Caffe Fiore

12/15/17 Caffe Fiore patrons and Kathleen's painting of Elephant Car Wash

I’ve been meaning to get up to Caffe Fiore on Queen Anne Hill to see urban sketcher and painter Kathleen Keckler’s show, “Signs You Live in Seattle.” She has a lovely collection of sketches and acrylic paintings of city landmarks, including several places we’ve sketched together. The show is up the rest of the month.

Although Kathleen has managed to sketch the café’s interior beautifully, I found the seating to be awkward and not particularly conducive to surreptitious sketching. The main seating in the small coffee shop are a few large community tables and a bar along one window. All the table seating was taken, so I sat at the bar and swiveled around to face the room, which made me feel a bit self-conscious, but everyone had their heads buried in laptops, so they didn’t pay me any mind.

12/15/17 Too close for comfort, and yet I dared.

I was sketching a couple of guys across the room when a man sat down right next to me at the bar. Although he was a little too close for comfort, nonetheless I couldn’t resist sketching him. Since I was already facing the room when he took his seat, he must have assumed I was still sketching in that direction. In any case, he was engrossed in his book and never noticed me, either. 

Invisibility: The urban sketcher’s super power.

Kathleen's sketches and paintings are on exhibit until Jan. 1. (This is the guy in
my sketch at the top of the page. I didn't see his man bun until I took this photo!
I wish I'd been able to sketch him from this angle.)