The Hipster at Zen Sai - A peek at the process....

On my trip to sketch at the Clevelander they had an idea to sketch the big drinks they are famous for.  This was fun and this example was "The Hipster".  I thought it was interesting after seeing SO MANY hipsters in Minneapolis that I noticed the absence of Hipsters in Miami.

These are the only paintings on my trip that I didn't use my small gouache kit. For these I went with a method I played with on earlier studies using a lot of cara D 'Ache Museum Aquarelle water color pencils and then just flooding it and let the colors swirl. 

Step 1 - Order a hipster - for Marcy of course

Step 2 - A light outline to get the proportions right (this turned out to be 1:4).  This also included where the ice hits the glass to remind myself to keep them light.  After that I start to lay in some yellow and the darker red.

Step 3 - add the lighter reds, some glass reflections, and being careful not to go to the edge or bottom of the glass so it reads as transparent. 

Step 4 - The fun part.  Add the water. I try to control the edges but let the rest do its thing. The hard temptation is not to keep spreading it around inducing your will on it. The more you control it the less blossoming and hard edges happen.  Only did an ok job on not stepping into this one, but I was trying to get rid of the color marks when in lead form. 

Step 5 - add the back ground color. Notice the clip. I used that because the page was starting to buckle and make the color pool.  Once again I am trying to keep the edges of the glass clean, but letting things be if they don't. I am also adding loose detail to the raspberry. 

Step 6 - Using a fountain pen - Noodler's Ahab with Noodler's Polar Black - I try a loose outline once it has dried.  Note that the Polar black takes a while to dry and will react if the paper is at all wet so I recommend waiting until you are sure it has dried.

Also note that I did this off of a reference photo from my phone since it would be cruel to let Marcy's drink get watered down for the sake of my art.

I would love to do a series of these for all of their drinks.  I bothered a few poor people to let me take pictures of their drinks.  They probably thought I was crazy. These iPhone photos don't do the color justice.  I can't wait to get them scanned.

I hope you enjoyed this and keep drawing. 

James Nutt

www.nuttdraws.blogspot.com