Mon Petit Cheri – Analog Artist Digital World

Returning to Mon Petit Cheri (331 S Park Ave, Winter Park, FL 32789). I decided to push for a more complete sketch that encapsulated how I feel about the place. This Central Florida gem feels the closed to what it might be like to relax and sketch in a Paris cafe. Locals come here to have a coffee and to sit and chat.

I always ordered a chocolate filled croissant and a coffee that was a pleasure to nurse as I sketched. I only did this sketch after doing a series of thumbnail sketches (shown in the sketchbook). The wicker chairs also became the subject of a spread on the different types of furniture to be found in cafes.

New age coffee houses are cropping up all over Central Florida now that feature coffee and a wide selection of plants. The general notion of what constitutes a cafe keep evolving.

Though the book never became a reality, it was nice to explore and sketch the various cafes in town for a while. People offered plenty of suggestions of places I should suggest. That is the strength of social media. It is possible to crowd source to find the most intriguing places to sketch. We are living in an amazing time. Slow down once in a while sip a drink and take the time to soak in your surroundings.

I was asked by Querto Press in London to execute a series of sketches of cafe’s for a possible book about how to sketch cafes. Now Orlando isn’t Paris, but I started to search for the best cafes in the area. It is quite calming to slow down and sketch a cafe while sipping a coffee and chocolate croissant. Mon Petit Cheri (333 South Park Avenue Winter Park, FL 32789), seemed to feel like the most European cafe that I could find.

I stopped in several times doing thumbnails and final sketches for possible spreads in the book. Thumb nails are a really great way to organize your thoughts and create quick compositions without committing too much time on a finished sketch.

I also wrote copy to help in creating finalized layouts that showed ow the book might look. These spreads were shown at a London Book Fair to pitch the idea to prospective publishers. Unfortunately the book was not green lighted.

In this digital age it is nice too see that there are some places where people still sit an chat over a drink rater than hiding behind their phones to communicate with the hive. Perhaps my sketching is a similar anti social behavior that happens in slow motion, but for me sketching helps me truly feel a part of any new place I visit.