the rest is April

June 24, 2025June 24, 20253 Comments

As I’ve said, I am a bit behind in my posting, though not in my sketching, and it’s another one of those times when I have a backlog of regular day-to-day sketches of Davis to post but not really a lot of stories to tell about them. I am sketching more than ever it seems, as I do when I need to think about something else; yay for anxious and uncertain and turbulent political times, I guess. I’m hiding in my sketchbook. Anyway, as a way to catch up, here are a bunch of sketches from around Davis in April. It’s already past mid-June in the real world, and if April thought things were bad, wait until they get to June. At least Spurs have won a trophy and sacked a manager in that time. Ok, let’s dive in. The building above is on 5th Street, and the bench outside commemorates where young Officer Natalie Corona was tragically shot several years ago, right here. I’ll always think of that awful thing happening when I pass by here. I stood over the street in the shade of a tree to sketch, headphones on. A woman passing by on the other side called over to ask something, I couldn’t hear over the traffic and whatever podcast I was listening to, football or history or something. Turned out she was asking where the train station was. I couldn’t tell why she had to yell it across a busy street and not ask one of the people passing by on that side, but I pointed in the vague direction of where the station is and put my headphones back on.

Here’s another from downtown, this time on the corner of 2nd and D, across from the First National Bank. I don’t know if this was the actual first national bank, seems like a wild claim to me, but I was drawn to the spots of yellow. These are days when I just need to draw something. I get out, eat lunch, have to draw. Helps me focus. I always go on about why I draw. I brew it down to the simple because I like drawing, which is good enough for me and good enough for you. Do I always like what I’m drawing? Probably not, but I like the act of drawing. I am up early right now and going for a run soon. It will probably be slow and not very interesting, running around the same circuit of streets and paths as always, nothing new to see, and not breaking any records or even really pushing myself, but its exercise, and when I do the interesting runs I need to have done the boring ones. It’s all exercising the muscles, practicing pacing myself, seeing what I can do in a certain amount of time and being alright with it. I track my running, but I track my drawing too. I don’t really push myself too hard to do anything out of the ordinary and I probably should, but while I’m thinking about doing that I’ll just go out drawing the world and see what happens. I tend to end up drawing places I’ve drawn many times before, but I’ve been living in this small town for 20 years now so I’m really just tracking the changes. I’m sure Cezanne felt like that as he was sitting under a tree in Aix-en-Provence painting Mont St. Victoire yet again. But I never drew that corner before, so it’s a new place ticked off the list.

Here is another sketch of the newly reimagined G Street, a couple of the big useful yellow chairs that have been placed in random spots on the side of the now pedestrianized road. I have never sat in one of these types of big chair other than for one of those photos where you go “look at me, I’m really small” and pull a face. It was warm out while I sketched this and being mid-April my nose was probably running, but I can’t remember all the details now. I am not really in love with G Street. It may be a while before it figures out what it really is. My favourite place on G Street was a couple of blocks up, the Regal Cinema with the stadium seating, but it has closed now because cinemas are closing. We still have the Regal on F Street which is slightly bigger but I don’t like as much, and we have the Varsity on 2nd which is great for the arthouse and quirky movies, you probably won’t see ‘Quick Angry Car Chase IX’ there (or whatever action films are called), though we have seen some really good films there. But I miss the other cinema on G Street because it was a couple of blocks less to cycle from my house, and one of my favourite restaurants Thai Nakorn was next door, also now closed.

