walk on by

February 8, 2017February 8, 20173 Comments

I still have a lot of Star Wars Lego sketches to show you, but here is one of my favourites so far, of the beloved Lego AT-AT. My son used to call these the “Garbage Trucks” when he was smaller, which makes sense given the sounds they make. It’s a remarkably solid construction (except the head, that tends to fall apart more easily than I’d like, I may have to reinforce it a bit) and filled with snowtroopers, who are probably my favourite stormtroopers. I’ve actually framed this and put it on the wall, in case it’s not clear I like Star Wars and Lego. Drawing objects like this are a good lesson in perspective. Drawn on Stillman and Birn ‘Alpha’ paper with brown-black uni-ball signo um-151 pen and coloured with watercolour paint.

phoenix house

February 7, 20175 Comments

Here is a building from downtown Davis called Phoenix House. It’s called that because of the Irish word for ‘water’, Uisce (see also whisky), or clear water to be precise, ‘fionn uisce’, anglicized as ‘phoenix’. Actually, no it doesn’t. I’m thinking of Phoenix Park in Dublin. There is a Phoenix Park in Sacramento as well but that isn’t a real park let alone have anything to do with phoenixes or water, clear or otherwise. Ok it might be a real park, I don’t know. Quit with all the sidetracking, this isn’t a Twitter comments thread. Phoenix House in Davis is named after the Order of the Phoenix. No, it’s not that either. Perhaps, and this is the most likely and believable story (with zero evidence, but when does that matter any more eh), it was a house that burned down and was rebuilt, hence Phoenix reborn from the ashes. A bit like La Fenice, the grand opera house in Venice. You know I could look this up and do some actual research, but alternative facts are the order of the day. Reality has become so quantum, we will have to start naming the different Earths soon, like in the Marvel Universe. Perhaps this was named for the famous but under-reported Phoenix Green Massacre. Or it was named after the classical Mesopotamian King Phoen the 9th. Or maybe seven guys whose initials spelled out PHOENIX, Paul, Horace, Oswald, Elliot, Norman, Isaac and Xavier, and they ran an independent pony express (or ‘Pon-ex’ as they sometimes called it) firm from that very spot. You don’t know. I could make it all up. I could have invented the whole building. That car might have been red, those windows might have been triangular. Sad! Anyway none of that is the case, and this is Phoenix House on F Street (or “Ph Street” as I call it), and one day I promise I will learn about its history, but whether I believe it or not is something I cannot tell.

counting acts and clutching thoughts…

February 6, 2017February 6, 20176 Comments

It’s February, the birthday month. I don’t really do a lot to celebrate, I don’t have parties or anything, don’t really have enough of a social circle for the sort of nights out I used to have when I was younger, now it’s more a quiet meal with the family, a pint of beer and some cheesecake. Now this sketch, done on the first day of the month at the UCD Arboretum about a minute from my office, was not meant to be metaphorical of birthdays but in that great way you can retrospectively attach meaning to anything, this is a bridge, signifying crossing from one time to another. Weak I know. On the far side though is the Robert Mondavi Institute of Food and Wine Sciences, which includes the Beer lab, so I supposed that signifies celebratory tipples in some way. There is a STOP sign, which must mean I need to stop and assess myself, and there is a yellow sign for a roundabout, which of course as we all know signifies the Circle of Life, obviously, that one’s obvious. The path, well part of it falls into shadow which of course means the path is not always clear, and then of course there is the Creek, and that one is easy, it signifies my creaking body as I get older each day. I had no idea there was so much semiotic depth to my sketches! I wonder what all the fire hydrants mean? Actually don’t answer that.

the house of glass

February 1, 2017February 1, 20172 Comments

This greenhouse behind Robbins Hall at UC Davis is one I have wanted to draw for ages. I walk past it some days when coming from the bus stop, and in the mornings it’s got that great glow from the inside. The ground was very wet from all the rain we had recently. As a top agricultural university, UC Davis has a thriving Plant Sciences department, within the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. In fact UC Davis is ranked #1 in the world in Plant and Animal Sciences. We really know our stuff. We’re also one of the leading universities studying the effects and causes of climate change (see http://climatechange.ucdavis.edu/), which given the current, ahem, climate, is something to be very proud of. Science, scientific expertise and continued scientific research are of the utmost importance, and worth standing up for.

