extraneous details you can’t live without

August 2, 2008August 2, 20082 Comments

SF trip, part 5: I got off the bus at the Castro, the city’s gay quarter, and pottered around bookstores and past sidewalk cafes, before placing stool on kerb and drawing, of all things, this rusty truck above. “You drew a car?” my wife exclaimed later when she saw it. It’s true, I do avoid drawing vehicles, but this one was so interesting, and I was inspired by other vehicular drawings I’d seen online. Time was pressing, so I had a (fairly unsatisfying) late lunch at the Bagdad Cafe before walking down 16th and finally back to the Mission. Last (and only) time I’d been was November, and I wanted to go back, if anything for a burrito, but mostly to sketch.

I sat myself on the slopes of Mission Dolores Park, listening to loud latino radio blasted across the fields where local lads played football (not a jumper for a goalpost in site, though), and art students nursed hangovers with beer, being all social and shit. The fog hung low over the city behind, obscuring many of the tall buildings downtown. A guy sat to my left tapped away furiously on his mac book while his dog asked passing strangers to play with him; further back, another group of people looked equally dangerous and uninterested; not far off, a bearded hippy wrote something negative about yoga. And I got my paint set out and sketched on the slope.

I wandered about on Valencia, looking in more bookstores and record boutiques, as well as the odd gallery, before a trip down Mission and into Central America, ending up at last at Needles and Pens to look through their vast array of indie zines (and purchase one or two). By this point I was ridiculously tired, and I had neglected to write down the train time back to Davis, so I forewent the burrito and hopped on the 14 bus.

I did draw the picture below, on a postcard, which I have subsequently mailed to a friend in the UK, who I think would have enjoyed going out sketching in San Francisco. I always do.

the number of the beast

August 2, 20082 Comments

This is post 666. Well, 66 of the new site, plus the 600 from the old site, et voila. That’s a lot of postage.

This week in evil: our Governor signed an executive order (“Execute Order 66”, a famous Sith once declared) ordering state workers to reduce their pay from whatever it is they are earning, down to federal minimum wage, currently $6.55 (ooh! only eleven cents lower than that magic number), because state legistators haven’t yet come up with a budget for our increasingly broke state. Oh, he apologized while he did it, he was almost in leathery Austrian tears over it, but he still did it. Thousands of temporary workers were forced out of their jobs (Terminated, you might say), thousands of families suddenly had a massively reduced income. Oh, they will probably – maybe – get their salaries back once the budget is finally announced, but in the meantime state workers are the pawns. I overheard some pretty angry comments on the way home on Thursday afternoon.

Another Arnie film springs to mind at this time: Total Recall. But in truth, it’s King George’s adminstraitors that have been mismanaging the US economy for eight years that are ultimately to blame. We can’t get a new President in fast enough.

all on a misty morning

August 1, 2008August 1, 2008Leave a comment

SF trip, part 4: After a fairly good sleep, I got up on sunday morning and found the nearest place on Polk that sold enormously sticky custard-filled pastries, and came across a little shop called “You Say Tomato”, which specializes in British (and Irish) foods. And to my delight, they had a can of Lilt!

Yes, Lilt, the pineapple and grapefruit fizzy drink, you can’t get it over here and it’s the perfect sunday morning (when you think you might get a hangover) beverage. They had other stuff, Tizer, Irn-Bru, and I purposely didn’t take too much of a look around in case I was waylaid by loads of cadbury’s chocolates, but I saw a man carrying five or six cans of Heinz Baked Beans: pretty obvious he was British. I found an interesting corner and drew the picture above while drinking my Lilt, carefully removing all of the cars to give the impression that SF has more parking than it really does.

Unlike the day before, Sunday was pretty cool and very foggy, which was a welcome change. I got on the bus and was changing at fillmore, in the bit with all the cute little shops and cafes, when I saw this movie theatre below, and decided to draw that too, in extremely muted sepia tinted colours. And I never did get that hangover.

just like wigan casino

July 30, 2008Leave a comment

dancing. i didn't, by the way.

SF trip, part 3: the evening. I ate at Squat and Gobble (the one on Chestnut, not Haight) before going back to the hotel for a rest. I was thinking of going down to Norh Beach, as I like it round there, or perhaps to the toronado in Haight, where they have a lot of interesting beers. I ended up doing neither, just sticking around near the hotel, up Polk Gulch / Tenderloin. I popped into a small place called Vertigo for a cocktail – for some unknown reason, I fancied one, something fruity. I got one called Polk Punch, which turned out to be the foulest thing I have ever drunk. It had something like grape vodka in it, some nasty shite. so I just went to the Edinburgh Castle on Geary – been there before, know it has good beer, sorted. I was wearing my favourite “northern soul” top, and as luck would have it, it turned out to be a northern soul night! Pretty happy accident. All of the music was utterly amazing. I drew the above at the bar, in blue staedtler triplus fineliner, and then scribbled some dancing, in brown.

A note on the dancing: years ago, I used to go to a tiny club in London, and there was this one guy who I think lived only to dance to northern soul, phenomenally active, dressed the part, hair just so. Anyway there was one guy dancing on Saturday who was almost exactly the same person, you could just tell that was basically what he did, it was his thing every bit as much as crouching over a sketchbook is my thing. Respect, I thought; until I saw he had pulled off his shirt and was dancing only in his tie. Respect lost, I thought again.

Anyway, that was my night out; don’t get them any more, so I’m glad it was set to good music.

