Grilled squid with avocado, rice fritters, grapefruit gel and spicy avocado
I enthusiastically joined my Tuesday night sketch buddies for dinner, beer and sketching at Elevation 66, the new El Cerrito brew pub. I loved my dinner, displayed above, (a “small plate” combo so weird I couldn’t resist: grilled squid slices on spicy avocado sauce beside little blobs of grapefruit foam/gel (“to cleanse the palate”) and spicy deep-fried rice fritters. Odd but yummy!
Esther Vanilla Stout, Delicious! ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Even under the influence of a small glass of Esther Vanilla Stout, a delicious milkshake of a beer, it got so noisy by 8:00 on a Tuesday night that I couldn’t think straight and was ready to leave. I was having a hard time with drawing ellipses and symmetrical shapes (my next drawing subject to practice).
Cathy & Micaela sketching at the bar, ink & watercolor 5x7"
And there were lots and lots of symmetrical shapes to practice on! My drawing just kept getting wonkier as the noise got louder.
Beer in the vat, wine on the shelf with hoses
I was overly self-critical while I was sketching, wanting to get things right. Then I got my copy of The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing On Location Around The World
Please click on their names to see Cathy, Micaela and Beth’s excellent pub sketches from the evening on our Urban Sketchers blog.
Wonky is good! I can’t draw elipses either!
Fab description of your night and great drawings!
Thanks Sue, I wonder if there is a good trick for drawing ellipses better that doesn’t require complex perspective lines and all that boring stuff. Jana
These are great sketches—-sounds like an interesting evening! Wonky better be good because most of my sketches are! But I’ll continue to strive for well organized.
I think that’s the trick, to be happy with wonky and always striving to get a little better over time. Jana
San Francisco is a great city to do Urban Sketching in…I loved the Embarcadero area…wish I’d been sketching then and that digital cameras had been available (1980s)! Your sketches are excellent…wonky, well why not! I crave me some calamari, sounds great with avocado and the vanilla beer, interesting!
just got me a copy of The Art of Urban Sketching!