pete’s tavern

March 19, 2016March 19, 20162 Comments

Thank you New York City, thank you. They named a bar after me! Pete’s Tavern, on East 18th Street. Ok fine, it’s not named after ‘me’, but without a doubt, you know this was the first bar I was going to hit in New York. Pete’s was established in 1984, sorry I mean 1864 (it is hard to read the writing backwards on the window) and is the oldest continually operating bar in New York City. I visited another oldest bar in New York City a couple of days later and I daresay there are more, but I loved it here. I actually came once before, in 2008, but I didn’t have time to sketch it then. This was my 40th birthday trip though and dammit I was sketching Pete’s. Now before i go on I must point out my favourite bar sketcher / pub artist in the world is Stephen Gardner, who has inspired me to sit in pubs with a sketchbook for several years now. He lives in New York and has done some amazing paintings and sketches of Pete’s Tavern over the years – check them out in this Facebook album. The. Master. Sadly he was out of town that weekend (as were a lot of people, long weekend and all) but I still sketched Pete’s while enjoying a few celebratory beers with my chums from London. Quite a few in fact, a fair few. A good old few. Fun times.

And we chatted with locals and other bar patrons. The bartender was celebrating his birthday too, though he is considerably younger than me (29 I think he said) and was a lovely bloke from Ireland. I sketched him quickly in pencil. I also sketched another nice fellow I was chatting with, a trumpeter in the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra called Philip, he was in town from Oakland (he was telling me his grandparents lived in Woodland, nearby Davis!), and his other job is actually an inventor of toys and games, especially mazes and labyrinths! Which was pretty much my dream job as a kid. And as an adult.

Yeah, Pete’s was fun. We came back on the last day before I flew back for a farewell pint, and on that day the snow piled down outside the windows. I may need to come back and sketch here again.

new york’s cold streets

March 18, 20166 Comments

Last month I went to New York City. New York is a big city on the east coast of the United States, in New York State, and you might have heard of it if you have seen any films such as ‘Home Alone 2: Lost in New York’, or watched TV such as ‘Cash Cab’. I’d heard of it because I had been there before a couple of times, several years ago now but I still remembered the famous sights like the Imperial State Building and Centre Parks. Now before you say “geddouddahere”, calm down New Yorkers, I am joking. I love New York. It is pretty bloody awesome – but when I went last month, it was also pretty bloody cold. Record coldest Valentines Day in fact! So the sketching was at a minimum, but I still did some. Why was I here? It was a surprise trip in fact, my wife had arranged it in secret for my 40th birthday, and had told me on my birthday a few days before. Not only that, but I was to fly out there by myself and meet up with two of my best and oldest friends from London, Simon and Roshan, for a Boys’ Weekend. Quite the surprise! We stayed in an apartment on Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, a couple of blocks from Washington Square. In fact if we lived in the Marvel Universe, this was right across the street from Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum. If you don’t know what that is, fine, there’s a movie coming out in November. I flew overnight (having sung Yellow Submarine on karaoke to the music of Modern Love just hours before) and arrived on a frozen morning. We walked up Fifth Avenue for a bit just going “Wow New York dudes!” before stopping into a little place called Grimaldi’s for pizza. I did a sketch of Simon inside, waiting for his pizza (or “pie” as they like to say out here). It was very nice pizza.

There were a lot of fire hydrants in New York. I would like to go back and sketch more of them. I did this one however while Simon was inside a shop trying on trousers (or “pants”). Oh boy, it was cold. Not as cold as it would get in the coming days, in fact I’d look back on this cold as some sort of Golden Age, but too cold to sketch much else. We walked up to the Flatiron, before knocking the walking on the head and went to Pete’s Tavern. Bar sketches will be posted later. For now, here is a sketch from the Subway, from a different day.

And a photo of the Flatiron Building.

quick sketches from the lunar new year

March 16, 2016March 16, 20168 Comments

Last month our department held its annual Lunar New Year party. We have a lot of Asian students, predominantly from China, and so this has been a popular event each year. This time around I brought my sketchbook. Above is a very quick sketch of a “lion dance” by the Golden Turtle Lion Dance Association. This was set to music and was a really fun performance, though I had to be quick to capture it at all! The person at the rear of the lion is one of our co-employees Michael, and it was a great show.

Here are a couple of people I’ve known for years now, Kevin (one of our PhD students) and Irina (formerly one of our PhD students, now an alumna who teaches on campus). I am practicing my five-minute people sketches , so did a lot of that on this day, mostly in my little Fabriano sketchbook. Below, a group of students eating (actually they muts have already eaten because those plates look empty). This was a single-line sketch, no taking the pen off the paper, drawn in the Moleskine.

There was even karaoke. Above, one of our faculty, Professor Sharpnack, singing the Bowie song Golden Years; Professor Paul looks on. And yes I did in the end sing a song on the karaoke, after most people had already gone of course. And it was Bowie, and I did that thing where, have I ever mentioned this before? You take any song, any song at all, and replace the words of that song with the words from Yellow Submarine. And it works! So I proved it with ‘Modern Love’. “In the town where I was born, lived a man who sailed to sea, and he told us of his life, in the land of submarines…” You see? Totally works. I overheard one lady say, when it was announced I’d be singing Modern Love, “Ooh that’s my favourite song!” Ok, I thought, this version won’t be. Now I did something I’ve never done before, I sketched while singing on karaoke. Not particularly well, but I was multitasking and singing Yellow Submarine to the tune of Modern Love while someone else held the microphone up to my mouth. Now at last I can finally say that in my life, if I’ve done anything, I have at least done that. I haven’t scanned the result. I’m not showing all the sketches I did that day, they didn’t all turn out great…

