The sunshine is deceiving, because the rains are back, and in greater numbers. It was sunny yesterday though, on Saint Patrick’s Day, so I cycled downtown at lunchtime and drew a quick-ish one of a house on the corner of 3rd and D, I’d wanted to sketch it for some time. I was hopeful, but not that optimistic that his sunshine would stick around for the weekend, but now it looks very likely that heavy rain will stop play at the scheduled Davis sketchcrawl this Saturday.
While back in London in December, I spent about six million pounds just on travelling on the tube. Or at least, it felt like it. The Oyster Card was well used. Lots of urban sketchers sketch on their urban transport systems, so I of course had to do some as well. Being a Londoner of course and therefore absolutely terrified at the thought of interaction with any other person, I usually sketched when the tube was near empty. I am from the Northern Line, Edgware Branch, that was my highway. Years ago, before the trains very nicely started telling me where I was, I could tell I was getting closer to home because of the way the stations were painted – Hendon Central was sky blue, Colindale was yellow – ah, red! Burnt Oak. Time to get off and get some fried chicken. They’re all painted the same now, though the signs help.
Trains still stop inexplicably outside Golders Green for like, ten minutes though. “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of the tube stopping for no reason whatsoever outside Golders Green for ages,” as Johnson once said.
Someone enjoyed watching those dot matrix displays on the underground train (above). I remember when they brought those in, that was nice, and nowadays they even work! He got to know the voice that announces the stations very well (“this station is Belsize Park. This train terminates at Morden, via Bank“). Best of all though was the ‘Mind the Gap’ announcement, which in many places is a nice gentle FYI, but in others it is still the one I remember as a kid, the booming, authoritative ‘MIND THE GAP’, which I always imagined was the voice of the Supreme Being. Yes, the one from Time Bandits.
I do miss the Tube sometimes. Even after so many years and years of it annoying the hell out of me, even though certain ticket office staff seem to deliberately make an effort to be unhelpful, even though it’s overcrowded and unreliable and ridiculously expensive…um, sorry I forgot what I was talking about.
It is rainy right now, very rainy, annoyingly so; I’ve got a sketchcrawl on Saturday, and I could do without rain. Well, it’s March, I suppose. I stayed in my office at lunchtime, rather than go outside and get wet, and sketched my desk. I was listening to the BBC News; none of it good, really. The huge earthquake and tsunami in Japan last Friday were just so shocking, so unbelievable; it puts so much in perspective. For sure, the immense force of nature reminds us how small we are, but the reaction of the amazing people of Japan reminds us of how great we are too. I wish all my friends in Japan the very best. I just hope that this ongoing nuclear power threat does not get worse.
I was listening to news of Libya too; that madman Gaddafi is fighting back, and yet we stand by dithering, unsure what to do, while people are dying. Here’s hoping that sanity prevails, and that somehow that mad Colonel is defeated before he can commit further atrocities. Do we have a plan if he is not?
Saturday afternoon, Spring is not only in the air but shining all around; with freshly cut hair I cycled about Davis looking for a perfect building with perfect March afternoon shadows and a decent shaded spot for me to perch without being in the way. I was uninspired however, or overinspired, perhaps they are the same thing. I drew this corner four years ago, interestingly enough, from a little closer up; 5th and J Streets, this cool but kinda scary-looking old house with the enormous telegraph pole towering above it. I rode off and went back to the library after this, to put up a poster about next Saturday’s ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ Sketchcrawl at the Arboretum (See the Flickr group and Facebook event) – if you’re in or around Davis, and like to draw even just a little, come down on Saturday and sketch together with other sketchbookers! If the weather is anything like today, it will be a great afternoon.
‘Spring forward’ tonight folks. Don’t forget to change your clocks. Oh, you already have. Welcome to Summertime…
The Mary L. Stephens public library in Davis reopened a few months ago after a big refurbishment; I popped by last weekend to check it out. I had forgotten just how much I love libraries. I used to spend hours and hours in libraries, searching through the books, letting my imagination go wild in silence. When I was a kid, I would go to Burnt Oak library and spend ages reading books about space and dinosaurs and languages. As I grew up the love of libraries never left me. I spent a lot of time at this library when I first came to Davis. It was nice being back. I think libraries are incredibly important for our societies. In these days of budget cuts and ‘austerity’, I’m more thankful than ever that we have them. It’s amazing, in a way; while record companies vehemently fight tooth and nail to stop illegal downloading of songs and file sharing of copyrighted material, it’s perfectly normal for us to go to a library and borrow for FREE any published book they have. It’s a lesson to those moneygrabbers; free lending libraries have usually helped rather than hurt the publishing industry. Nowadays we have the internet of course, the ‘reliable’ Wikipedias and Googles and other such instant sources if information, on our iPads and iPods and Kindles and Blackberries and Raspberries and other smart-fruits, people might think libraries are less important, just places for people with nowhere to go. I however think that a society which wilfully loses its libraries loses its link to culture, learning and freedom of thought. In Davis, for one, the library seems to be as popular as ever. Long may our libraries last.
Anybody who has been to Vegas knows that the sound of the inescapable beeping of slot machines stays in your head for ages afterwards. The one-armed bandits, which still have their levers, unnecessary though they are in this age of buttons, now have the pre-recorded sound of quarters dropping into a plastic tray when you win or cash out your paper token with a little barcode on it, replacing the sound of real quarters, the sound of winning big. The first time I went to Vegas, nine years ago, quarters were everywhere. They gave you big plastic slurpee cups to hold them in, and the cashiers distributed little sanitized towels to wash the metallic stain from your fingers. The world has changed so much, except for one thing: the house always wins in the end. The thing is, you win big one time, maybe twice, and it keeps you playing, and then ultimately you lose it all, because you don’t know when to stop. I won $100 on the Wheel of Fortune machine at the airport once, just before getting on the plane; that didn’t happen this time, oh no. Oh well.
