Urban Sketching: Pepper Cafe

Pepper Cafe Flemington

On location sketching

Colouring at home

Hi!  Well I took a break from working on freelance yesterday and decided to spend my break drawing out in the rain and cold.  I was drawing the Pepper Cafe from across the street on the train ramp.  It's a good spot from there to draw Peppers. 

I love the Pepper Cafe.  They have great staff, it has a good atmosphere, lovely food (gotta try their Creme Brulee and their corn cakes...very nice and they make good coffee too).  Plus, they like my art!  I want to display a set of Urban Sketches there soon.   When I worked from home, I would go to the cafe to get out of the house while getting work done.  Once I stayed there for breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea time.  I got a lot of work done but I did spend quite a bit of money for food and drink.  Still, it's good fun to draw outside of home, probably why Urban Sketching appeals to me a lot.

I really like Flemington.  I like how it's convenient amenities wise, lots of places to eat and drink, buy presents and I get to display my work!  However, I must admit that there are a lot of unsavoury characters that hang around the area.

 I was drawing on the ramp, minding my own business when a man approached me and was trying to make small conversation.  Now, this is not abnormal as a sketcher and I tend to engage with strangers as they're normally just curious as to why I would be drawing outdoors, however I was not comfortable with this man.  He smelled, so aside from having poor personal hygiene, I was thinking maybe he was homeless,this is not necessarily a bad thing but I did feel quite edgy.  Next, he went out of his way to come up the ramp to speak to me when he was not planning to catch the train ( I was on the train ramp), he made small talk and it was all very civil however he then just hung around and sat nearby for a good 15-20 minutes and in that time he managed grab a tree branch and was just sitting there with it.  I was by the train, there were CCTV cameras, people were coming in and out of the train station, quite a few were going up and down the ramp and I was in plain sight of people on the street, sidewalk and the cafe.  He eventually just walked away.  I am not sure if he just wanted company, was curious or if he had other intentions.  I was aware of his presence the whole time and I made sure he knew that I was aware of him. Nothing happened but it was still unnerving.  I hope I don't see him again. 

Such a shame.  There are plenty of beautiful architecture here in Flemington...but unfortunately I am not that comfortable drawing the surrounds when am not inside a cafe.  Perhaps I should just head out early when the derelicts are still asleep? 

For other news...I made deadline today, I didn't get any emails abut stuff needing fix-ups and I start on the Bunny-ebook again shortly!