Urban Sketching y Cafe de la Manana

 

Another installment of my sketches of local area coffee shops I've visited recently. Sometimes a simple interior sketch is all that's needed. That's especially true when the exterior is basically low-slung box of a building and all you really see is a parking lot full of customers' cars.

However, the full parking lot told me that La Panaderia is a very popular place. It's a local bakery [pa-nuh-DEH-ree-uh] with local ties to bakeries in Mexico City, so the pastries and baked goods were excellent as was the coffee. Two locations in San Antonio, downtown and Alamo Heights area, if you're visiting.   

New Life for Old Buildings, Perfect for Urban Sketching

I decided to take a break this week from my Coffee Shop Sketching series. A few weeks ago I did another of my  #lineandwashdrawings in the #urbansketcherstyle . This of St. Paul Square in the Depot District downtown.

This is a somewhat charming old urban area (from the last century when we rode trains everywhere) that is being revitalized and brought back to life. New night spots, shops, and restaurants - always a good thing I think.

Coffee Shop Sketching No.3

Here is another urban-sketch in my local coffee shop series. This shop is different from the others in that it's not a storefront coffee shop, such as Starbucks. Rather Theory Coffee started life as a mobile truck coffee shop. It's owners found a perfect location in the neighborhood at the intersection of a busy thoroughfare and a freeway. The spot had been a gas station in its former life but was perfect for a mobile coffee truck. The property was updated, and the awning/portico provides the perfect place to sip coffee with shelter from the sun and weather. The coffee is excellent, too, so it's always busy.

#urbansketching  #watercolor  #urbansketchers 

Coffee Shop Sketching No.2

In my last blog I told you how I had decided to visit some of the coffee shops in the local area and sketch what I saw either from an an interior window seat, or even better, from an outdoor seating area or patio. Today's image is from another Starbucks nearby, no surprise, they're everywhere! This one at the Oak Park location at N. New Braunfels & Nacogdoches.

Coffee Shop Sketching

Good morning, buenos dias, etc! I hope you have had your morning coffee today or tea or chai or whatever gets you going.

Recently I joined a group and began urban sketching, which, as it turns out, is a worldwide pastime of artists and sketchers and painters and some architects even. Who knew?

I'm enjoying the new challenge and decided to scout out some urban locations to sketch. With the proliferation of coffee shops on almost every corner it seems, I started there.

I've been visiting several in my nearby area and, after purchasing my brew of the day, usually dark roast, I find a seat, either a window or outdoor area, and sketch the view.

Today's image is my sketch of the view from the leafy Starbucks in Alamo Heights looking north on Broadway. Hope you like it.

In upcoming blogs I'll talk about what I'm learning about the many different tools of the trade used in this endeavour. Note: I'm still figuring out which ones work best for me.

Urban Sketching in San Antonio

 

If you've re-discovered The Painting Life blog, aka orbisplanis.blogspot.com, thank you for viewing. As you may have seen in my last post, I started posting again after a multi-year hiatus to attend to a family crisis.

In order to make my posting to The Painting Life blog as easy as humanly possible, I'm using the most basic blogspot formatting tools so that I may post quickly without fiddling with the look and feel. I hope you don't mind.

The topic of today's blog is Urban Sketching, in which I recently started participating. I knew very little about this art phenomena, although I had heard snippets about it for years. So I did a little online research. Seems it is way bigger and more widespread than I imagined  - worldwide in fact! There are urban sketchers in every part of the globe and it appears in most of the world's urban population centers.

I was pleasantly surprised to find one in San Antonio and one in Austin. I found them on the MeetUp app and joined the movement. The San Antonio group meets roughly twice a month at notable locations around the city and in nearby Hill Country towns.

Today's image is my sketch from last Saturday at Mission San Juan Capistrano, one of San Antonio's famous missions dating from the Spanish colonial era. 

Hope you enjoy it and maybe it will spark an interest in your trying urban sketching.

#urbansketching, #acrylicpainting

The Painting Life Blog is Back

Two Pears

Acrylic on Canvas Panel

20 in x 16 in

Copyright 2023, All Rights Reserved

If any of you reading this blog remember way back in 2018, that was the last time I posted on Orbisplanis.

As happens to all of us sometimes, life intervenes, and we must face the challenges we're confronted with. In my case, and without going into any details, the challenge was the diagnosis of a terminal illness of a loved one. This stark reality lead to life-altering changes for the family. I was completely overtaken with the subsequent illness, death and recovery period (if you can call it that).

Needless to say, my painting life was put on hiatus for the duration. It has only been recently that I was able to re-kindle my interest and pick up my paintbrush.

Today's image is a by-product of my new reality.