On to more a familiar street for me, E Street, and Bizarro World Comics next to Chipotle. I stood in the little alley next to the Bull’n’Mouth (formerly De Vere’s; I feel I have to keep saying that in the same way we would say “X, formerly Twitter” but it’s not really a comparable comparison at all, and I don’t say “Bizarro World, formerly Bogey’s Books”, but that’s because Bizarro World used to be on 5th Street and moved here after Bogey’s went bye-bye). Anyway, that’s where I stood. I have bought comics from them over the years, though not recently since I’m not reading as many now. I have never rented movies from them, but if that’s still a thing, good on them. We were talking about that last night, how when I first moved to Davis we would rent movies and shows on DVD or even Video from Blockbuster (which was where Panera is now; I stopped calling it “Panera, formerly Blockbuster” right away because Panera sells big sandwiches that you don’t have to return nor rewind). Then Netflix came along and it was brilliant, getting our DVDs in the mail from our wishlist, mailing them back when we want, getting another, and you don’t even have to rewind DVDs, this is the future. Blockbuster went the way of MySpace (but we didn’t throw away our Blockbuster cards, did we? No we still hold on to them just in case, don’t we). Then Netflix was like, you don’t need DVDs, you can just stream stuff! Wow, mind blown. And they had all the movies, and all new shows they would make themselves and binge all at once, and we finally had broadband internet capable of handling that, what a time to be alive. Then bit by bit other streaming services came along, and Netflix seemed not to have quite as many movies you wanted to watch, but that’s ok because this other one had so many, and then this other had, and then this other one, and now there are so many different streaming services which you have to pay for, and none of them seem to have the movies you want to watch now so you still end up having to look for it on Amazon Prime (which you pay for) and then pay a rental fee to rent that movie so you can watch it that night. Just like when we’d go down the video store, except instead of watching trailers for other movies at the start of the video, you get to watch a couple of minutes of the same tedious adverts. What a time to be alive, eh.

And further down E Street, another building I have sketched before a few times. I like the triangle bits, they remind me of Darth Vader’s mouth. They also remind me of those houses you see a lot in north west London, in the rows of suburbia that spread for miles, leafy Middlesex (I mean, “north-west Greater London, formerly called Middlesex”). If I ever leave Davis I’ll probably miss drawing this building. If I ever leave Davis I will probably get the urge to come back to draw whatever new buildings get built. I get that with London, the need to come back and record what’s still there and what is new. This gets me back to the whole ‘why I draw’ thing again. I draw to record the changes, so I can look back over two or three drawings I have done of the same place years apart and saw, oh yeah, looks a bit different. I have drawn many hundreds of drawings of Davis, thousands really (let’s say millions) and so I have this record of two decades in this place, scenes of my everyday life. Nothing special, not an unusual life, not an unusual town, just a place like any other. Things happen, most of the time they don’t. Things change slowly, sometimes a bit more quickly. That’s one of the reasons I draw. Mostly though it’s just a side-effect, I draw because I have to. Even when I try to take a break from it, I can’t really. I will still scribble on my notepad, or draw cartoons on my iPad, or design football shirts on the back of scrap bits of paper or envelopes lying on my desk.

That same evening, I popped into the aforementioned Bull’n’Mouth pub (formerly De Vere’s) and sketched the colourful bar area. “Is It Beer You’re Looking For?” it reads, above a large selection of not-beers. I did have a couple of beers; I find it harder these days to actually finish a beer, most of the ones now are way too hoppy, or make my stomach feel funny, or I just don’t like the taste. I drink a beer slowly when I sketch anyway. It’s a nice pub still, I probably liked it more as De Vere’s but that’s because of the Irish theme, which they don’t do any more. I used to like having a pint of Smithwicks here, but they don’t serve it now. Other than that, it still looks mostly the same. I like their cosy little library area.

And finally, on the last day of April we find ourselves once again at the comic shop next door, Bizarro World as seen from across the street. A building with a tree in front of it, the typical Davis sketch. I wander about in my spare moments, looking for something new to draw, but I’m so predictable. A building with a tree in front is like comfort food for a suburban urban sketcher. Now I am thinking forward, it’s already June but it will soon be July, and then August, and then I will be in Poland for the 2025 Urban Sketching Symposium, held in the city of Poznań, my first Symposium since 2019. I’m actually feeling nervous, not scared exactly, but apprehensive. The Symposia are so big now, I worry about feeling lost. I do know some people who are going, but it’s been a long time and I feel a bit outside of everything these days, the whole urban sketching community, like I’m a little bit from a previous world. I’ve become very shy since the pandemic, the thought of being lost among all those sketchers… I get overwhelmed and just wander off on my own. I’m sure it will be ok. When I’m around a whole world of people also sketching, I remember that it’s not just me, I’m not alone in my sketching obsession. And so instead of worrying, I’ll just keep sketching. That was April, another April in the bag.

