Bat Attack: The Dork Knight Rises

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Every month on the third or fourth Thursday, Sketchy Broads host a sketch session at Austin’s Coffee (929 W. Fairbanks Ave. Winter Park, Fl). This month they dressed up as Batman characters from The Dark Knight Rises. They always come up with stunning outfits.

The modeling session costs $5 to sketch long poses from 6:30 – 8:30

$7 to sketch from 6-8:30 which includes 30 min. of short gestures, and

$10 if you wish to take reference photos.

I arrived and ordered a Yak which is a tasty iced coffee. There were only four of five other artists so it was easy enough to find a seat. I ended up on the big red couch. Sitting back in the cushions, I couldn’t move my elbow much, so I sat on the edge of the couch leaning forward. Two white photographer’s umbrellas lit the scene. Lindsay Boswell was dressed head to toe in black leather as an edgy and hip Cat Woman. It is a shame that Anne Hathaway‘s outfit doesn’t show this much cleavage. Jenny Coyle was dressed in lace stockings, a tight bodice and frilly skirt skirt as a sexy and deranged Arkham City Harley Quinn mental ward nurse.

All my early sketches were tiny thumbnails and then I did a larger sketch towards the end of the session. I’m getting better at choosing the intricate details that are needed while letting other areas stay unresolved. Knowing how long the pose will last was a real luxury. I should get out to these sessions more often. If you are an artist you should come out to these sketch sessions, they are a blast!

Milk Carton Superstars

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The third band I saw as part of I-4 Fest, inside Austin’s Coffee (929 W. Fairbanks Ave. Winter Park) on July 4th was Milk Carton Superstars. They had gone the extra mile by having an American flax covering the speakers. They also had their own LED lighting although it wasn’t needed since it was really bright outside. Milk Carton Superstars are a couple guys shaking riffs and rhymes out of thin air and turning them into rock & roll songs.


The band formed in early 2007 when longtime friends
Guy Larmay (guitars, bass, other) and Jim Myers (vocals, drums, other
also) began writing songs together again for the first time. They are
based in Mt. Dora.

The music was hard hitting rock and roll. My wife, Terry, hadn’t finished her crossword puzzle yet because a coffee had been spilled on it. We decided we had seen enough local music for one day.  I drove near Lake Eola where streets were already blocked off for the July 4th fireworks display. I didn’t want to deal with the inevitable traffic, so I drove to Boston Market where we had a holiday feast. After that, we drove straight home, where I watched war movies for the rest of the night as fire crackers and bottle rockets exploded around the quiet suburban streets. Zorro, an umbrella cockatoo, didn’t much like the noise. He raised his crest every time there was an explosion.

(the parentheticals)

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Every hour or so a new band would lug in their equipment and set up on the indoor stage at Austin’s Coffee (929 W. Fairbanks Ave.

Winter Park) for I-4 Fest. The second group I saw was (the parentheticals). I was enjoyed sketching the performers from my spot right next to the stage.

They played with energy and abandon. Luckily my sketch flowed with just the right amount of structure and looseness.

(the parentheticals) were born when three friends, all longtime  

singer/songwriter musicians but who had never worked together, decided 

 to collaborate for the first time on an original project. Despite the

distinctly different styles of writing, singing, and playing each brought to the table, they quickly found that their individual talents blended and complemented each other perfectly.  Creative bursts of  writing and jamming followed, and soon (the parentheticals) had crafted their unique laid-back, underground indie-rock sound.

Bill Massey was on bass, guitar, harmonica, keyboard and drum machine, Matt O’Grady on guitar, melodica and mandolin and Kristen DeAngelis on guitar and synths (when allowed). Everybody sings.  They are currently in the studio   working on their first collection of recordings while also playing live whenever possible.