Workshop, June 3: “Perspectives of San Francisco”

January 31, 2017February 1, 2017Leave a comment

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Exciting Announcement! I’m going to be teaching a workshop in San Francisco on Saturday June 3rd called “Perspectives of San Francisco“. It is part of the Urban Sketchers “10×10” series of workshops, being held to commemorate ten years of Urban Sketchers. Yes, Urban Sketchers has been around for ten years. Well, the Flickr group, started in 2007 (I remember well, it was called “Urban Sketches” (no ‘r’), and I joined another group at the same time called “Rural Sketches” wonder what happened to them) (hey for all I know they are still around, I’m just in my Urban bubble obviously). So, let’s explain what this is all about. Cities around the world, from Seattle to Sydney, from Johannesburg to Jakarta, from Ramallah to Rome, will be holding ten workshops each over the course of the year. Workshops are limited and you have to pay for them, but will be taught by Urban Sketchers members on a variety of different subjects. Here you can find the in-progress list: http://www.urbansketchers.org/p/10-years-x-10-classes.html.

In San Francisco, the workshops kick off on March 11 (with a launch party at Arch Art & Drafting Supply on February 11) and continue through June 10. The instructors teaching workshops are Srivani Narra Ward, Laurie Wigham, Nina Khashchina, Richard Sheppard, Uma Kelkar, Rhoda Draws, Oliver Hoeller, Suma CM, Susan Cornelis and myself. The full list of workshops can be found at: http://www.urbansketchers.org/2017/01/10-years-x-10-classes-in-san-francisco.html. In fact there is a pdf with more details including cost ($45 per workshop) to be found here.

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So, my own workshop will be called “Perspectives of San Francisco”, starting at 1:00pm in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. As you can probably tell, the focus of this workshop is ‘perspective’, but specifically perspective in a busy city built on hills with steep streets and steep history. The level will be intermediate, but I will make the approach to perspective as digestible as possible. Spaces are limited to fifteen participants, and you’ll need to bring drawing materials and sketchbooks (preferably panoramic – big enough to fit long perspective sketches on!). North Beach is my favourite part of the city and a great place to practice urban perspective sketching so I do hope you can sign up!

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You can register by contacting Suhita Shirodkar, the lead instructor of the San Francisco Bay Area 10×10 program by emailing suhita@gmail.com. Or why not check the Urban Sketchers website for a workshop taking place in a city near you!

and now the year of the fire rooster

January 30, 2017Leave a comment

The Year of the Rooster has arrived, and we had a celebration of the new lunar year in our department at UC Davis. We have a lot of students from China, as well as from Korea, and so we have a big party to mark the festive occasion. This year we had a fun karaoke game – the songs were in Chinese, but our non-Chinese students were invited to sing them, in Chinese (written in pinyin on the screen). They were then given marks out of ten by judges like in the Olympics. It was great fun. I sketched the whole room as people ate and chatted. Now apparently it’s the Fire Rooster this year (the last Fire Rooster was in 1957). So, to all my friends from China and other countries that celebrate lunar new year, I wish you a Happy Year of the Rooster. Or is it the Cockerel (as we’d say in Britain)?

froggies of an evening

January 25, 2017January 25, 20171 Comment

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More two-page-spread bar-sketching. I popped into Froggies in downtown Davis one evening, had a couple of beers, and behind me people sang karaoke. I didn’t. I might have if they had the Frog Song by Paul McCartney and the Frog Chorus, “We All Stand Together”. I saw Macca in Sacramento recently but he didn’t sing that one. I was a big fan of Rupert the Bear when I was a kid. I planned to make this full colour, watercolour-shaded, surround-sound (well maybe not surround-sound, not with the karaoke and all), but I was tired so left it at this. Another in the many illustrations of Davis.

lazy monday afternoon

January 23, 2017Leave a comment

I needed to draw something in black and white for submission to an upcoming group show, and so I decided to draw something familiarly Davis. And then I abandoned my sketch of the Hunt-Boyer-Dresbach Mansion (always struggle with that one) and popped into De Vere’s Irish Pub on a President’s Day afternoon (back when we had a president I really liked) and sketched that familiar view instead. I finished off all the hatching and shading at home (just the one quick pint for me). there was Africa Cup of Nations football on the TV. Outside it was sunny, a break from the series of big winter storms we’ve been getting. I haven’t sketched in just black and white for a while (even the ones I draw in pen only are usually, well, very very very dark brown) and it was tempting to add just a tiny little bit of colour, maybe just a little bit of red on the Exit sign or a couple of green bottles, but I stuck to the straight monochrome. The show it’ll be in, “Black and White”, is at the Pence Gallery on D Street, Davis, for the whole of next month with a reception for the ArtAbout on Friday February 10th. This pub is a good place to hang out. I think I’ll go back again sometime.