some trees on campus in april

June 22, 2025June 22, 20252 Comments

April was a long time ago now but I’m still posting old sketches. I am forever behind but it’s good to see how the world used to look in the before-times. It’s midsummer already (astronomically, though not seasonally, summer has just begun). Here are a few from a couple of months ago which are very tree-focused, two trees from campus below plus a panorama of the UC Davis Quad showing a lot of trees all at once, like some kind of tree party. The annual Picnic Day is around this time of year but I avoided that kind of thing this year, wasn’t up for the crowds and walking around feeling hot and bored. No sketching Picnic Day 2025. This drawing was done after work one day when the novelty of extended periods of sunlight in late afternoon had not yet worn off, and it wasn’t too hot yet. I like this one a lot though, I might use it in future things at work if I want a regular campus panorama scene. Here are a couple more trees.

Glory Glory in Bilbao

June 22, 2025Leave a comment

Well this happened a month ago – Tottenham Hotspur finally won a trophy after 17 years without one. That’s the stat, 17 years without a trophy, as if to say the football was good 17 years ago, good this year, and not in between, when that’s not really the case. But we won the Europa League, the third time we have won that particular trophy (the first was in 1972, the second in 1984 which I still remember). The final wasn’t pretty, and I had to be at home that day to watch it, but we beat Manchester United 1-0 and that’s that. All those years of scintillating exciting football and nearly getting there with one of the best Spurs teams I’ve ever seen, followed by a few years of that team declining and leaving and chopping and changing the managers and styles, the Contes and Mourinhos boring us to death, and then we bring in Big Ange Postecoglou, an Australian of Greek origin with big bold ideas who “always wins something in his second season” and changed the whole style to something far more attacking and fun to watch. It started well, top after his first ten games, the stadium singing Robbie Williams songs to him, saying “look Mate” a lot and looking at the floor when answering questions, that cough and those sighs, but then we kept getting so many injuries, and he would not change his cavalier style. We ended up fifth, but teams were figuring us out. So the second season, and we never got off the ground in the league, although we did beat the champions Man City away 4-0, everyone else beat us, except United who were terrible. Somehow we managed to stay alive in the Europa League – the new format helped, no heavyweight teams dropping down from the Champions League meant the most difficult team we faced was Eintracht Frankfurt. Even Manchester United making the final was a bit of a fluke, they were even more terrible than us this season (though in the end they finished a couple of spots above us, we did beat them four times over the course of the season which is amazing). So we go into the final, the teams 16th and 17th in the Premier League, the worst version of Spurs and the worst version of United I have ever seen in my lifetime, teams with records that in any other season would probably have seen them relegated, and yet one of them would get into the Champions League?! That is the prize of winning this easier Europa League, and we did it, with a goal scored by accident by Brennan Johnson, and an off the line clearance by Van De Ven that will go down in the history books and probably some of the physics books, and just for now, I don’t care about being 17th, about losing more games in one season than ever before, we won the cup. Bilbao will live on forever for us Spurs fans. It was like the end of Lord of the Rings. We had beaten Bodo in the semi before Pippin a sorry Man U in Bilbao by a nice goal and getting Merry at the Lane, Baggin’ the trophy and opening more doors as we soar on to the Champions League. The return of the Kings. My brother and nephew were watching at the Spurs stadium on the big screens set up there, and it sounds like it was a fun night. I felt relieved more than anything, after the disappointment of 2019. But a trophy is just a trophy. We came 17th in the league, we kept losing so many games – I like watching Spurs win games, and entertain as well. Big Ange who does not change his style refused to change it in the league, and we nearly got relegated, but for some reason changed it in the Europa and we won the thing. It was fun seeing the big parade, and now we can get all those people off our backs who say we never win trophies (Newcastle can do the same now too, and it’s been way longer for them). But 17th man, it ain’t good enough. So less than two weeks later, Big Ange got the sack. I’m fine with that, he would have been sacked by October anyway. He leaves as a trophy winner, no hard feelings, now we start again with our new guy, Thomas Frank. Come on you Spurs!