I-4 Fest

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On July 4th, Terry and I went to Austin’s Coffee (929 W. Fairbanks Ave.
Winter Park) where I-4 Fest was being hosted. For $5 you could listen to local musicians perform all day long. There was a band playing on the outdoor stage, but since it was so hot outside, I ordered an Orange Blossom beer and went inside to enjoy the air conditioning. I sat on a rickety old kitchen chair. Chopper Stepe was performing on the small stage in front of the entry window. It was a simple acoustical performance in the intimate setting. Terry sat at a back counter doing a crossword puzzle while I sketched. Patriotic children’s art decorated the walls. A primitive Abe Lincoln stood in front of the American flag. A gun was being pointed at him and someone was telling him to “Look out!” Beer bottles decorated the stage. The music was simple warm and inviting.  My July 4th was off to a great start.

Zombie Apocalypse

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Lindsay arrived at her job as a waitress at Austin’s Coffee. She had been held up in traffic crawling down I-4 and her forehead was pounding with a migraine. Running late, she ran to the bathroom and quickly changed into her uniform. She slipped on her black blouse with its snappy white collar then worked the aqua crinoline skirt up over her hips. She had recently washed a coffee stain out of her white frilly apron. She checked herself in the mirror and brushed a bleached blonde curl away from her face.

No one paid attention to the local news playing in the kitchen. A perky newscaster announced, “Patient zero went viral at 6 p.m.” Lindsay clicked it off and turned the Radio Dial until she found Johnny Cash. Austin’s was packed. Young hipsters sat in booths mesmerized by their computer screens. She took an order for some ice cold coffees not b0thering to look up from her pad. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw someone enter who was different somehow. The girl wore a pair of cut up jeans and a black bra. She looked like a 60’s flower child but she was a bit rough around the edges. She limped in and stiffly sat at a round table in the front of the room. “Great.” Lindsay thought, “This one isn’t going to be a good tipper.” Lindsay approached and pulled the spiral bound note pad out of her waist. She pulled the pencil out from behind her ear, licked the lead and rested the sharp tip on the page. “Well, What’ll you have?” she said with bored contempt.

The customer had a musky dead rat smell. “Don’t hippies take showers anymore?” she thought. Lindsay tried to be polite but she raised her hand up to her nose. She suddenly realized the customer’s left cheek was missing. The teeth were clenched and exposed. Suddenly the customer lunged at Lindsay and quickly grabbed her wrist. She screamed and pulled violently back and she heard the bone in her forearm snap. She looked and saw the bone sticking out. Her shoe slipped off in the struggle. In horrific pain she continued to scream until her wind pipe was slit with a serrated knife. One customer looked up from his computer but lost interest in the struggle and returned to Facebook.

Her head dropped to the table. Blood gushed out ruining her uniform. Her eyes stared blankly forward as painful wet noises came from her open neck. A tear rolled from her terror stricken eye. The hippie zombie tried pulling strips of flesh from Lindsay’s throat using a fork. The strips of flesh just dangled, never staying on the fork, like so much stubborn spaghetti. Frustrated, she threw the utensils to the floor and sank her teeth into Lindsay’s open wound. She hunched over her prey like a lioness.

What she really wanted however was fresh and juicy brain. She smashed a plate on the table and used its sharp jagged edge to cut the curly blonde hair away from the top of her victim’s head. She peeled the scalp away from the skull and let it hang down, dripping blood on the floor. She violently smashed the skull with a plate and once she had chipped a small hole in the skull she pushed her index finger inside and starting pulling chips away like she was digging into a large hard boiled egg. She slipped both hands inside the skull gently squeezing the brain as she lifted it out in one piece. The brain made an audible slurping noise as it was yanked free. She severed the spinal cord with her teeth, then she bit deeply into the soft thought filled mess. Blood oozed all over her face dripping down between her breasts.She ate the whole thing in a few very messy wet bites.

The other customers rose from their seats. Moaning, they approached the limp body now crumpled on the floor. All their hands reached out, hungry for fresh meat. A bit of frontal lobe was lying in a pool of blood in front of Lindsay’s eyes. A customer lifted it up pinching it between his index finger and thumb with his pinkie raised. He slipped it to the back of his throat like a raw oyster. Dozens of hands searched and clawed ripping and tearing away the fresh pulsing flesh. Blood spurted and knees became soaked in the widening pool of blood.

The Sketchy Broads host a monthly sketching session at Austin’s every month. Happy Halloween.

