Coffee and painting encounter hand-painted London Street Cafe Life and Art combine freely and freely

Feng Wei

Teacher, Academy of Fine Arts, Nanjing normal University, painting artist.

The author hand-painted London Street Cafe

Feng Wei / tr. by Phil Newell)

There are many cafes near the London University of the Arts dormitory. The nearest one is Doppio coffee shop, where I went almost every day for a week. Over time, I found that it was not only me who came to drink coffee every day, but also several familiar faces: a young black young man often sat on the sofa in the corner listening to music, another skinny young man with glasses working in front of the computer, and a young couple with oriental faces having breakfast with their children. The coffee here is very fresh, at the same time, the design of the coffee shop is very interesting. This cafe is like a factory shop. Push open the glass door, the bar on the right is where coffee and refreshments are sold, and on the left is the seating area, each table and stool has a different shape. Behind the seating area are rows of low wooden containers, full of coffee beans packed in linen bags, with different producing areas and different baking methods, and there are a wide range of varieties to choose from. On the other side of the seating area, there are coffee making utensils on the containers near the window, mocha pots and dripping pots of different colors, grinders, coffee cups of different designs, exquisite and lovely shapes. This is only half the area of the store, passing through a door, and the other half is like a warehouse, with rows of tall cabinets lined with bulky machines for extracting coffee, shiny metal shells and different shapes. Every time I come to this coffee shop and drink a cup of coffee on a different chair, I find that it sells not only a complete set of coffee-making equipment, but also seats. I like a wooden chair very much, and the geometric patterns on the surface of the chair are all hand-painted. I really want to buy this chair back, but it's a long way and it's hard to achieve.

I do not know whether it is a lust for the strong aroma of coffee or a nostalgia for the leisurely seats in the cafe. Every time I go to the National Gallery to see a painting, I immediately rush to the cafe on the ground floor and order a cup of coffee to lift my spirits so that I can enjoy the painting in full spirits; or go there before leaving, have a snack and have a rest. The overall tone of the cafe is very elegant, the wooden square tables and chairs are all rich brown (brown), and the lower part of the four white walls is a black wooden wallskirt. People sitting on the chairs are surrounded by this mass of black. set off their white skin and gorgeous clothes. The upper part of the white wall is hung with replicas of oil painting, the brown tone of classical painting appears calm and calm, and the artistic atmosphere is particularly rich.

I ordered a flat white and sat in a wooden chair in the corner to rest, watching people chatting not far away.

Looking at the painting on the wall, it was a replica of Van Eyck's portrait. The atmosphere of the picture was quiet. He stared at it for a moment, and his heart was quiet.

I really want to keep the feeling of this moment. After taking a few photos, I took out the sketchbook and pencil I had with me and quickly sketched the scene in front of me: coffee cups, tables and chairs, the back of the characters opposite, a mass of black in the distance and the paintings on the wall. This is a whole, and I use a pen to describe how I feel at the moment. A few minutes later, as soon as I finished writing, I found a pair of grandchildren on the table next door staring at me. I smiled, thinking that they must be curious about what an oriental was drawing. At this time, the foreign grandfather said something to me and waved his hands. It turned out that he was very happy to see me painting and came over to tell me that his wife, a watercolor painter, was holding an exhibition in the gallery near the Tate Museum of Modern Art. he invited me to see his wife's exhibition. Fearing that I couldn't find a place, he wrote down the address of the gallery and the road map in my book. I was so happy that I ran into a stranger who loved painting. During the time of enjoying a cup of coffee, I drew a picture and got an exhibition information.

In the cafe, the combination of life and art is so natural and casual that I look forward to the next encounter between coffee and painting.

Source: Xinhua newspaper Network-Yangzi Evening News