“i am a lady and i like to do ladies’ things”

July 29, 2008July 29, 20081 Comment

Part 2 of my SF weekend: I wanted to go and draw things in San Francisco that I hadn’t drawn before, and I’d never been to Alamo Square, but had seen it on so many postcards.

I spent a while up there, enjoying the incredible view and finally drawing some of the painted ladies, those big, um, (victorian, edwardian, i don’t know) houses. I’d taken a bus over to Fillmore, stopping by Japantown on the way, and walking down through the historic jazz part of town to get there. As it was my second drawing there I decided to add colour later, so the black and white version is below. Incredible sunshine, but (even with reapplying sunscreen and travelling in shadows as much as possible) I got a bit burnt. Bugger; always seems to happen to me in San Francisco, but never in oven-hot Davis. Took the 22 out to sketch the bridge after this (go back to part 1).

These are the unpainted ladies.

two from the top and four small ones please

July 29, 20081 Comment

You might think the title should be “little green bag”, but since the bag is blue in real life, I’ve gone for a vorderman reference.

This is my my trusty blue shoulder bag, in which i carry my sketchbook and pencil case, along with something else to write in or perhaps read, everywhere i go. It’s from eddie bauer and has a million pockets; it’s the perfect size. I keep my little waterbottle in one of the side pockets, several other useful items like clips and tissue and business cards and bus schedules to sacramento litter the other pockets. I’ve had such bags before (all bought from one store in Aix-en-Provence), all sketchbook sized and convenient, but never with this many pockets. Drawn in olive green copic 0.1.

And Americans may not know what I’m talking about in this one, so let me explain. Robbie Keane, my favourite footballer (that’s soccerer to you), has left my club Spurs and joined Liverpool, who he supported as a boy. I am gutted, gutted, but I don’t blame Keane, I’m pleased for him; if I played for Liverpool and Spurs came in for me, I’d go yesterday. It’s just, we Spurs fans, all we really wanted was a team of Robbie Keanes. We sold Defoe, the ‘too many strikers’ excuse. Berbatov will go anyway. We’re left with Darren Bent.

And Vorderman leaving Countdown!!! (I wonder how many google searches of ‘vorderman’ and ‘countdown’ will end up here now? I had bloody ‘ars*nal sketchbook’ direct here last week, i’m not happy about that) It’s a world gone mental. I don’t know how to correctly write those last few beats of the countdown music, but imagine them in your head now for vorderman:

dun-uh, dun-uh, dun-uh-nuh-nuh.

no fears, no worries, just a golden country

July 28, 20083 Comments

I spent the weekend in San Francisco, joining the dots, travelling on buses, walking through to my soles and drawing. I noticed that time travels extremely fast when you cannot decide where to go; this was my first SF sketching trip of 2008 and I wanted to make the most of it, while covering some new ground, making discoveries. I discovered that the Nob Hill hotel is staffed by nobs, for one thing. Above: a very famous bridge. This time I walked beneath it and around to the rocky Pacific coastline, what an incredible sight. Below: first drawings of the day, courtesy of the amtrak train. There’s my muni bus transfer, there; a kind driver gave me one that lasted all day. I travelled by bus everywhere in the city for less than a quid. Ever had that in London? Didn’t think so. More to come.

a knight in

July 25, 2008July 25, 2008Leave a comment

Went for a quick pint of Krusovice (Dark, appropriately) after watching the Batman sequel, and drew this in copic 0.1. Good film; Heath Ledger was pretty incredible as the Joker. Then, a long walk home in the evening heat. Right now, I’m up watching Superman II (richard donner cut); speaking of saving the world, I’d better send off that sketchbook… Off to San Francisco tomorrow morning for some sketchery.

just the same as all the rest

July 22, 2008July 22, 20084 Comments

It’s summer, there is no thai soup, and that means I sketch more at lunchtimes. Lately of course the weather has been too hot and smoky, but now it’s a bit cooler, and so it’s outside to draw all the same stuff I always draw at work. This is the Outdoor Adventures building: seems like I’m drawing something new, but looks the same as all those bike barn drawings i did (see right) – because it’s the other side of the same building. It’s currently Summer Sessions on campus, so there are more students around than you’d expect in a break. It’s a mixture of strangely quiet and too busy.

hold the front page

July 21, 2008July 22, 2008Leave a comment

I hate the first page of a new sketchbook; never know what to draw, for some reason. So on opening my third watercolour moleskine I just drew what was right in front of me, on my desk. There’s a glass, almost completely empty (or very slightly full, depending on your worldview, ooh link that to bush’s take on the economy). There’s the Beatles crossing Abbey Road (trivia question for you – are they going towards or away from the studios?). There’s Magneto, master of magnetism, rendered (in cruel irony) in plastic. Scissors I bought six years ago in Aix. A couple of microns, plus a copic. The pc screen (watching “south park” online). A Spurs badge – I’ve had this since I was ten, bought at a game at the Lane in ’86 when we beat Man City – it’s known as the “lucky spurs badge”, and is a famous relic (my mate Tel will tell you, should you see him). I wish it would still work, we seem to be selling most of the team. There’s Greedo, having reeked revenge on Han Solo, but with Cyclops behind him about to shoot first (I just had an image of Cyclops shooting Greedo under the table and wow, it was not pretty). And a half-hidden Vader behind him in the shadows. And there’s a couple of post-it notes with stuff about milk supply and stuff on them.

Now that’s out of the way (and you’re thinking I’m a geek, well maybe I am, or just untidy), I can move on with the sketchbook. Back to trees and buildings. It’s a little cooler here in Davis now, and not as smoky.