Friday, November 26, 2010

The Intimate Life of Sketchbooks & Coffee Houses


Trying out a bunch of different types of image transfer papers: Jacquard Silk Inkjet Printing Paper, Lazertran Inkjet Waterslide Decal Paper, and Tailor Computer Printer Fabric…printing a few images of napkins and café scenes on the three types of paper, trying placement, size and texture, and then trying different color tones: sepia, faded, green… deciding I don’t like anything!!!

At least, not for the sketchbook. At least not yet. Way too heavy for this thin paper. But this early in the process, who knows...anything is possible….

I do love the coppery-toned pictures taken at Café Intermezzo here in Atlanta, my favorite. Actually, I think my whole sketchbook is inspired by this café, which in turn took its inspiration from café life in Austria and Germany. Check it out: http://www.cafeintermezzo.com.

“Your visit to your café isn’t simply a benefit, a treat, a perk…it’s an absolute necessity for your life to move ahead with quality. It’s as essential as breakfast and lunch…indeed, it is breakfast and lunch. Food for thought, food for life come to you through your moments in the coffeehouse. The beverages and pastries you enjoy there are secondary to your just being there.

“Alfred Polgar wrote in the Café Centrál in Vienna, ‘The actual delights of this wonderful coffee-house can only be shared by those who want nothing other than to be there. A lack of purpose sanctifies the sojourn.’

“Count Gasparo Gozzi, in his 1770 book, Memorie Intuiti, which he wrote almost in its entirety in a coffeehouse, wrote, ‘I should recommend coffee-houses as excellent recipes for fleeing from worries, and raising the spirits when one feels gloomy.’ He further wrote about another man at the coffeehouse: ‘He had no greater joy than that, which was to sit some hours at the coffee-house, listening to the various conversations, analyzing different minds and characters.’”

Sigh…just when I was beginning to think we are way too obsessed with Starbucks in particular, and coffee in general, this café makes me want to go and sit for hours, with a total lack of purpose other than to raise the quality of my life. And I am soooo happy to learn that Café Intermezzo has opened up a third coffee shop in the area: Concourse B, in the Atlanta airport!!!! I am SO going there on my next trip out….with my sketchbook…

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