And of course, the buffets – you have to do the buffets in Vegas. They are good. The problem with buffets is that there is so much choice, you end up getting too much and not eating all that much of it. Not that I didn’t stuff my face of course, and we got there late enough for breakfast that lunch was starting to be served as well, which was handy (there’s one for Alan-Partridgesque buffet tricks 101). This was what remained of my very big breakfast. That chocolate mousse thing was delicious.
I sketched at Zeffirino’s, a bar/restaurant at the Venetian in Las Vegas, while the Oscars were on TV. The King’s Speech did well, didn’t it? That was a good movie. I like Geoffrey Rush, ever since that movie Shine. Colin Firth was good too of course, but he’s more for the ladies (he’ll always be D’Arcy apparently). I have a British accent too – OSCAR PLEASE! Mike out of Neighbours was in it too, as Edward VI. I didn’t see many of the other films that were up for stuff, except for Toy Story 3, and was therefore utterly ignorant; good job the King’s Speech won, I’ve seen that. I’ve never been a big Oscars-watcher, though. It was always on in the middle of the night, when I lived in England; you’d get up and catch the end of it on GMTV, but it wasn’t exciting like Election Night or anything. At least in California it’s on at a more respectable hour of the day. Happy Hour!
I have been to Venice three times – 2001, 2002 and 2003. On that last occasion, I got engaged to my wife. I think back then I had hoped to go to Venice once a year, but in 2004 I didnt make it – so we went instead to the 
Venetian, Las Vegas, on the night after our wedding. I love the Venetian – as a ‘Venetophile’ (I just created that word, but I bet it already exists) I was always absolutely amazed at the incredible level of detail the designers went to to produce this amazing tribute to La Serenissima. It’s utterly unbelievable – this is not some disney-like mockery, this is some serious, serious cash.
We went there again recently on our Vegas weekend, and I still absolutely love it. I had to sketch there. I sat outside and drew the Rialto bridge – an improvement on the original, as it has a moving walkway for those who simply cannot bear the thought of using their feet for walking – beside the canal while gondoliers sang below the bridges. The sketch on the left is a detail of the Doge’s Palace, which provides the main entrance to the casino, complete with a Bridge of Sighs (which I didn’t draw, sigh).
Inside, there is an immensely grand entranceway complete with richly decorated painted ceiling. We’ve stayed in the hotel suites and they are wonderful. We had dinner at Canaletto in St Mark’s Square (which unlike the reall Piazza San Marco was largely pigeon-free, except for one which had found its way up from the blackjack tables and was scrounging breadcrumbs). The main attraction though are the Grande Canal Shops (it might be ‘Shoppes’ – Vegas apparently believes that spelling adds authenticity…), with the Canal running through it. There’s a sketch of it below. As with most Vegas hotel shopping, the boutiques are high-end and a little out of my spending range. This is however the home to that shop from that Michael Jackson / Martin Bashir program, Regis Galerie. You know, the one with all the gaudy nonsense, where he was wandering about the store pointing at this painting or that ugly sculpture, saying “woohoo! woohoo! do i have that one? I’ll take that one, yeah, and that one. Ohh, I saw a ghost, I’m scared now, woohoo…” You do see a lot more Jackos in Vegas now, by the way. They are catching up with the Elvises.
The Venetian isn’t Venice itself, of course not. Venice is unique. But for sheer effort and faithfulness of detail, it’s quite a remarkable place.
Las Vegas on a Saturday evening is very different from Las Vegas on a Sunday afternoon. On Saturday evening, the city is apparently made up of skinny ladies in very short skirts and young men in very shiny shoes, whereas by Sunday afternoon they have all morphed into plump midwesterners in shorts and ill-fitting t-shirts with fast-food stains on them, shuffling around glitzy casino lounges. It’s an odd place, is Vegas. Changes every time I go back, in that another new swankier-than-thou casino hotel shopping complex has opened up, out-architecting the last one, with added Prada boutiques and other such high-end stores I’d never go in to. This will always be the grown-up theme park extraordinaire, however, and is still lots of fun. My favourite places are still the same as from the first time I came here, with the Venetian topping them all. There it is above, as viewed from our hotel window at the Mirage. As an avid Venetophile (yes I think I just created that word and it’s brilliant) I am always thrilled by the attention to detail of that place.
I sat out by the Las Vegas Strip, and found a spot to sketch the view towards the Stratosphere. You can’ see the snowy mountains from here, but the normally desert rocky backdrop was dusted with white snow and made the view look even more colourful. New construction is going up all the time. That brown building, that’s the Encore, an identical twin to the Wynn next door, and it wasn’t there last time I visited. We popped into the Wynn to say ‘ooh!’ and ‘wow! at the glitzy shopping mall inside. We’d like to stay there some time. Apparently Steve Wynn once said Las Vegas was “how God would have done it if he had money.”
It’s Spring! Rain, sun and blossom. And so it’s time for a sketchcrawl in the UC Davis Arboretum, where the flowers will be blooming and the red buds will be blossoming.
Time for another let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl, hopefully on a nice bright sunny warm March day (please)..!
DATE: Saturday March 19, 2011
START: 11:00am (meet in front of Borders, at Davis Commons, 1st Street; there’s a coffee shop and tables outside)
Walk and sketch along the Arboretum…
FINISH: at Lake Spafford (on the north side, near Mrak Hall), at 3:30pm to look at each other’s sketchbooks.
The UC Davis Arboretum (http://arboretum.ucdavis.edu/) is a wooded pathway which runs along Putah Creek. We can sketch individually or as a group, however you prefer. Might be an idea to bring a packed lunch!
See you there!
petescully 