This story is part of the October 11 edition of Good Weekend. See all 14 stories .

Q: I’ve recently taken up sketching and practise whenever I can, including in coffee shops and parks. I sometimes sketch fellow cafe patrons and picnickers. Should I ask their permission and then show them my finished sketch?

C.G., McMahons Point, NSW

A: My wife is an artist and she sketches people all the time. She can’t help herself: if she sees an interesting face in a public place, she feels compelled to draw that face in her notebook or on the back of a napkin or on a paper tablecloth in a restaurant – or, one time, on an extra-crisp linen tablecloth that she thought was paper; then we had to pay and get out very fast. And she never asks permission because she knows it would kill the magic mome

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