kerr

June 11, 2025June 11, 2025Leave a comment

April seems like such a long time ago now. Last week does too, and yesterday, even this morning feels like so long ago. What did I eat for lunch, I don’t remember that far back. Even the start of this paragraph feels like another age, and the start of this sentence feels like some sort of golden epoch before the ever increasing cycle of doom/gloom sets in. Even the time between the start of a word and the end of a word, something else has bloody happened. I can see what’s coming in the very near future too, to the point where I can’t even finish a. Even w. The most accurate sentence is actually only three letters long anyway, WTF. But here is a look back to April, after our trip to DC and NY, I have a few April sketches to share, then quite a few May ones, several June sketches, and by then it will be like time for the next election right, haha, only joking. Anyway it is good to keep posting my sketches on my site, adding to the story, so if anyone looks through my site in days to come they will see the progression/regression/nongression, hopefully not looking for aggressions/transgressions, and definitely no John Grisham. Anyway, this is Kerr Hall. Named after Wayne Kerr, sorry no it wasn’t. It wasn’t Juan Kerr either. Or Jo Kerr, Mark Kerr, and not Plon Kerr because that makes no sense. Kerr Hall is where my department used to live just before I came along and joined them, so I never got to work inside here. In fact I have never once been inside, I suppose why would I. I would only make silly jokes about the name. It’s next to Wellman, which is where my department used to live before it lived in Kerr Hall. I’ve never been inside there either. I would only make silly jokes about the name. “How you doin’, man?” “Well, man. I just came form Illman Hall, and before that I was in Sickman Hall, and before that I was in Healthyman Hall.” “Fine, whatever.” This is why I work in a building with a name that is not applicable to silly jokes, the Mathematical Sciences Building. Anyway as I sketched Kerr I listened to a podcast by some bloke talking to some other bloke about some stuff, it was so long ago I can’t remember.

PrideFest and the Run For Equality

June 10, 2025June 9, 20251 Comment

This month is Pride Month, and this weekend our city held its annual Davis PrideFest at Civic Park. It started in mid-afternoon, so we went down and enjoyed all the festivities. The afternoon June heat was a bit much to take, especially in the direct sun, so we stayed long enough to watch some of the drag performers, and the Sacramento Gay Mens’ Chorus, and walk around to all the booths getting stickers and fun things. It was organized with the support of the Davis Phoenix Coalition. It is important to show support, especially right now. I did a little bit of sketching, having coloured my page in Pride colours so I could just do quick sketches, I still found it tricky because the only shade was very far from the stage area. It was a good atmosphere overall, families and kids playing and lots of support for the local LGBTQ+ communities. We didn’t stay too long, it was very very hot and there was very little shade, but we had a nice Kona Ice in rainbow colours before heading home.

One thing I did make this week, having seen other examples online where people had mashed up their national park photos to create a Pride flag, so I decided to do something similar, and created the flag below from a whole load of my Davis sketches. It was fun to put together! Once I started I could not stop and it was interesting to go through all of my Davis drawings from the past couple of decades that I have been here – I really have drawn a lot of this town. It has turned into quite a body of work. Anyway here it is!

