not that pelé

January 17, 2009January 17, 20093 Comments

Yohann Pelé, goalkeeper for French club Le Mans (who according to France Football wants a move to Angleterre), and my illustration friday entry for this week, theme being ‘pale’. Yes, Pale. And this guy’s name is Pelé, which is close enough, right? but it’s not that Pelé, it’s one who surely pales in comparison (oh please). Plus he’s wearing a pale blue kit.

I wanted to draw a footballer from my France Football paper (which I bought in Belgium; can’t get it here in Davis, but I accumulated a massive pile of them when i lived in France, best footy paper in the world). I wanted to do some sketching in pencil and coloured pencil, I was playing around with it, and I like it.

la vie est belge

January 16, 2009January 17, 20093 Comments

A few days after Christmas, a friend and I went over to Belgium, where I used to live what feels like a lifetime (but was less than ten years) ago. I spent a year in Charleroi between 1999 and 2000, my time there culminating with the now infamous visit of the chair-throwing England fans. It was a year that has shaped a lot of my imagination, though I did little but eat frites drowned in sauce, drink and learn about beer at la cuve à bière, and play the guitar (writing songs about this, about that). That is, however, the life. We took the early Eurostar to Brussels, and walked around the busy post-noel streets, surprised to find that there was no rain whatsoever – I nearly didn’t recognise it in the sunshine. I like Brussels. I drew at the Grand Place, crowded, touristy, disgustingly ornate, but necessary for a budding urban sketcher to draw. I wasn’t going to seek out the urban grit – we were going to Charleroi later that evening, and there would be plenty of that.

I stopped in a shop I loved when I was living there: Grasshopper, an amazing store that sells all sorts of toys and books. I wanted to buy some French board books for my baby son (decided not to go with teaching him Flemish just yet). However, while I was sketching, I must have put them down and forgotten about them (very unlike me*). I went back to the store and bought some more, and asked if anybody had returned them. Non, they told me, ils sont bye-byes. Yeah, cheers. So, we took a very modern double-decker train south to the city of Charleroi, and while Roshan napped in the hotel, I ventured out into the freezing dark evening to do some night-time pre-pub sketching, and drew Le Luxembourg, a place which although very pretty, I have never actually entered. While drawing, I kept my eyes on the shadows for, er, shadowy people, happy to be back in my old town.

*I do tend to lose things in Brussels, though. I lost my favourite top here once, in 1999. I wrote a song about that too. It was white with thin black hoops. If you find it, let me know; it might still fit.

what up dog

January 12, 20093 Comments

I drew a dog. Doesn’t happen very often. I’m not a dog person. But this dog is cool, and just staying out of the way, while other dogs and a canine-loving baby (who now says “dog-gie!” very clearly) get on with it. This is my brother-in-law’s dog Nalu (I have no idea how it is spellt), drawn quickly yesterday.

sketchcrawl 21, santa rosa

January 12, 20093 Comments

I wasn’t intending on doing the 21st sketchcrawl, but i managed to go out sketching in the afternoon while visiting in santa rosa, and did a few drawings around 4th street. A mini sketchcrawl. I also wanted to try out my new REI sketching stool. It was very comfy.

Funny thing, but whenever I sketch in Santa Rosa I’m never that happy with the shading or the colours. I don’t know what it is. It is different there, very different from Davis. Different trees, different light, different air. More ‘pacific’. It is also the first place I ever went to in America. I did a couple of quick drawings in sepia, before going back to colour. The second one is of Snoopy; Charles Schultz lived in Santa Rosa, this was his town. All over town there are now these statue things of Snoopy. It’s a bit like when towns in Europe used to have those those statuesque cows everywhere, all painted differently. I remember Zurich and Berlin also have bears.

