Last month I took a sketching day down in San Francisco, taking the long train ride down from Davis with the entire catalogue of Belle and Sebastian in my ears (two days after having seen them live in Oakland). It was one of those days when I just needed to get out alone with my sketchbook and my feet, I have always needed those days for my mental health, and though it feels like I need them more and more, more and more I have no particular aim for such a day, and more and more I decide to just stay at home and rest rather than expend a lot of energy in just wandering and filling my book. However I am usually glad when I do, especially if I explore a few more streets I’ve never seen. This day was aimless for sure. I got up very early, took the early train out of Davis, stepped off the connecting bus in San Francisco and went down to the BART station still with no idea where I was actually heading. North Beach? Mission? Inner Sunset? In the end, I jumped onto a MUNI metro which whisked me quickly up to the Castro. I always like sketching up there. As I got off the tram, a man seated nearby started yelling random homophobic slurs out of the door, not at me or anyone in particular, but at the platform in general because this is the Castro, and I’m sure it made him feel better about his life, even though it made everyone else remember the world is still full of homophobic wankers like him. It was a foggy day when I emerged onto Harvey Milk Plaza, so I got the sunscreen out and layered up. Yes, I’ve been burnt too many times in this city by not realizing that those rays come through that fog, even if it feels a bit chilly and a bit gloomy. The sky had a glare too, so I wore my sunglasses for a bit, which again looks a bit odd in the fog but I’m squinting otherwise. The Castro theatre was covered up, a shame as I sketched a panorama of it eleven years ago and wanted to do the ‘eleven years later’ sketch. Ten years? Where does all the time go. I also sketched it fifteen years ago on another sketchcrawl. So I looked over to where the streetcars stop outside the Twin Peaks cafe, which I have also drawn on my little wander up here two years ago, though from the other side.

I had no plan of action for exploring, so I walked a block down Castro and up 18th Street, not towards the Mission but uphill. I liked this building opposite, and the little shop ‘Five Star Truffles’, so that’s what I sketched. The old Victorian houses round here are so interesting. Further up I sketched this pink and blue house below. That’s a lot of steps to get into your door every day, after climbing a hill, a common feature on these old houses, people must be pretty fit round here. I like wandering about here though because the people and places you pass by, you do get a strong sense of local community. The area is most well known for its prominent gay community, though this does feel like an area whose residents take a lot of pride in their neighbourhood, and you see that a lot in San Francisco, even in the face of busy city streets and exorbitant pricing-out of communities. The idea of communities in large cities has always fascinated me, especially the idea of evolving communities. I’m just back from London, and you still see it there in some places, while others it feels like have no community any more. It all depends on perception I guess.

The house above was drawn quickly in pencil just because I liked the shape of it, the turret and the huge round window and the long curving stairway. I was already on my way to lunch when I drew it. The building below though was an amazing find, an enormous mansion on Douglass Street, which was a trek to walk up to, looming large over the treetops as the morning fog burned away. An impressive number of turrets and shapes, I bet this place is a world of stories. I sketched one of the little lions out front as well. To draw this I needed to be in the shade of a tree across the street, but for some reason I decided to sit and sketch, not on a stool (I pretty much never bring a stool out these days, as I always stand to sketch), but sat on the sidewalk like in the old days. Remember when I’d sit on these San Francisco streets cross legged with my paints next to me? Well this time when I got up I must have hurt my back, because it got increasingly bad throughout the rest of the day, noticeably so after I ate my lunch (which was a pasta dish at the old Spaghetti House on Castro, a place which looked interesting but I was the only customer, at lunchtime). My shoulder bag felt heavy the rest of the day and I felt like I was hobbling about. I’m sure it’s because I sat on the ground for 45 minutes, though all the urban hillwalking with my bag on my shoulder did not really help as much.

And here is a fire hydrant that was on the corner of Douglass and Caselli near that big mansion. I like these old SF hydrants with the round nobs on top. I wandered up hill and down admiring all the big old houses and little shops, and after my lunch (which was nice, albeit a little lonely) I walked (in some pain) towards Church Street, remembering there was a bookshop there that I visited once. It was gone now, and my back was hurting, I needed to sit down again, so I jumped on literally the first bus that came along, and wasn’t even sure where it was going. Wherever it was headed, that’s where I’d go next, I guess.