Month: November 2009

every leaf speaks bliss to me

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a house and tree on 4th and D

November in Davis means warm and cool sunny afternoons, with turning leaves and long, lazy shadows. Alright, what I’m saying is we have nicer weather than back home in London, where it rains and is cold. But now the clocks have gone back, it also gets dark earlier, so less time for sketching. I don’t really have the time anyway, so here is another one scrambled in during lunchtime yesterday. A building (I think it’s owned by Allstate) on the corner of 4th and D, with a tree outside it.

Oh, was it Guy Fawkes Night back in England? I had forgotten to remember.

nailing it down

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nails by tam, 3rd street

This place, ‘Nails by Tam’, is found on 3rd street in Davis, way down near L street (aka Linguistics Street, as per my street re-naming rules). This is the first drawing from Watercolour Moleskine #5. Actually that’s not true; this is the second, but I haven’t finished the first one yet, on page 1 (it’s of shoes, if you’re interested). But this is the first posted. I drew this yesterday on a quick cycle downtown. I had to draw some urban on Urban Sketcher’s first birthday. It was fairly warm and I had to chase the moving shade of a telegraph pole in order not to get sunburnt (haha, it’s November, folks back in England).

I have drawn this place before; it’s very sketchable.  The last time was back in 2006, when I coloured it in watercolour pencil (see below). I think it’s nice to see how my style has evolved and improved over the past three years. But I do like the effect in the old one.nails by tam

a year of urban sketching

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A year ago today, the Urban Sketchers super-blog was born, the brainchild of Spanish-born Seattle artist and journalist Gabi Campanario. Happy Birthday USk! We have grown into one of the increasingly popular destinations for those rediscovering their own artistic nature, a message that if you are disposed to record the world as little pictures in little books (as I am), you are P1010070certainly not alone. There are hundreds, thousands, maybe one day millions of us. As one of the founding members (my San Francisco sketchbook was the first banner) I’ve been very proud and humbled to appear among some of the real luminaries of the sketching world, from whom I continue to learn every day. As the USk correspondent for Davis, California, today I posted my 100th post! A nice milestone to reach.

You can follow USk on Twitter, on Facebook and of course at the Flickr group. Here is the Birthday Press Release.

But Urban Sketchers is not resting. The next step is becoming a non-profit organization, “dedicated to promoting the artistic, storytelling and educational value of location drawing“,  and raising money to award scholarships to help artists. This is very exciting. There may be a book. There may be annual international meet-ups of urban sketching artists – I had better start saving!

So now seems the perfect time to spread my message, inspired last night by Eddie Argos of Art Brut telling everyone to go home right now and form a band (and don’t play Rock Band and Guitar Hero) , I am telling you all to get a pen (or pencil), get a sketchbook (or any paper), go outside (or inside) and just DRAW. Draw anything, anything you want. Look out of your window, draw that. It doesn’t matter if it’s any good, it comes from you and that’s the important thing. I tried to draw at the gig last night and my sketches were rubbish, no really they were bad, but I’ll always think of where I was when I did them. It’s a record of where and who you are. One day, you might forget.

So just go out and DRAW! It really is brilliant fun.