After drawing Snoopy, I walked down to Traverso’s, next to the Transit Mall. It is an Italian deli place, full of excellent cheeses and wines and biscotti and stuff. I remember a while ago I spoke to the guy who works there, maybe traverso himself, and spoke football. Calcio. He tld me all his family support Roma, but he supports Lazio. Or it may have been the other way round. Anyway, I did overhear some talk about Beckham playing for AC Milan while in there sampling cheese. I like Traverso’s. Not massively happy with the drawing though.

I finished off by supping a red top beer at the 3rd St Aleworks. Speaking of red tops, a guy and his girlfriend sat down next to me, and he took off his jacket to “show his colours”, revealing an Ars*nal shirt, complete with Fabr*gas on the back. I had to roll my eyes. Dear oh dear.

Anyway, so this was my mini-sketchcrawl. Next one (#22) is in April, so I hear…

soho continued

January 10, 2009May 27, 20105 Comments

Part 2 of Soho sketching day. This is Broadwick Street, and that is the Blue Posts pub, which I also sketched in ’07. In the distance, Centre Point. There I am, to the left, drawing this very scene. My nephew and I chatted while I drew, then went to art shops, foreign language bookshops, football shirts shops; I lamented the lameness of Carnaby Street, navigated through short-cuts and alleys, reminisced about nights out I can barely remember. I do see Soho as a city with a city, and one with tiny neighbourhoods of its own, and I could draw it endlessly, but the end of the afternoon came quickly, and so we got the tube back up the Northern Line, my tired nephew sleeping much of the way back (and giving me a chance to attempt some tube-train sketching; here is the result…)

A good day was had by all!

where other broken people go

January 8, 2009Leave a comment

Still not finished with these sketches from London! A few weeks ago, I went out early on the Saturday morning before Christmas with my nephew anthony for a sketchcrawl around the narrow and interesting streets of Soho. It was perfect sketching weather, not too cold; did I mention that it never rained the entire time I was back in London? The entire time? In December?

It’s true. Back when I visited in Summer, it rained on every single day. I was actually preparing for rain-soaked sketching. “On a rainy night in Soho,” that might have been the title. It wasn’t even cold. So we began in Soho Square, and I did the picture above. Weekend before Christmas, steps away from the busiest shopping street in Britain, and it was calm, not busy. I grew to love Soho years ago, I learnt all its alleys and short cuts, appreciated all its quirks. In the mid-nineties, the post-club 4am stop was Bar Italia, on Frith Street (it was Italians who brought me there), the only time I ever drank a cappucinno (I am not a coffee drinker), and it hasn’t changed. Pulp sang a song about it once. There it is below, sketched as we sat in Caffe Nero (I always thought it said Caffe Nerd) opposite having soup (I know, I should have gone to Bar Italia rather than a chain cafe, but I wanted to draw the cool place; besides, going there in daylight hours without the echo of heavy music still ringing in my ears just seemed kinda wrong).

That clock is wrong by the way. And John Logie Baird used to live there. He probably couldn’t hear the telly for all the noise outside.

Part 2 to come…

hangin’ out your stockings on the wall

January 6, 2009January 5, 20094 Comments

Today (January 6) is the last day of Christmas, although really it ended ages ago, here in America. There is this amazing Christmas house just down the road from where we live that completely decks the halls with lights and music, but turns back into a regular suburban home come the striking of the New Year. Not us, our tree stays put until the twelfth night. Laziness, more than tradition, besides we like having that festive corner to look at. We spent most of this Christmas season in London, however, and ate and drank and were very merry. Mince pies and Quality Street. Oh, and posh tea at the Waldorf. It was my son’s first Christmas, and while he wasn’t quite as interested in unwrapping presents as we thought he’d be, he still had a great time, with his London family. And this is his first ever christmas stocking, which Santa (aka Father Christmas) filled with many of his favourite things (including toy ducks, and cheerios – hey they were on his list). Drew this in his journal.

don’t judge a book just by its cover

January 5, 20092 Comments

…unless you cover just another. Burnt Oak Library, at the junction of Watling Avenue, Gervase Road and Orange Hill Road. And now, to my surprise, it has been painted black, and had a monstrous carbuncle of a tiled entranceway attached inexplicably to the front.

