Coffee shop sketch...(Cafe Nero, Didsbury)

I keep telling prospective students in interviews that they should sketch more and refer them to the Urban Sketchers website. I suggest that if they are offered a place on our course, then over the summer when 'A' Levels are done, and there's just the long wait for the results, that they buy a Moleskin pocket sketch book and spend time drawing the world around them. And, where better to start than in a coffee shop...I always suggest. So I finally took my own advice! This is Cafe Nero, Didsbury. It's a busy view but I have restricted the watercolour palette and picked out highlights in cerulean blue and bright red. This sketch was done yesterday afternoon and took just under an hour and a half.

Urban sketching in Didsbury Village, Manchester

Last Friday I wasn't at work, so in the afternoon walked down to the village to do a bit of 'urban sketching'. It was a particularly mild autumn afternoon so I based myself outside Cafe Nero with a large americano coffee to keep me warm. This is the sketch I produced over an hour and a half. I am quite pleased with it but think I need to draw quicker and be less fussy with some of the detail. A combination of approaching dusk and a sudden chill in the air, bought my enthusiastic sketching to an end for the day!