Month: February 2011

amazing grace, how sweet the sound

4 Comments

grace cathedral, san francisco

At the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco sits Grace Cathedral. Nob Hill is an interesting neighbourhood – full of big grand hotels and spectacular views, many years ago this windswept hill was too steep for regular San Franciscans to bother reaching, a place for hermits and rich mansion builders to live away from the rabble of the Barbary Coast. The cable car made it more easily accessible and it was by cable car that I made it up hill to sketch Grace Cathedral. I like this big cathedral. It has a labyrinth inside (it’s just drawn on the floor though, not with hedges or minotaurs, and the answers are at the back). That’s right – a Maze in Grace…

 nob hill house

I then sat in Huntington Park, in front of the cathedral, and noticed other people out drawing in sketchbooks. The weather was amazing, warm, golden sunlight everywhere, and people were out taking advantage. I sketched a smallish house which I found quite interesting looking.

sitting here resting my bones

4 Comments

Pier 39

Sunday morning in San Francisco, and the weather was amazing. Twain said that the coldest winter he ever had was summer in San Francisco. That of course has absolutely nothing to do with this post but I thought I’d throw that in there anyhow. Well, winter you see is not hugely different from summer in the bay area, in many ways, except there is a bit less fog in the winter. It was t-shirt weather last Sunday (and I’m talking to you, man I saw with no shirt, only shorts). I wore a t-shirt (under my jumper of course). Anyway it was bright and sunny, and thnakfully not too busy at Pier 39, where I got off the Amtrak bus. I don’t like Pier 39 too much, and the rest of Fisherman’s Wharf even less, but mostly because of the masses of people. It’s so much better when it’s less crowded. I can look at Alcatraz mugs and cable-car magnets to my heart’s content.

SS Pampanito

What I had come to draw were boats, and not any old boats, but two in particular I had wanted to sketch on a previous trip but didn’t (because of the wintery rain and fog). The USS Pampanito is a big submarine moored at Pier 45, outside the Musee Mecanique, at San Francisco Maritime National Park. It was too long for me to (be bothered to) sketch so I focused on the turret thing. There’s a broom on top which apparently indicates a ‘clean sweep’ of an area. Useful thing to know, when looking at a submarine. Not to be confused with the sign that means they’ve had a ‘brush with the enemy’.

a submarine cannon

Here is the big cannon that sits on top of the Pampanito. At least I presume it’s a cannon. For all I know it’s a periscope. Still, the big long shaft kind of gives it away. Best be safe I think and stay out of the way.

ss jeremiah o'brien

And this is the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, a big huge battleship moored behind (sorry, astern of) the Pampanito, and like the submarine it fought in World War II. in fact, this ship was used in the Normandy Landings on D-Day. Now that is a big ship. By the way, there is Alcatraz in the distance behind the ship.

sketching at fisherman's wharf

sunday morning train

1 Comment

sunday morning train

I like riding the train. It aint cheap, but it’s a nice ride across the Valley and the Delta, and along the Bay. This was on Sunday morning, around 8am, as I was headed down to San Francisco for a pre-birthday sketching/shopping day in the city (mostly sketching).

sketching on the train

sketching islington

6 Comments

camden passage islington

London, December 2010. The rain had come like an old friend and washed away the snow; no more dreaming of White Christmases after this one, more like dreading. I took a ‘sketching day’ and got on the tube to Islington. I like Islington a lot, and would happily live there and vote New Labour and read the Guardian and go to the theatre and all the other things Islington people union jack chairdo (except support Arsenal of course). We lived for a few years not far away on the edge of the borough at Hornsey Lane (I love steep hills! so now I live in Davis). This is Camden Passage, an interesting little street just off Upper Street (not in Camden at all), full of charming antique stores and little cafes (trendy or otherwise). I sketched it while listening to people speak French (and German occasionally) all around me, which was nice.

