One of my favorite cafes in Quebec City is Chez Temporel.  If you don’t know it’s there, you’ll probably never find it because it sits on a side street in the old city, sharing the street with a tiny grocery store.

My daughter was visiting and we decided to go there for coffee.  I’m a ‘just make it hot and brown’ kind of coffee drinker but she ordered cafe viennois and I thought I’d try it.  It was an opportunity to find out what chantilly cream was.  As it turns out it’s whipped cream made with some extra sugar and a bit of vanilla.

I decided I would draw it when it came. When it did arrive I realized that this was a dessert before coffee drink and I was unsure what to do.  Whipped cream doesn’t sit around long when placed on top of hot coffee so I just did a really quick sketch of my bowl of cafe viennois.  It tasted better than the sketch looks.

Stillman & Birn Nova (5.5×8.5)

I thought I’d add a few of my doodles along with this sketch.  This is where I practice stuff.  In this case I was trying different degrees of “looseness” in my pen lines, trying to match the subject at hand.  I’m not sure I accomplished any of that but I added just a bit to my pen mileage and every bit helps.