This is a typical first drawing from one of these trips. I'm not warmed up yet and the drawing is scratchy and hesitant. Overall not too bad though.

As a likeness I'd say it's somewhere near, but you wouldn't recognise him in the street from this. Its interesting that the drawings which catch something about the person act as a memory jogger. If the likeness is somewhere near, I can picture the person again in mind's eye. Although this drawing was only done yesterday, the visual memory of what he looked like is fading.

Well there's not much to say about this one, it looks more like a first drawing than the first drawing. I only got as far as the roughing out stage before she upped and went. Frustrating.

This is a bit more like it. The line is starting to flow, and I look like I'm getting warmed up. This drawing puts me in mind of the woman too, I was wondering if she knew her collar was flipped over like that.

I think the drawings where I just use line and next to no shading come out much better. I was thinking when I was copying the Van Dyck drawing that in order to get a close copy, I'd have to draw my lines with a similar speed to him. I found I couldn't do that, even though I tried to practice a few first for gesture on another sheet. They would never come out close enough in shape.

That's the nice thing about these trips. I can let the line loose and take more chances. I'm going to concentrate on line drawings for the cafe sketches from now on I think.

Fourth drawing, this is one of my favourites so far.

I have to say I think this is a pretty good likeness, he was obviously very distinctive, but looking at this brings him right back into my minds eye. I remember him from my first trip, I wanted to draw him then but couldn't catch him, it seems this cafe sketching business is a bit like fishing.

What I like about this drawing is how simple it is. I think about how long I used to spend on my self portraits, and how dissatisfied I was with them at the time. What a contrast with these little two minute sketches.

Number five. She was sitting pretty close to me, and I could just see her between two people sitting directly in front of me. She was keeping quite still, so I got to spend a bit of time on this one, relatively speaking.

I must admit I cheated with this drawing though, and changed it a bit after I got home. I'd got the right side of her face too narrow, so I widened it a bit and bingo, it looked like her. I did promise myself I wouldn't do that.

This is the last finished drawing from this trip. I tried another one after this, but the guy left before I could get anywhere. This one is my favourite from the trip.

It's interesting that I had to largely finish the face on this one from memory. I got his jacket in first, then the rough shape of his head, and I was just roughing in his face when he put his cap on and left.

On this trip I was practicing taking snapshots in my mind's eye of what I was seeing before transferring it to the paper. I was trying to draw more deliberately, separating out each part and doing it with more care: look, memorise, draw. I've got a feeling that might have come from the Van Dyck copy, and if so its a very good thing.

I like the twist of this guy's body, that's just how he was sitting, with the wall behind him. Although his face came partly from memory, it came out pretty well I think, I can remember him.