Caffe Cittadella

An urban sketchers' meet-up last week, and yet another place that is right off one of my frequently-ridden bike paths that I've never noticed.  Caffe Cittadella is in one of the few remaining Victorian houses in Vancouver.  I don't know all the history, but I saw from a historical sign that it was a run-down wreck in a fairly run-down neighbourhood near the Cambia Bridge, before being restored and converted into the cafe.  The rest of the 'hood meanwhile went more upscale, but in that fairly sterile glass-and-concrete way.  So the cafe in the old house and its surrounding trees are a strong contrast and a welcome break.

Besides the usual pleasantly odd lot of urban sketchers, I had a fun encounter with an older Chinese man.  I was sitting on the front step of his building to draw one of the views when he came out, looking suspicious.  I said hello, showed him what I was doing, and he became quite excited, eventually standing behind me as I painted, offering encouragement and suggestions about things I may not have noticed - "orange on that building too", "more blue there, more blue", "nice dark, very nice".  Now I know what they mean by a colour commentator...

Waiting...

There's an old saying among public transit users: "The wait is half the journey."  And that's a good thing.  The late ferry, the seabus that left just before you got there, the bus that is on schedule but you didn't want to miss it so you got there 10 minutes early - those are all drawing opportunities.  Especially if you're like me and don't really know how to use your smart phone.  All it takes is paper, a water-soluble pen, a brush and a bit of water.

Ten minutes before walking onto the ferry:

Just missed the seabus:

And best of all, the captive models (colour added later):

Flamenco at Granville Island

Tying together two of my drawing themes - Granville Island and flamenco - NewWorks.ca put on a free flamenco show by Fin de Fiesta outside Performance Works as part of the All Over the Map dance series.  It has a great outdoor setting, with a big grassy hill overlooking the stage, but also thick tree cover to give shade on a hot day.  A bit different from a smoky little underground bar in Seville at midnight, but the musicians and dancers were just as good, and between shows you can watch the world strolling by, paddling by, sitting by the bay, or trying to capture it all in paint.  Next up: Aché Brasil this Sunday and N'nato Bara Fa from Guinea the following Sunday.

Slide the City

The hill that is lower Lonsdale is a problem - people don't casually stroll more than a block up from the waterfront, and it makes an easy bike ride into full aerobic exercise.  But once a year, the city of North Vancouver puts the hill to its true and proper purpose - four blocks of the street are converted into a waterslide.  The only problem is that there are a lot of people in North Vancouver and not many fun events, so when one happens, there are huge crowds.  By the time I finished my sketch at noon, the lineup was over three blocks long and not moving anywhere (and none of it in the shade).  But it's a great captive audience for sketching.  And I finally figured out what some of those lurid colours in my paint set are for.

The View in Two (plus two)

One of my (many) goals is to be able to capture a scene quickly - two minutes with the pen and two minutes with watercolour.  Plus maybe a couple minutes for "Where did I put my brush?", "Why won't this lid come off?" "What did I just drop in the lake?"  It's not that I'm impatient (except when biting insects are involved), or even really that there's way too much out there that needs drawing.  It's to try to force myself to see what's important, and let all the little details go (at least sometimes - I like those details too...).  Here are some recent Views in Two:

You have to be quick to draw Active Pass from the BC Ferry.  They won't stop the boat, even if one of their paying customers is drawing.  Something about the schedule, apparently.  Whatever...

The quickness of the pen-free sketch of First Lake at Hollyburn was mosquito-motivated.  There were a lot more interesting things going on with the reflections than I caught.  Next time.

The view from Hollyburn Peak was a bit more leisurely on a finally-warm summer morning.  I could probably draw the entire panorama from memory by now.

None of those quite met the goal of 2+2 minutes.  But this one of the front garden did.  I was trying to capture the whole blooming, buzzing confusion of a summer afternoon - while the water boiled for tea. 

Purple house and city hall

An Urban-sketchers meet-up near Vancouver city hall turned into an event for the Society for the Promotion of Purple Houses, when Sigrid pointed me to the 100 block of West 10th St.  It's a complete block of classic old Vancouver houses, beautifully restored, and all in lively colours.  I sat under one of the immense shade trees to paint a couple of beauties.  One of the many side benefits of urban-sketching is the soundscape - often fragments of passing conversations in many languages, sometimes music, industrial goings-on, too frequently roaring traffic.  But here I got to listen to a full-blown telephone "discussion" between a young man and his girlfriend.  He was on the upper balcony of one of the houses, and was kind enough to have her on speaker-phone, so we got her side of the story too.  It was civil, but tense, and I'd say long-term prospects are bleak.  A couple who stopped to talk to me and listen in on the conversation agreed.  The SPPH notes that this was not happening in the purple house, because only good things happen in purple houses.

The actual meet-up was at city hall, which I've ridden by many times, but never actually seen - the building, or the large and lovely park beside it.  I got back there right at the end and did a quick 10 minute scribble-and-splash of the stylish building.

A mixed week

A few drawings from this week.  I'm not sure if there is a theme: an old stump, an old mountain, an old car, an old building, and a young lady...