“Don’t let these dogs scare you!”

January 21, 2017January 20, 20173 Comments

The X-wing is a legendary fighter, it’s the Spitfire of the Galactic Civil War. Before that, though, there was the great Clone War, when Jedi and Clone fought Droid and shadowy Sith. There were apparently heroes on both sides, and evil everywhere, according to the opening crawl of Revenge of the Sith, which is a classic case of unreliable narrator, or at the very least unhelpful internet commenter reporting galactic crises. “The Sith Lords are evil, murder children, and employ millions of armed robots while plotting to overthrow the government of the universe” “Yeah, but both sides are just as bad, so.” Turns out Evil Actually was All Around, as the Chancellor ended up being the Sith Lord (spoiler alert) and those lovely friendly Clones turned out to have secret brainwashing that turned them against their Jedi chums whenever someone mentioned Order 66. Imagine going to a Taco Bell or somewhere with one! “66! Your order is ready. Order 66? Order -noooo!! Don’t shoot the Jedi!! Noooooooo!!!!” I did like their fighters though, the two-man ARC Fighter, seen in the opening battle of Sith. It’s like they said, let’s have a bit of everything. It’s not an X-Wing, but meant to be a clear predecessor. “Lock S-Foils in Attack Position.”

Which brings us to the classic. THIS is the X-Wing. Four engines, astromech, four big cannons, proton torpedoes, shaky cockpit, good ol’ pilot. These small one-man fighters took on the first Death Star. This is another micro-fighter which is about the right size for a speedy run down a narrow trench to find an exhaust port. Hah, stupid Empire not noticing that obvious design flaw, who designed that thing, what was he thinking, it’s almost like he did it deliberately. Of course it was originally thought up well before the Clone War by the Geonosians who didn’t have X-Wings in mind but, well, a lot of stuff went on after that, lot of cooks spoiling the broth (if the broth could destroy planets). Luke had the X-Wing. Red Five. I’ve already established Luke is the best, and for this reason, his X-Wing is the best one. Though I do love Porkins.

Which brings us on to the Resistance/First Order era. the X0-wings of the resistance had those engines that split down the middle for some reason, being based on original designs for the X-Wing from before Star Wars was made. these are the original originals. Otherwise they are the same design, except the wings overlap differently. Poe Dameron was the best pilot, but ol’ Nien Numb, Lando’s buddy, flew one as well. That scene in The Force Awakens when the Resistance X-Wings skim across the lake on Takodana, causing the First Order to wet their white-armored pants, is one of my favourite moments in the movie. Those magnificent men in their flying machines, they went up-diddly-up-up and they went down-diddly-own-down. Now I love the prequels and all, but it’s only really Star Wars if there are X-wings vs Tie-Fighters.

However I don’t just want to show off my obvious Good Guy bias here, so here is something else from the prequel era. The Vulture Droid, or “Variable Geometry Self-Propelled Battle Droid, Mark I” as nobody calls it, wasn’t a starship but a flying battle droid that could actually walk and move its head around. The Lego toy though has a battle droid that you put inside it. This first appeared in The Phantom Menace as the main bad-guy fighter facing off against the Naboo Fighter, and wasn’t called a Vulture Droid until Revenge of the Sith. I was never a big fan of this fighter, but I appreciate what the Trade Federation were trying to do. The Bad Guys in the prequels really loved their evil droids, which explains some of the anti-droid sentiment you see in the original trilogy. Now it wasn’t just evil robots who supported Count Dooku, not at all. It’s just that his was the side that had all the evil robots, and everyone else was just ok with that. It sends a bad message, Dooku, arming yourself with evil robots. Clones that turn evil later was clearly the way to go.