And on Sunday we had the annual Run For Equality. I had printed out a copy of the flag of sketches and pinned it to my sleeve, as you can see below. It was my first organized run since the 10k in November and I have been lazy, that’s for sure. I finally got back out just a couple of weeks ago and starting my old 3 mile run looping around the blocks of north Davis. I’m a lot slower, heavier for sure, well it’s been a heavy half year, weighed down by everything that is going on (and all the food). It does feel good when I run though. This was the first time I have taken part in this run. The Run For Equality was founded in honor of Mikey Partida who is a local Davis runner that was targeted in a horrendous hate crime over ten years ago. I remember it in the news back then, it was shocking. This prompted members of the community led by his mother to form the Davis Phoenix Coalition, and this run/walk event was created to honour those who have suffered bigotry and intolerance. Mikey was announced at the start, and that was an inspiration to all of us about to run. (At that point a known local ‘phobe attention-seeker also showed up at that moment to try and make it all about her, but I don’t give them any attention.) This wasn’t a huge run like the Turkey Trot so it felt more communal, and runners seemed to give each other positive vibes, and it was easier to see the people you knew. It’s the same course as the Labor Day Run which loops back along the same path, I saw the son of a guy I know through soccer (when his son was much smaller) whizz past at the front on his way to coming first about ten minutes ahead of me, his dad a few minutes behind him. I wore my sketch-flag on my sleeve (see below). I had been a little nervous about doing the run, being my first in ages, but I was pleased with how it went and cannot wait for the next one, which will be the Moonlight Run in July, the one held in the evening. Running (like sketching) definitely helps beat the bad away, but then you get home and see The News and it’s back down again. Actually I got home and we had donuts and watched Time Bandits, one of my favourite films and infinitely more fun than the News.

JFK to PHX to SMF

June 9, 20251 Comment

And so we ended the Spring Break trip to DC (the nation’s capital) and New York (the real capital) (yeah I know, New York isn’t even the capital of New York) (it’s a bit like explaining that Harry Kane was not the captain of Spurs, that being Hugo Lloris, despite being England captain). We flew from JFK in, ahem, first class. Yep, through the magic of airline points we managed to get a deal that got really good seats in first class all the way back home. Well, all the way to Phoenix, and then another short flight but those seats were nice too. These ones however had the little compartment with the massive screen and the lie-flat seats. No cushions or blankets though. It was strange to be seated at an angle on a plane. The attendant was very attentive (yeah don’t put your hand on my shoulder when asking me if I want a drink mate), though I did not know what to order, I felt I had to be fancy, but I just got a wine which I didn’t even finish. I sketched, watched Avengers: Infinity War, tried to sleep a little, basically it was like being on a plane but with more room. My teenager was there to my left watching some movie (Hunger Games maybe), I wish we had had a game of Battleships because that would have been perfect (you probably can’t play Battleships on a plane though). It was only my second time in first class, and mate, it’s hard to go back. But we only get a brief glimpse into life on the other side of the curtain, and then it’s over.

I did people-sketch at the airports, both JFK and PHX. I hate airports as you may know, and sitting around in departure lounges is slightly better than rushing about in corridors or going through security lines. I had done a lot of people sketches with that thick black pen on this trip so this was a good way to pass the time.

And finally, the last leg from Phoenix to Sacramento. It was late afternoon, nearly the evening, and we were all exhausted from the travel. I was watching Withnail and I, another classic. After watching Infinity War this was a change of scenery, but I imagined Uncle Monty and Thanos switching places, putting a new spin on his question “Are you a sponge or an infinity stone?” It was late, I was tired. I sketched to calm the old flying nerves, and slept well when we got home. I hope it’s not as long again until the next time I see New York, but I guess there’s only so much excitement I can take.

