library in your head of things you’ve drawn before, the more you’re able to create what you envision, even without observation.

I always strive to create a beautiful product for a client and do the best I can. But if you’re drawing something in five to ten minutes, you can’t add keep just adding a few more finishing touches over and over again, and re-work the same area just one more time. You have to learn to let go of it and feel confident in the piece you’re handing over without feeling the need to make it look just so. And believe me, I often want it to look just so. Sometimes I think I’m done, I go to hand it over, then I notice one little tweak I could make. And a few tweaks are fine! But often it’s your own hyper critical artist eye that is scrutinizing it so carefully.

Since starting to work as a live artist I’ve been incorporating more observational, real time drawing into my general practice for fun as well. I think it also gives me the chance to explore materials that could work for both live art and commissioned work/prints, such as these little paintings below. Maybe I’ll do some live paintings soon!