The Rio Milkbar - Summer Hill

The Rio Milk bar, located on Smith Street in Summer Hill has been serving people milkshakes and snacks since 1952.The line work for Rio’s was quite busy, as I decided to illustrate a lot of the brickwork and tiling. I hand watercoloured the brick work and the bluish tiles around the windows, dabbing the paint for a rougher texture.

I really enjoyed drawing Rio’s Milk Bar, the building has a lot of different textures to it and quirky hand touches. The front windows feature heavy white paint, hand lettering and cardboard ice cream cut outs. For these I used crumpled paper, denim and watercolour.

This is my favourite piece of the exhibition. It uses a variety of texture and complex linework, captures an old iconic Milkbar with happiness.  

In August this year an interesting article was published in SMH on the Australian Milk Bar, The Summer Hill Rio Milk Bar was featured. Read it here.