gets me to the church on time

April 20, 2011 Leave a comment

sketchcrawl 31 mission dolores

Mission Dolores. It’s the oldest building in San Francisco, and gets picked first in all the football teams. It was very windy by this point in the SF sketchcrawl, and so I hid beside a postbox to sketch it, nestling it on the page between two drawings of local fire hydrants (I’m back! first hydrants I’ve drawn in months). Using the magic of photoshop I have surgically removed them from the drawing so you can read them on their own merit, but if you are interested in seeing the page as it is in my sketchbook, the unaltered piece is at the bottom of the post.

sc31 hydrant 1sc31 hydrant 2

I like the fire hydrants with the little bobbles on top, you see those in the city. It reminded me of an albino smurf, so I had to add this to the collection. I also like those big fat hydrants SF has, like the one on the right. You’d want one of those on your side in a fight, I’m sure, stocky little things. 

After this I walked over to Needles and Pens, just down the street, an excellent zine store. I bought there a copy of the Comic Book Guide to the Mission, which I’ve been looking forward to. I love the cover by Chuck Whelon! I was going to wait until I got to Mission Comics and Art (which was my plan for later that day) before picking it up, as they have the original cover drawing on their gallery wall, but I just could not resist. Anyway, the drawings continued, many more to come…

sketchcrawl 31 page 3

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hanging small in a pale blue sky

April 19, 2011 2 Comments

sketchcrawl 31 blue house

Moving on with the SF Sketchcrawl, I walked up past Dolores Park towards the Castro neighbourhood. I happened upon a particularly interesting and colourful old Victorian, and so I climbed some steps on the building opposite (whose windows were boarded up; I doubted anybody minded) and sketched from a higher elevation. This old house is very cool.

As I sketched, I was myself sketched by fellow sketcher Jana Bouc:

pete sketching in the mission, by jana bouc

More sketching to come… plus added fire hydrants!

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man on a mission

April 19, 2011 1 Comment

sketchcrawl 31 dolores park cafesketchcrawl 31: mission high school

Sketchcrawl 31, continued. Well, this is where the actual sketchcrawl began: Dolores Park Cafe, on 18th St. I went there last year with my friend from London, Simon, but this year I didn’t try any mango smoothies, I just went straight into sketching gear. I stayed in sketching gear all day long, barely stopping to breathe; quite literally on a Mission. One of my missions however was to visit a couple of great zine/comic stores, and I wasn’t disappointed. There were quite a few sketchers there already, many of whom I’d met on previous sketchcrawls – it was nice to see familiar faces. Above left is the cafe itself, and on the right, the ornate domed tower of the Mission High School, directly opposite. I think everybody drew that one.

sketchcrawl 31 enrico casarosasketchcrawl 31 jana bouc

Here are some sketchers, drawn in my small ‘quick people sketches’ moleskine: Enrico Casarosa in the green, with the hat on, he is the founder of Sketchcrawl and the leader of the San Francisco group. On the right, long-time sketching inspiration  Jana Bouc of the Bay Area Urban Sketchers, who accompanied me sketching my long-winded route around the Mission district (always a pleasure to sketch with her). I also met (but didn’t sketch) fellow Urban Sketcher correspondent Gary Amaro, and met up again with fellow Davisite Allan Hollander, who I’d sketched on the way down from Davis. More sketches to come; we’re only on page 2 of 7…

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and i think my spaceship knows which way to go

April 18, 2011 3 Comments

sketchcrawl 31, san francisco

The 31st Worldwide Sketchcrawl happened on Saturday, and I was at the ‘crawl in San Francisco, sketching away like crazy. Whenever I sketch in the city I try to cram in as much sketching as possible, in the most area-covering route possible, which along with the travelling down from Davis is pretty exhausting. I caught the early train, and another Davis sketcher Allan was also there at the station, which was a nice surprise. We rode down together as far as Richmond, and I was able to grab a sketch of him sketching away, and had a look through his sketchbook of antennae which is particularly cool (I want to sketch antennae now myself!). I went on and caught the Amtrak bu from emeryville over to the Ferry Building, where I like to pick up a chocolate walnut brownie (traditional sketchcrawl substenance), and I also sketched the large installation ‘Raygun Gothic Rocketship’, with the Bay Bridge behind it. My son loves rocketships. 

sc31 allan on amtrak smsc31 rocketship sm

And then I hopped onto a Muni to the Mission… more sketches to come!!

