straight out of the sketchbook
#13 in the ever-expanding series. These are the Osh-Kosh shoes, hand-me-downs from a friend’s older child, which are in fact my son’s first lace-ups (not that he can tie his laces or anything yet, of course, though I wouldn’t put it past him).
Copic 0.1 in a Moleskine cahier.
My envelope-filled recycling bin overfloweth; I know how Jimmy Saville must feel now. Well not quite. Anyway the drawing continues, this manila envelope piece, cut out and glued into the moleskine, had three bells on it (pull the other one), the so-called US ‘forever stamps’ (in England they’re all called that, ‘cos it takes forever for your letters to get there). This is of course the Silo at UC Davis, today at lunchtime. It is still gloomy and damp here in California.
I wanted to draw on some different surfaces, try out some new things. I get a lot of mail from all over the world in my job, mostly from China, and my recycling bin is chock full of interesting looking envelopes waiting to be drawn on. So I cut one up, pasted it into my moleskine and drew the view from the stairwell today, the UCD water tower on a foggy January lunchtime. I don’t remember which university this envelope came from, nor do I read Chinese, but I thought the effect of the red writing looked really cool on the brown paper. Oh, and yes I know it is upside down.
It can get pretty foggy in Davis. After long months of summer, then the odd massive rainstorm, and some cold bright winter days, fog is not exactly the most frequent of visitors, but when it comes it comes. It collects on my top as I cycle down the bike path. It soaks the ground like a rainshower. It hangs around all day, sometimes vanishing in the aftenoon like it never existed, other times – like today – lingering like an army of ghosts. Ok, maybe that’s overdoing it. But it was cold today – I know, it’s freezing brass monkey weather in Britain right now, we can’t complain – and I didn’t much fancy drawing. But I decided to go outside and sketch a tree, my first outside sketch in what feels like ages (the last one was in fact this one, just over a month ago in Burnt Oak), and I’m glad I did, I got some fresh air. Or fresh fog, at least.
It’s January 6th, so time to take down the tree, and put away the decorations! This is our little tree we got for our first Xmas in America, and we still have it. The ornaments, mostly my wife’s, go back years; some are older than I am, I think. The corner will look so bare without the tree, even though only half the lights were working on it (I never got around to changing them!). Oh well, it really is a new year now.
I had to draw this shoe again from a different angle. This is the twelfth entry in the book called ‘Luke’s Shoes’, in which I draw all of my son’s shoes (in case you didn’t know already).
This is my first drawing of 2010! My art goal for this year – draw more people, especially faces, and from life too. Also draw even more shoes. I do have New Year’s Resolutions (such as 600 dpi) but I’m not telling you what they are.
Another of my son’s shoes, and he still wears them. Not a baby any more, he’s very much a toddler now. These are his navy blue ‘USA’ shoes, made by Pipsqueakers – though they have been ‘desqueaked’. You can order them with special squeaks, you see, but daddy said ‘no squeaks!’ and so the shoes are squeak-free.
If you’re interested, this was drawn in copic multiliner 0.1 in a small moleskine cahier and took just over an hour to draw.
Oh, and Happy New Year 2010!
#10 in an ongoing series, in which I draw all of my son’s shoes. This is one of the beige grey (I’ve been corrected, and I was wrong, they aren’t beige at all) shoes from Old Navy, which he has already grown out of. If he keeps growing like this, I’m gonna need a bigger book.
I hope you all had a very Happy Christmas! We did. A Merry one too.
This is the very Christmassy fireplace at my wife’s mom’s house. To carry a British tradition over with me, I brought a tin of Quality Street from the UK, and to carry on another tradition (a Scully tradition) I swiftly nabbed all the purple ones before you could say ‘ho ho ho’!
America doesn’t have Cliff Richard, thankfully. But I did make sure we listened to Slade, Wizzard and Shakin’ Stevens on the way over. Along with John Denver and the Muppets, of course! I must say thought that since moving to America, Jose Feliciano’s ‘Feliz Navidad‘ has become one of my favourite Chrimbo songs!
On Christmas Eve I made some delicious mince pies – my son even left one out for Santa. I did add finely ground sugar (I ground it myself!) to decorate them. That one on the end exploded a little. I did also make big individual trifles, but didn’t photograph them, in case I turned into a foodblogger (we watched Julie and Julia the other day).
for your mince pies only
Happy New Year!
The last of my sketches from the trip back home to London. Burnt Oak, Middlesex, to be precise. Well Middlesex doesn’t really exist any more except in post codes, it’s part of Greater London these days – it has been wiped off the map (in the non-Ahmedinedjad sense, or maybe that is what he meant?). Anyway, this was the view out my bedroom window all through growing up, the orange-bricked houses and narrow tarmac pavements of the typical working class council estate. Those trees in the distance, that is Watling Park. Now I am in the distance again, back in California, far away from all the snow and chaos, and I haven’t done much drawing yet. But tonight, for the first time ever, I will attempt to make mince pies. Merry Christmas!
petescully 