I was on my way to Cass Arts’ flagship store (it’s very big, but has exactly the same products as the smaller store in Soho, just more of them) and I whipped my sketchbook out to draw some of the interesting things being laid out in the street in front of one such antique store (‘Decorext’ I believe it was called). They had a pair of these interesting Union Jack chairs, and I had to draw one of them, being the foreign tourist that I am. This would make a fine seat for anyone watching the Royal Wedding this April. Pass the Battenburg.

One of the other buildings I really couldn’t resist sketching was the Screen on the Green cinema. I’ve only been in there once (I think I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 there) but it’s historic and Islington. For some reason I chose to use my coloured micron pens for the neon signs. Drawing old movie theatres is fun. After this, I jumped onto a double-decker bus and went to Piccadilly.

screen on the green, islington

sketching in islington

some things change, some things stay the same

24 Comments

vipins, burnt oak

This is Vipins, a stationery and card shop in Burnt Oak, north London. It has been there all my life, and I swear it hasn’t changed a bit. they even have the same stock as when I was a kid. I used to go in there all the time for pens, notepads, card, glitter, pritt stick, rulers, cartridge pens and so on. I still pop in there whenever I’m back, and sometimes find unexpected goodies. This time I found a mini clipboard, which has the clip along the side rather than the top, and fits into my bag. It’s perfect sketchbook size, handy for when I’m trying to hold onto my often awkward watercolour moleskine. I guess it’s used for Bingo. Anyway I decided to try it out straight away (it was Christmas Eve, still snowy, I had just got my hair cut at Syd’s barbers behind Woolworths – er, behind where Woolworths used to be, I mean), and so I stood outside Vipins in the cold and sketched for fifteen minutes, standing up. The clipboard was brilliant. It really helped whne standing to sketch, and being small it was still discreet. I popped back in to show Mr and Mrs Vipin, they were pleased with the sketch. This is a very typical Burnt Oak scene I’ve known my entire life, and I need to sketch these whenever I’m back, because the area keeps changing so much.

Incidentally, today’s my birthday. I share it with Charles Dickens (I always hated our joint birthday parties). I sketched San Francisco yesterday as a birthday present to myself (though I forgot my little clipboard). I’ll show you at some point.

let’s draw uc davis!

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

branches of mathematics

2 Comments

math sciences tree

Outside the Math Sciences Building. This February weather is nice – cold in the mornings, brisk at lunchtimes, but with lots of sun and long shadows and bare trees to sketch. This pretty much sums up the kind of light we are having, though I wish I could sketch in the early morning, or late afternoon, when the light is a rich golden syrup. This was a lunchtime sketch.   

reporting the sketchcrawl

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

shard times

Leave a comment

the shard

This is the Shard, a brand new skyscraper under construction in London, near London Bridge. It’s called the Shard because the architect is a big fan of The Dark Crystal. It will be the tallest building in Britain when completed, and London’s skyline will be changed forever (or, until the next tall unusual building is finished, and there are more on the way in). Eventually it will look like a huge glass spike pointing at the clouds. I sketched it stood near London Bridge station after a morning out by the river with family, really cold but not as freezing as before. I had to draw quickly because I was off to meet my friend  up near Tottenham Court Road station (and I was about to discover just how different London looks now, and how much of central London is like a building site – much of Oxford Street appears to be gone! But there is a Chipotle on Charing Cross Road, which made me happy). I like to draw in-progress sketches of buildings, because once they are finished and iconic it’s fun to remember how they looked going up.

oh i wish it could be boxing day every day

2 Comments

boxing day in burnt oak

With this very busy January, I’d almost forgotten I still have loads of sketches from London yet to scan and post! So to warm your winter cockles (what is a cockle? is it a muscle?)* here is a sketch I did on Boxing Day at my mum’s house in Burnt Oak, north London. Boxing Day (for those who are unaware) is the day after Christmas. On the TV there is Alec Guinness playing Fagin in Oliver Twist. That’s a great version, that, and the guy who played Bill Sykes was truly villainous. Plus it has the dog from the Target adverts in it. Alec Guinness as you know went on to train Luke Skywalker in the art of picking a pocket or two.

*before you correct me, I do know what a cockle is. It’s a type of male chicken.