“Jabba, this is your last chance. Free us, or die”

January 20, 20176 Comments

That is my favourite scene from Return of the Jedi, possibly all of Star Wars. Possibly all of everything. I compare everything to that scene. That was a fun conversation, I think whenever I meet someone new. But did R2-D2 throw me a green lightsabre that I start swinging around against a bunch of space pirates that tried to feed me to a giant toothy pit in the desert? No, I didn’t think so. Ok maybe that one time. Yes, more Star Wars Lego sketching, and it’s a great way to pass the time, and keep the old mind off of current affairs, or “raisins liaisons” as I call them. There’s Luke above facing off against Boba Fett on the sand skiff, I remember so clearly watching that aged 7 at the cinema with my big brother and just gasping at the brilliant green of the lightsabre, which I had never seen before (I had no idea they could be green! Big revelation). I had a toy lightsabre, it was a cheap plastic one that glowed white, but I loved it. Prior to that, my big sister used to make me lightsabres out of cardboard, old toilet rolls really, with coloured paper on them. I remember getting in trouble with the security guards at Brent Cross Shopping Centre for duelling with my cousin Daniel with our cardboard sabres, I was only six or seven at the time. I mention that, like as if I wouldn’t do the same now. Anyway that one that lit up, it stopped working after I decided that it needed to be green. I painted the bulb green with poster paint, you know the little coloured tubs you used to get, and that did it in basically, stopped working. I’m still sad about that now. Everyone says how when they were in the playground, they always wanted to be Han Solo, Han was the coolest, he always got the girl. Well I remember being seven and Luke Skywalker was so the coolest, because he had the LIGHTSABRE, and what’s so good about ‘getting the girl’? I was seven, dude. Luke’s always been my favourite. And Vader of course, but one of my other friends liked to be Vader.

More Luke, much earlier Luke. This is his landspeeder from Star Wars (that’s “A New Hope” to you). I guess those stormtroopers bought those droids then. There’s Ben KEnobi, now here’s the thing. I love Ben Kenobi, Obi-Wan is probably my second favourite character after Luke (solo movie PLEASE), but come on. In the scene where he mind-tricks the troopers, he does also ask if they want to buy the droids. Ok, mind-tricks are one thing, but seriously. You get pulled over by a cop, they’re like, this a stolen car bro? Kinda looks like a stolen car bro. And you’re like, nah is cool, had this for three or four seasons, but like, you wanna buy it off me? That is some mind-trick, Ben, because that is some seriously shady dealing. And then later, in the cantina, after chopping a guy’s arm off (fair play, dangerous town), he ‘negotiates’ with Han Solo. He says, “Just myself, the boy, two droids…and no questions asked.” Again, trying not to sound shady. So then Han Solo does just that and asks a question. Does Ben raise his eyebrows and say, “Dude, I just said no questions asked, do you need me to write it down?” No, he answers the question, with an even more shady answer, to which Han increases the price. Ben however has played this weird game of Go For Broke before (remember that board game?) and says, 10k? Nah man, I give you 17k. Remember a couple of decades before when Grievous calls him “The Negotiator”? Yeah that. This is Ben playing with other people’s cash. Good job Luke was able to sell his out-of-demand speeder for that 2k. If he hadn’t, well perhaps they should have gone back to those troopers and tried to sell them C-3PO. Threepio wasn’t carrying any Death Star plans after all, and he doesn’t exactly walk very fast.

“You’re all clear kid now let’s blow this thing and go home!”

Now I’m not saying Han isn’t cool. He definitely is, because he flies the Millennium Falcon. The one above is of course the micro-fighter version. I do have the bigger one but that takes a longer time to draw. I love the Falcon. What a piece of junk. She may not look like much but she’s got it where it counts kid. Now, I know it’s just a saying, I know it comes at the coolest bit of the movie (Seriously, get a chance to watch Star Wars on the big screen again some day and the moment where the Falcon flies back in, Vader goes “what?” and Han cheers “yahoo!” well I defy you not to fist-bump the air and cheer in the movie theatre). However, “and go home”? Really? He knows Luke’s home got burned down and his family killed like just a couple of days before? Leia would have been listening too, “all go home”? He knows her home planet was blown up? And as for Han himself, where does he live? He lives on the Falcon right? I don’t care. Even thinking about that moment in the film brings shivers down my spine.

I have more Lego sketches to share, but it’s late and I’m going to bed, thinking about Star Wars, because thinking about Star Wars is a helluva lot better than not thinking about Star Wars. As Ben Kenobi once said, “who’s the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?”