straight out of the sketchbook
Been out of the shoe drawing game for a little while, so I needed to get back into it (baby steps). I’m behind by a few shoes on my project of drawing all of my son’s shoes (in order of appearance), so I grabbed a moment today (while son slept) to sketch one of my own shoes, a black adidas trainer (pronounced as Herr Dassler intended). This is a small sketch (but a giant leap…er, no wait), in my WH Smith sketchbook.
It has been windy and rainy, to say the least. Oh we’ve had a day or so here where the Sun has been out with his hat on, but no sooner have we said hip-hip-hip-hooray than the storms are back. On Saturday night the wind was so loud I half expected to wake up and find munchkins dancing around outside the house. It was stormy again last night, and I expected today to be a lunchtime inside listening to the news, but I saw that the rain had stopped, and I thought, I’ll have some of that. Out I went, to sketch a cool looking building I’ve had my eye on since it was finished: Tercero South Phase II, as the complex is known (at least on the UC Davis housing website). It’s a brand new set of residence halls. It was still cold, and it was awkward sketching in that wind, and after a while the rain decided to come back and mix it up a bit, but I finished it up, and ran away.
Train sets are important in every boy’s life. Right now, it’s the wooden train set. Truly, one of the best things about being a parent is that you can play with all these cool toys completely unabashedly, and you get to remember how cool you thought they were when you were a kid. I tell you though, some of these wooden trains you get now are pretty great. Below for example, trains from the New York Subway, given by my sister-in-law in New York. They are brilliant! I’d love to have Paris Metro ones, or London Underground ones (and I’d make them break down and wait for ages on the track for no reason). I say ‘I’ but I mean my son, of course…
So, after deliberation and destruction, a UN resolution and no-fly zone was finally ordered for Libya, but despite an apparent declaration of ceasefire, Gaddafi’s forces still pressed on with brutal attacks on the Libyan people, and now we have airstrikes by the West and who knows what next. I just hope it doesn’t mean more suffering, but sadly, it usually does.
I’ve been sketching some of my son’s toys lately in my small WH Smith’s sketchbook, and I started on the ‘air force’ the other day with the small yellow ‘spitfire’ Playmobil plane above. While the rains crashed down outside today (cancelling the Davis sketchcrawl) I sketched some more of the flying machines.
Here’s the toy Duplo fire helicopter. It goes with the previously sketched fire truck. Below, the Playmobil police helicopter – it is a favourite one this. And finally, a yellow toy F-16 jet.
Next: trains…
The rain is coming down heavy, and so tomorrow’s sketchcrawl at the arboretum is postponed…
…and rescheduled for Saturday April 2nd, when I am told we will have lovely sunny weather (we can hope!). So if you’re in Davis, join us on April 2nd! Everyone is welcome to sketchcrawl with us, even if you’ve never sketched before and justa want to give it a go. What better time than with others who love to draw? And at the Arboretum in the springtime, there is much to draw.
Of course, I’ll still sketch tomorrow, just at home, in the dry…
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.
petescully 