Which architect thought that was a good idea? “Oh it’s only Burnt Oak, nobody cares, that library is old and unwashed anyway, they should be grateful anyone wants to build anything there,” they probably thought. No, that new addition looks contrived. I thought they were new public toilets at first (as if). Yes, the additional CCTV cameras have apparently helped disperse the gangs of dodgy kids (apparently they now go just over the street). Apparently you can pay your council tax there now. There are lovely glass reliefs inside, because obviously Barnet Council has nothing better to spend that council tax on.

This is home, this is where I’m from, up that road snaking away to the right, though I now live on the other side of the planet. I spent many a day in this library nosing through the language books. there used to be these three great maps in the doorway showing Burnt Oak at various stages in history, from sometime in the 1800s when it was all farmland, to some time in the early 1900s when it was all farmland, to the 1960s when it was the metroland of the 30s, the Watling estate sprawling over red and orange hills (those are the names, forget colourful imagery, unless it reminds you of the brick and roofs). It was always rough, as long as I knew it, and it’s rough still (those phone boxes have pretty much never ever had glass in them), but it’s changed, it’s not the same, even since I’ve been gone. Everything must change. But you don’t have to paint the library black and put a colourful runway on the front of it. Just a few extra books would have been nice, and more useful.

cool for cats

January 4, 2009January 4, 20093 Comments

While in rainless London I found myself in Gough Square (named after a former Spurs player), a tiny back-place off Fleet Street, former home to Doctor Johnson, the man who wrote the first Dictionary of the English Language, an excellent and hilarious book, if slightly disparaging with regards the eating habits of Scots. That statue, that was his cat, Hodge (named after another former Spurs player). I don’t know why he didn’t just get a real cat. Cheaper to feed I suppose, and it never crosses your path or pees behind the telly. LBC used to be based here. I used to listen to LBC, back when I used to stay up really late (he says, writing at 1am).

is that concrete all around or is it in my head?

January 3, 2009May 27, 20107 Comments

About two and a half years ago I came back to the UK for the first time since moving to California. I walked up to Edgware, just up from Burnt Oak, where I used to go to school, and where I used to shop for records, books, guitar strings, and more books. I was stunned to find that none of the places where I used to get these things existed any more, and I lamented the downturn of this edge-of-town suburb. I wrote a blog entry about it, which even now people are leaving comments on, telling their own tales of Edgware past. Each time I’ve returned since it seems to have gotten worse, crowded with people who have little to do, with all the half-interesting shops disappearing before our very wallets, even the chains. HMV is now a pound shop, McDonald’s is now a cheap clothes store, and we all know about Woolworths.

While back this time, I went up on Christmas Eve to do some drawing, and squeeze through the purgatorio of The Mall (formerly the Broadwalk). I sat in the cold outside the boarded up Railway pub, a wonderful old hotel which has sat empty for a few years now, and drew the church opposite. I used to pass this way on the way home from school every day, years ago; even my old school has been knocked down and replaced with a brutal looking Academy. There’s an alley to my right that cuts through to the streets leading up to Deansbrook Road, and Burnt Oak, me and Tel walking down there telling stupid jokes every afternoon of our teenage years.

I finished this sketch and walked across the road, past the still-empty Music Stop – and was shocked to find, a few doors down, a brand new guitar shop! I went inside; the young guy who worked there told me they’d only been open four days, and that the bloke who worked in the old Music Stop now worked there, having been working down at another fave old guitar shop of mine in Crouch End (in fact, this new shop is a branch of that one, Rock Around the Clock). After a chat about Ibanez guitars in America I walked off pretty happy: did this mean Edgware was on the mend? Who knows, and maybe it’s just the view from a distance, but either way, it’s a new shop that sells neither cheap luggage or cheap cardigans, nor is yet another pound shop, and that’s a start. If I still lived there, I might even shop there.