Imagining Central Park quite a bit

June 5, 2025June 5, 20251 Comment

Big fan of Central Park. It’s another of those places with very imaginative names, but it fits the trades description. It’s pretty massive too. Places that Central Park is bigger than include the entire country of Monaco, the entire Vatican City, all of London’s Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Green Park and St. James Park combined, though still slightly smaller than the gap between Tottenham’s most recent two trophies (by the way, Come on you Spurs! More on that later). I have walked through it in the Fall, when the leaves were golden and crunchy like a bowl of Corn Flakes, I have walked through it in the Winter when the lakes were frozen and my eyes turned to glass, and now I’ve been there in the Spring when the leaves were still slightly autumn-coloured or wintery bare but the Sun was out and the flowers were getting ready for the bee season. Central Park is special though, surrounded by all those tall buildings. There were more of them than the last times I came. I was waiting to meet up with my family there, so spent some time walking about and sketching. I drew the Gapstow Bridge above, while sat on a bench by the water. It was a bit chilly, but really not bad. A lot of people passing by and taking the old selfies there, as they do. You don’t see as many selfie-sticks these days though do you, I think they need to make a retro comeback. Maybe I have just stopped seeing them. It was clam on that bench though, peaceful. That’s why I love a park. I walked about, heading in the general westward direction, until I came to the busy street on the West of Central Park, whatever that street is called.

I found the Dakota Building, where John Lennon lived and died. I have wanted to sketch it for years. It was sunny on the path where I stood but it was view I liked best. I love the Beatles, and felt a lot of sadness about how John was murdered right here. As I sketched I could hear the sound of someone murdering the song Imagine, over and over. Imagine if they would sing something else, I wondered. I had bought a postcard of John Lennon a couple of days earlier at a shop in Greenwich, and had been taking it around with me taking some photos with the real New York backdrops. I did the same here (below). He was a complicated fellow, but we love him. Me and him, we both moved from England to America, though in his case he was never able to set foot back home again. He will always be part of New York City now, and the area of Central Park nearby to the Dakota that was dedicated to him is called Strawberry Field, and has that little circular mosaic that says ‘Imagine’, often decorated with little flowers and Hershey kisses. It is nice.

I went over to Strawberry Field to wait for my family to show up, and I found where the music was coming from. There was a guy with a guitar singing Imagine, and a lot of people sat on benches imaging stuff, and a lot of people standing next to the big mosaic also using their imagination. The pained renditions of ‘Imagine’ aside, the singer was pretty good when doing his own stuff, but was clearly sick of singing that song over and over for the tourists. I assume it’s a requirement of the gig. I imagined Han Solo singing it, and saying he “can Imagine quite a bit”. Then I imagined Michael Caine (as Han Solo) singing it. Then I imagined a version of Star Wars where the main characters were played by the Beatles, John as Han, Paul as Luke, George as Obi-Wan, Ringo as Chewie, Yoko as Leia. Mal and Neil as C-3PO and R2-D2. Allen Klein as Darth Vader. Billy Preston as Lando. Brian Epstein as Yoda. George Martin as General Dodonna. Dick James as Jabba the Hutt. I really want to see this now. Maybe John could be Luke, so Aunt Mimi could be Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen combined. I sketched while I imagined, and then got my own photo taken next to the sign, because I too am a tourist.

From the C Line to the High Line

June 4, 2025June 3, 2025Leave a comment

And now to post the rest of my quick people sketching from New York City. It’s good to carry a smaller sketchbook for these little rapid fire captures. I thought it was a cliche but sketching on the Subway was great. Better than sketching on the tube, it’s like there’s this little bit more distance. Anyway, I sketched the view above on the C line while heading uptown, I can’t remember why I was on that line, and I think the one below was sketched on the Q or the N, honestly I don’t remember now. The New York Subway is very confusing for someone used to the simplicity of the London Underground. You get used to it pretty quickly, but on the whole it is not intuitive and very easy to get lost. I got lost straight away, but made the most of it because getting lost is fun sometimes. Those stations, they are just like they look in the old 70s movies, I imagine it feels creepy late at night when nobody is around, if ever that is the case, but it was busy and full of your average New Yorker. People not from New York actually asked me if the Subway was scary. Nope, just a normal transportation system that people use, but for some reason is designed to make no sense whatsoever. I loved it, but maybe if I was in a deserted station at night, I’d probably be petrified.

