Weekdays

I suppose this could be called a sketch, although it is more of a cartoon/caricature. It is a drawing of a couple of different people in my various classes, just placed in an odd situation. Needless to say, there is no large board of photos of random people up where my classmates do their presentations... I have discovered the tall guy on the left is one of the easiest people to draw. It's those long legs.

12th March

The cafe was full of students today. In pairs or groups of three they cluster around tables and chat and laugh. Excluding those with laptops and deadlines. Like the guy opposite me with his black Fujitsu laptop and foreign-student accent. He has an espresso in which he puts two sugars and a bottle of coke. When the waitress comes with his espresso he asks for a glass and ice for his coke. Twice he leaves to smoke a packet-cigarette and stand in moody indifference in the cold. I think he’s running on stimulants. He sits opposite me purely out of necessity. When one of the tables next to the wall is free he ups and moves, the empty seat opposite unnoticed by me until a little while later, when the lack of body to fill it shocks me.

When I came in, I sat down next to the oddest situation. There were two tables set up against the wall, as usual, with two chairs for each so that the pattern went thus: Chair, table, chair, chair, table, chair. In the chair nearest to me and the chair furthest away two men are sitting, having a conversation over their two own tables and the two chairs between. Like two men who are allergic to each other they sit, 4-5 meters away from each other, and talk. They are obviously strangers, in conversation because of a freak observation or random event that linked them for a few minutes. But in my head the possible stories fold over each other like cards in a deck.

It’s a shame I didn’t get a sketch. I was sitting in totally the wrong position.

Shame about the mess of this one. However, this is the best face sketch I have ever done. The guy was sitting on the next seat over from me on the sofa, his laptop on his lap. His face was blank - that kind of relaxed concentration when your mind is on what's happening on the screen. He was completely concentrated on his laptop, sitting very still, so I found it easy to work on my sketch without him noticing. However, he must have been talking to someone on the laptop, because just as I was doing his mouth he suddenly moved and a little smile crept across his face and lifted the corners of his mouth and melted the blankness. I'm glad I got that smile in.

5th March

I don't know if any of the 'almost regulars' were there this week - I sat outside instead, in the sun.

There's a couple sitting a few feet away from me. As I walked towards the cafe a little while before, he was sitting alone. Sunglasses on, black hair and white shirt, watching me as I approached. Five minutes later, as I left the cafe with my drink to sit outside, there was his girl; a whispy blonde thing who fiddles with her gold bangles and always has a part of her body touching him, whether hand, foot, leg. He's on the phone right now, the hand holding the phone to his ear with it's elbow in the table top, blocking her out. She sits with one foot on his chair and watches him.



The ladies sitting at the table next to them look like old friends. They sit, cigarettes in between fingers, sunglasses hiding their eyes. The blonde talks - gesticulates - leaning forward while the brown in the red tartan coat leans back in her chair and comments. Her hair is dyed and wavy, her skin tanned. She seems almost bored. A power woman. When they go, they leave an ash tray of cigarette ends.

Early Feb

One of my class mates, of whom is placed in a perfect position, within the room, for my sketching and therefore has become one of my favourites to draw.

26th Feb

The woman who I sketched here last Friday is back. How delightful. This time she sits and eats her breakfast with a black-shirted man. Their conversation is earnest and she’s very pretty when she smiles. She looks more relaxed this week, in a black t-shirt and trainers.

The couple of elderly ladies who were sitting next to me earlier were discussing the antique fair I missed yesterday. One of them had the most heavy-gorgeous gold ring with red stones set along it. I complimented her on it and she smiled and said that it was not an expensive one, but that I was a “good girl. A good girl.”

Their space has now been taken by a couple of Uni students. Friends; she with a loud, girly laugh that compliments her pink and green flowered scarf and he who is playing a university sport game against a team of professionals called “The Penguins” next Tuesday. He has the build of a rugby player. Or possibly ice hockey.

A father had just come in with his pink-spotty-suited little girl in a pushchair. The bored looking business man sitting next to me with his laptop cracked a smile for the first time since he came in here. Now he’s distracted; even his checked shirt can’t hide the sudden paternal tendencies hiding behind his laptop screen and glasses. He glances over at the chuckling little girl and smiles again. He’s finding it hard to concentrate on his work. He mouths the words and points at the screen, his movements suddenly flamboyant in his attempts not to be distracted.

The father’s youngish, and this child is his first. He sits on the sofa with her on his lap and drinks his coffee while she rattles her toy and sucks at the rounded plastic. The waitresses lean over the chair back opposite to say hello and send delighted glances and meaningless cooings at his daughter. It’s funny how children can do that. She has the cutest smile.