Sketchy Todd

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The Sketchy Broads, Lindsay Boswell and Jenny Coyle held a sinister sketch session for local artists at Austin’s Coffee (929 West Fairbanks Avenue). I arrived right after work and ordered an ice cold Yak coffee. I found a seat in a movie theater seat facing the front door. Lindsay arrived shortly after and I helped her move some furniture around. I let her set up the fancy photo lights and backdrop. Slowly artists arrived. As the models were doing quick three minute poses, I focused on blocking in the whole scene.

One artist arrived dressed in a suit of purple armor. He had pointy ears and wore dark sunglasses. His long dark hair flowed over his shoulders. A large bongo drum was slung over his shoulder in a satchel. His name was Konrad McKane and he was portraying a character he created from a graphic novel called Alkaya, the legend of Empyro. He sat on a cushy red couch to sketch. I have to find out where he performs on that drum so I can sketch him in action.

After this pose with the bloody knife, Jenny cut her thumb as she was putting the dull blade away. It turned out that the corner of the blade near the base was still sharp. She calmly washed the wound in the kitchen and waited for a band aid. I cringed, watching the blood pool up in her cupped hand. These two will go to any length to achieve bloody accuracy with the characters they portray. They offer blood sweat and tears every month for our sketching pleasure. At last my arm is complete again.

Austin’s Coffee

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Austin’s Coffee (929 West Fairbanks Avenue) has become a spot where I can wind down after work. I often have an hour or two to kill before heading off to sketch an event and it would make no sense for me to drive all the way home. I usually order a Yak which is a cold coffee with caramel and chocolate. 0h, it is so good. That is my coffee with the plastic domed lid and a straw in the lower right corner. I like to sit up on the staging area in front of the front window. The wooden tables and chairs are fancifully painted. Then, as I sip my coffee, I start sketching fellow patrons.

This fellow was using Austin’s as his office. There is free Wi–Fi. He complained to a buddy about the job market and he refused to go back to an office where he was asked to work overtime with no extra pay. The odd painting behind him caught my eye. Larvae or grasshopper people were caught in a violent looking copulation embrace. The colors dripped and splashed with few features to define pleasure or pain. Each brick on the wall is individually painted in the entry area. The place is a constant visual feast.

Dead Men Chase no Tail

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I decided to go to Austin’s Coffee (929 W. Fairbanks Avenue) to join “Sketchy Broads” for an evening of sketching. It was pouring on my drive over from work. All day there had been tornado warnings across Central Florida. I made sure my sketch books were in plastic bags and then I sprinted through the parking lot to the back door. I ordered a Yak which is a frozen coffee with caramel and chocolate. Sean Moore, Austin’s owner and coffee expert, told me he had peaked over my shoulder the last time I had stopped in for a sip and a sketch. He liked what I was working on and invited me to exhibit my work on the coffee shop walls. I always get nervous when my sketchbooks leave my studio but I might take him up on the offer.

While I was waiting for my drink, Orit Reuben introduced herself. She was there to sketch as well. We both had arrived early and both of us were attending the Austin’s sketch event for the first time. Sean let us know he would be moving furniture off the front stage area to get things ready. I joined Orit when she started moving chairs. Sean and I moved the Victorian looking purple couch onto the stage as a prop. Soon the models, Jenny Coyle and Lindsay Boswell, arrived. They had a hamper full of pirate costuming and props. When Jenny pulled out an old bottle of rum, an artist remarked, “That’s no prop, she goes everywhere with that tharr bottle!” Everyone laughed.

As artists arrived, I added them to my sketch. I did some of the fast poses but then erased them and waited to add the pirates when they took longer poses. Orit had a concerned look on her face when she sketched. She had a large 18 by 24 pad for doing pastels but I think she needed an easel. Another artist arrived with a mini easel and he told her where she could pick one up. He did some very detailed pencil renderings of the pirates faces. I have just the one sketch to show for the evenings modeling session. As I left, I bumped into Swami Worldtraveler and he let me know about the weekly jazz sessions at Austin’s every Thursday night starting at 9pm. Sounds like I have to come back for another sketch!