Here’s one from the R train, which I think is what I took back from Brooklyn to get back to our hotel. I was writing down some of the announcements while orange hood man slept. Round glasses man looked at his phone. Most people do that now. People like to complain about this on the tube, everyone just looking at their phones (as if they are expecting people to get on the tube and start having random conversations), but they used to hide behind big broadsheet newspapers. I miss getting the tube or bus and reading a book, or observing that unwritten rule where someone reads a newspaper, puts it down next to them, and someone opposite just automatically without asking or acknowledging the other person will just pick it up and start reading it, whether it’s a free Metro or a 30p (or whatever it is now, probably free) Evening Standard, and the person who was reading it just has to silently accept that the paper is no longer theirs. It’s one aspect of British society that definitely deserves doctoral study. I’ve not been on the Subway regularly enough to notice the societal quirks of it. I just did a few sketches, and tried not to get lost like the newbie tourist I am.

Leaving the urban theatre of the Subway behind, we also went to see an actual Broadway show, which was very exciting. We went to the Walter Kerr Theatre near Time Square to see Hadestown, which had great music and stagework, I very much enjoyed it, but a couple of months have passed now and I could not tell you a thing about it. I can’t remember any of the songs, but the costumes were amazing. So I liked it a lot, and I think you’d like it if you’re into that sort of thing, just don’t ask me what sort of thing that is because I’ve forgotten. Because I can’t sit still while waiting for anything, naturally I sketched some of the people waiting in their seats, and also did a quick sketch of the stage and the heads of some of the audience. I didn’t sketch during the show, because that would be a bit pointless.

Next day after some time wandering Greenwich Village with my teenager, I went off by myself to look for the much-vaunted High Line that everyone goes on about. It’s a long pathway, like a narrow park, built onto some old elevated railway tracks going from Hudson Yards through Chelsea down to the Meatpacking District. All the sketchers are like, you have to go there, so I did. I mean, it was alright, but I was not as whelmed as I thought I’d be. It was like, there are the streets, I’m a little bit higher than them, and here are some plants, oh look at painting or a sculpture. Hudson Yards was very very modern, and one of the buildings looked like Avengers Tower, but I wasn’t very interested, it’s not like the Quinjet was going to swoop by. I don’t know, perhaps I had just been spoilt by the incredible views from our hotel.

I walked down the High Line with the many other slow-walking folk, passing close by one set of luxury flats after another, while people in trendy jackets took selfies and looked at boring modern sculptures. I decided not to walk all the way down to Chelsea Market, which did actually sound quite good, having gone quite a long way already. It was starting to feel like one of those TV series that everyone says you have to watch, and if you complain it’s a bit boring they say well it only starts getting good by about season three. I wasn’t getting to season three, so I took the stairs down and got back onto the streets, where things are real. I’m a street-level sketcher, like Daredevil, except when I’m looking down from the top of a building, like Daredevil. I never made it up to Hell’s Kitchen either.

metal pipes of manhattan

June 3, 2025June 3, 20252 Comments

I can’t go to a new city and not record some of the hydrants and other metal pipes sticking out of the ground, can I. I have sketched a New York hydrant before (on a well-below-freezing day) but there is quite a diverse selection. However I am at the stage now where I see a movie or TV show set in ‘New York’ and I see the hydrants and I just know it’s filmed in like Cleveland or Toronto, because the hydrants are all wrong. I don’t care that much, but it’s like when an American Hallmark movie is set in Scotland and everyone has a fake Irish accent. Anyway, here are some of the ones I drew in New York. I liked the pipe above spouting out of the ground like a metal worm down on 23rd. The New Yorkers like to put stickers on their hydrants and pipes, it makes them look a bit more personalized, like your water bottle. The hydrant below was also on 23rd, sketched on a Chelsea morning. Nice to see the hearts around it, scrawled into the concrete. I saw that yellow ‘SK’ sticker on a lot of pipes around Chelsea.