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crossing bridges

April 6, 2011 12 Comments

arboretum bridges

When I first moved to Davis at the end of 2005, my wife told me about this cool thing she’d read about called ‘Sketchcrawl’, and that it was happening all over the world on the same day, and that there would be one in Davis organized by some local sketchers sketching the ‘Arboretum’ (another word that entered my vocabulary). I shyly met with a group of sketchers all buried in sketchbooks at Mishka’s cafe on a chilly morning and followed them to the Arboretum, by the creek, where evryone panned out and sketched away until it was too cold to do so. It was great, and though I didn’t draw outside for several months afterwards, and didn’t join another sketchcrawl for even longer, it was my first ever sketching day in Davis – the first of a great many. So for this latest Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl I was eager to show other people what a great place the Arboretum is to draw, but also to see for myself how my sketching has changed in the past five and a half years.Below is the same scene as above, sat in almost the same spot, but with my now differing styles.

the same scene in december 2005

And below, here I am with Moleskine #7.  More sketches to come!

pete and his moleskine

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it’s raining; let’s not draw davis…

March 18, 2011 Leave a comment

let's draw davis: rescheduled for two weeks

The rain is coming down heavy, and so tomorrow’s sketchcrawl at the arboretum is postponed…

…and rescheduled for Saturday April 2nd, when I am told we will have lovely sunny weather (we can hope!). So if you’re in Davis, join us on April 2nd! Everyone is welcome to sketchcrawl with us, even if you’ve never sketched before and justa want to give it a go. What better time than with others who love to draw? And at the Arboretum in the springtime, there is much to draw. 

Of course, I’ll still sketch tomorrow, just at home, in the dry…

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let’s draw uc davis!

February 5, 2011 Leave a comment

lets draw UC davis!

And it’s time for another Davis sketchcrawl… this time on the UC Davis Campus! Join us on Saturday February 19th for a day of sketching. We will meet at 10:30am on the corner of 3rd and A Streets, just outside the Social Sciences Building (the ‘Death Star’). We’ll sketch from there all the way down to the Silo (Hutchison & California Avenues), where we’ll finish up at 3:00pm to show each other our sketchbooks.

There was a great turn-out for the the sketchcrawl in January! (see here for photos and sketches, and here for Aggie TV’s coverage of the event). Let’s spread the word and get more people out with sketchbooks!

Pete

Let’s Draw Davis! Flickr group

Facebook event

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reporting the sketchcrawl

February 4, 2011 2 Comments

I told you that the local UC Davis student media production studio, Aggie TV, were at our last Let’s Draw Davis / Worldwide Sketchcrawl in January, reporting on our day of sketching… well here it is! The report is by Kate Calderazzo, filmed and edited by Todd Kaiser. It’s a really nice piece, two and a half minutes long, that really captured the relaxing feel of the event. Click on the image below to see it (this links to the report on Aggie TV’s facebook page)!

screenshot from Aggie TV

I did my best not to appear like Father Dougal

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we all drew davis!

January 26, 2011 Leave a comment

davis sketchcrawlers!

Here are the sketchers who made it to the end of the sketchcrawl in Davis on Saturday. We had over twenty-five sketchers on the ‘crawl, which is a great turn out – it was wonderful to see so many sketchers out on the streets of Davis! The weather helped, I’m sure. Spot the sketchers dotted around the E Street Plaza below…

davis sketchcrawl 1/22/11

Here I am being interviewed by Aggie TV, the local campus TV station, about the sketchcrawl. That was a surprise! I’m glad I brushed my hair.

interview with Aggie TV

You can see more photos from the sketchcrawl (and previous crawls) on the Flickr group “Let’s Draw Davis!”. This third ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ meet-up went really well; I hope to organize them monthly, so look out for news about the next one very soon. Sketching on location is so much fun, and it’s great to meet so many other people who like drawing stuff. The new catchphrase, “it’s ok to spend all day sketching”…

And check out the rest of the world’s sketches from Worldwide Sketchcrawl #30 on sketchcrawl.com!

Ok…back to scanning my London sketches…

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it was a sunny january day…

January 23, 2011 6 Comments

sketchcrawl 30

Yesterday’s “Let’s Draw Davis” Sketchcrawl in Davis was quite an event! We had glorious weather, warm and sunny, and an amazing turnout – I met lots of new sketchers, plus some familiar faces, it was a great sketchcrawl. There were at least twenty-five of us, maybe more. We were even joined by Aggie TV, who filmed us sketching and interviewed me about our sketchcrawls, and that this was part of the 30th worldwide sketchcrawl happening in cities across the planet. We were also joined by ‘Walking Bob’ Schultz, who wrote a piece about us in Davis Life magazine on Friday. You can see that article on DavisLifeMagazine.com. Pretty cool!

We all met at the E Street Plaza at 11, and sketched about the square in clusters, sketching in different styles and sketchbooks. Above are actually three separate sketches which I drew attached to each other. In the middle, the sketcher with the orange hat is Cynthia Sterling, who drove over from Napa. After a while, some of us stopped and went for lunch at a Thai restaurant in Mansion Square, just off E St. I sketched a few fellow sketchers below…

sketchers eating at thai recipes

More to come!

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