Today at my urban sketching class I did a demo for a few of my students. We had been talking about creating volume using 3-D shapes and I wanted to find a scene to demonstrate that. In a small cafe area near our classroom, I saw the red Coke machine. A rectangular solid shape if I’d ever seen one! As I got my supplies out and ready to sketch, a man came up to buy something. I quickly sketched in his figure on my page and that was the first thing I sketched. I have shared how I often find “sketch anchors”—those things that don’t move on you—- and sketch parts of those, then move to people, then when they move off, I go back to the sketch anchors. The Coke machine provided a good sketch anchor, as does the stainless steel counter and the ice cream machine on the far right. I sketched in the woman behind the counter eventually, as she was standing there long after the man left doing things at the cash register. Though there were plenty of things in the background like lights, machines, and other food items, I decided to keep it simple and bath it with a golden light. This was a fun little sketch and provided a segue into much of my lesson this morning. Sometimes things work out just right!
Coke Machine