This one covered in stickers and rust was on 6th Avenue, one of those hydrants you see with the two little poles next to it like bouncers, protecting it from errant cars banging into it. “Geddouddahere!” There was a pizza place near here where we ordered a massive New York pizza on our first night and ate it in the room, bloody delicious. New Yorkers know how to do pizza. Sorry Chicago those big deep dish pies were a bit much for me, tasty though they were.

This one above was on West 28th, sketched as I was walking out toward the High Line one afternoon. I like exploring the city, seeing what I come across along the way. This hydrant had those bouncers as well, but it also had a little metal X on its head that reminded me of a hot cross bun. Now the thing below, on the corner of 23rd and 7th, I drew on the way back, it’s obviously not a hydrant but is some sort of telecommunications post. I saw some others dotted around. Do they still work? Probably, but I just liked the look of them so I had to sketch one. “We are the Future” says the graffiti”. There’s that SK sticker again. It was busy here at this intersection, a lot of interesting characters about, I could have sat and people sketched for ages, but hydrant sketching is easier, and hydrants don’t complain if you get the size of their nose wrong. I didn’t see anyone famous, but I never do. My family did spot Michael Emerson – Ben out of Lost – on this very street while I was still sketching Brooklyn Bridge, out walking his dog with his distinctive little glasses on (on him, not on the dog). As big Lost fans this was a big deal. But that is just New York for you, and to paraphrase another former New York resident, not seeing famous people is what happens when you are busy sketching fire hydrants.

Way Up Above New York City

June 2, 2025June 2, 20254 Comments

My dream as a sketcher is always to go high above a city and sketch everything below – not too high above, I still want to see things. (Click on the sketches and you will see it all in bigger detail). New York City is easily the most exciting place for this. Our hotel was located on 6th and 28th in Chelsea, in sight of the One World Trade Center, the Chrysler, and the Empire State Building which loomed outside our bedroom window. It was too big to include in the view above but would be just to the left of that view. The above panorama was drawn while sitting on my bed. The light and colour of this view changed enormously throughout the day, and I did this in a couple of sittings, about a couple of hours total at most, but I drew much of it in the late afternoon/early evening while the sky was all purples, pinks and blues. Below, cars moving slowly in lines, the famous yellow cabs weaving in and out, and people the size of ants, all looking for the jam. What excited me most is not all the windows or the depth or the movement, or the feeling that I am in the Spider-Man video game, but the water-towers.

The distinctive New York water-towers really are everywhere you look., especially in the view above which was drawn from the roof of our hotel, just a few floors above our room, about 30 stories or more above the street. I was looking south towards the One World Trade Center on the left, and across Chelsea on the right. I was a little overwhelmed by how many water-towers there were, and on another day I might look at the pictures I took and draw a big detailed one, all coloured in. On this day I stood up on the roof of the hotel, which was open to the elements with just an elbow-high glass fence keeping me safe. It was thankfully not too windy. It was late afternoon/early evening, the sky was an interesting collage of shades, and the tall towers in the distance were just blue-grey silhouettes. I drew fast (this took less than an hour and a half) but could not quite finish it, and left a gap which I never had time to fill, and felt that my mind’s eye would fill in the gaps. My eyesight is not that great anyway, and while I sketched one of my lenses actually fell out of my glasses, thankfully falling on my side of the barrier and not hundreds of feet to the sidewalk of 28th Street. I popped it back in. There were taller buildings to my right, and my eyesight was not so bad that I could miss the sight that greeted me there, a man at the window completely, well, ‘stark bollock naked’ as we say and possibly oblivious to the fact anyone could see him at all. I tried not to stare, and thankfully he was not very long. By the window I mean. I think I understand that song about being ‘caught between the moon and New York City’ differently now. I kept drawing (not that obviously) until I could draw no more, and we went for dinner. I was so glad to have the opportunity though to draw New York from above, which is always a dream, and to stay in a hotel where I have the time to actually do it and not feel rushed to leave, even though I still drew faster than usual. New York, all those movies, all those photos, all those paintings and songs and stories, all that culture that has played with our imagination, all right there below me. I want to draw more of it!