a Cup of Espresso, in 32.7 seconds, by David.
We’ve talked about relative size before here, in the context of a Giant Squid that, without a normal-sized boat above it, would seem… less than giant. This leads me to explain why my Fastest Possible Cup of Espresso took 32.7 seconds to draw (longer, I believe, than it should take to drink). First of all, what distinguishes an espresso from all other coffees? Basically, it’s a coffee in a tiny cup. And how, gentle reader, do you draw a tiny cup, without also showing something normal-sized, like a boat? And who’s to say it’s not a cup of tea, which can also be tiny?
The Fastest Possible Cup of Espresso (as far as I am concerned) must be accompanied by the Fastest Possible Espresso Machine, so you know what made it and how small it is. As a result, each object—both the Cup and the Machine—took only 16.35 seconds to draw. But wait! After everything I’ve stressed about relative size, look how enormous my coffee cup is. I’ve made some critical flawed assumptions about perspective and distance that, to some, might suggest that my espresso cup is nearly two feet wide. Yes, the sugar cube on the saucer seems to help, but this Fastest Possible Cup of Espresso, if it lives on the same plane as the machine, is a Big Gulp failure of a drawing.
Enter Laurea.
The day we did these drawings, each of us selected a few of our partner’s greatest failures and re-drew them. Laurea’s selection of this drawing was predicated on the same argument I opened with: “An espresso is a tiny cup.” Would you like to see how Laurea draws a tiny cup, in only 9.3 seconds?
Triumph! The actual Fastest Possible Cup of Espresso on an enormous plate, as drawn by Laurea de Ocampo, in a fraction of the time I had assumed was possible! Now you all know why I married the woman, and how long it takes to draw a tiny cup of anything at all.
Stay tuned, true-believers, for still more Fastest Possible Failures (hint: there are a bunch).