I did draw a monkey though. Being the Year of the Monkey, we gave out special certificates to those who were born in a previous Year of the Monkey which said “Certificate of Most Excellent Monkey”, and here is our little monkey:

I hope you all had an enjoyable new lunar year, and have a most excellent year of the monkey.

walker hall and shields library

March 14, 2016March 14, 2016Leave a comment

Another two-page panorama; click on the image for a closer view. This is the view of Walker Hall on the left and Shields Library on the right. We’ve had some wetter weather here lately, hence the overcast sky. I managed to avoid the big wind and rain storms while sketching. I had to do this over the course of a few lunchtimes (the second and third sessions were shorter otherwise just two). This area is scheduled for redevelopment over the next couple of years when Walker Hall becomes the new Graduate and Professional Student Center (or similar name). I saw the plans, it looks very interesting, so I will of course chart its development via the medium of sketchbook, gives me something else to do over the next couple of years. Shields Library will stay the same of course, but the promenade leading up to it will be a little more open. The front of Walker Hall will not change but the back will be quite different.Those trees are expected to have leaves on them as well which will look great once they are done. Also, the sky will be blue by then which should look quite nice.

frat’s all folks

March 12, 2016March 13, 20166 Comments

That’s a lot of cars. There are like, eight cars at least.This is the corner of 1st and D Streets (or the corner of “Free Speech” and “Design”) which is where you will find the fraternity/sorority houses of Theta Xi. Which probably explains all the cars, you know, “the taxi”. Look I’m 40 ok, I can make these jokes all day long. I was just getting away with it at 39 but at 40 I literally have a license for them. So Theta Xi is not the trainee-cab-drivers fraternity, though to be honest they have really missed out on a trick there. Like Kappa Chi Nu, the fraternity for future baristas at Starbucks, or Rho Rho Rho for the future professional canoeing instructors. That last one was a version of a similar joke told by Terry Pratchett, who is on my mind today because this day, March 12, is one year since he passed away. Damn, I loved Terry Pratchett. I grew up reading his books, absorbing his sideways worldview, I even used to draw characters from his books over all of my school notes, well Death mostly, ‘Mort’ being one of my favourite of his books. I even read the book in French (it is called ‘Mortimer’, and the title character ‘Morty’, since the name ‘Mort’ was taken by Death himself). I did have the German version too somewhere, ‘Gevatter Tod’, and I still have the graphic novel. At one point I tried making a comic adaptation in French myself but only got so far before shrugging my shoulders and giving up. I enjoyed the small-screen adaptations, the animated ones were a bit poorly made but the Sky TV shows were well chosen (Color of Magic maybe less so). I went to see one stage adaptation of Carpe Jugulum, which was actually staged before the book came out so that the um-actually crowd could not point out all minor deviations from the original (there were none anyway). It was at the beloved Riverside Studios in Hammersmith and Mr. Pratchett himself was there with his big black hat, along with a crowd of Granny Weatherwaxes, Deaths, Rincewinds and Cut-me-own-throat-Dibblers. I didn’t dress up, I didn’t do that sort of thing (though if I had, I’d have definitely been Vetinari). I remember one other thing from that night, I stood next to Stephen Fry in the toilets. He actually makes the Lord Melchett noise (“meeeeehhhhh”) while doing his business. Well no he doesn’t, but I imagined that he did. I definitely didn’t make it myself, at least thinking back I really hope I didn’t.

So, one year on, you are still much missed Mr Pratchett. I wish I hadn’t left all of my old Discworld books in England, because I don’t actually know where they are now.

the day after turning 40

March 11, 201612 Comments

Another sketch from A Street (that’s “A” Street not “a street”), perhaps rather than point that out every time I should just link to a glossary of terms (that’s “a glossary” not “A” Glossary), or I could refer to A Street by one of the all-new all-different improved names I have come up with. So here goes. Another sketch from Archaeology Street, this building is on the corner of Right-to-remain-silent Street and I am guessing from the insignia that this is some sort of frat house or sorority house, either that or they are saying they like multiplying things by horseshoes. Or perhaps they really liked X-Men 3 and this stands for “X-Men” and “Brotherhood”. I don’t know. I could look it up but that wouldn’t be as much fun. I love it when that happens though. You say something to be funny, like “what’s the deal with iPhones, you don’t put them up to your eyes,” and someone Googles it and tells you why they are called iPhones and it doesn’t mean Eye-Phones, and here’s the link to Wikipedia, I hate it when that happens. I’m not explaining this very well, am I, so I suggest just experiencing the feeling and then Google what you felt and that will explain it better than I can. This was a lunchtime sketch made on the day after I turned 40. The Day After. The Day The Earth Stood Still. The Day After the Day After. Remember that one? That was one of those nuclear bomb things back in the 80s. I remember the scariest one was a TV film called “Threads”, set in Sheffield, and it scared the living daylights out of me, in fact it scared all the Bond films out of me, Goldfinger, Octopussy, From Russia with Love, all of them. When I was nine I used to have a lot of ‘Cold War’ dreams, it was 1985, there was a lot of that about. I used to dream that my brother and I would sleep through a nuclear attack (we were both heavy sleepers), like we’d wake up and Tesco’s would have been destroyed along with everything else, it was odd. I remember those leaflets they used to give us, telling us to paint our windows white and hide under a door that you take off its hinges, all these things you have time to do in a three minute warning. I’m not sure why I’m thinking of all this now, perhaps it’s turning 40 and reminiscing of my youth in 1980s Thatcher Cold War Britain. But I’m here now, in California, drawing pictures. Have a good weekend everyone.

post-deadpool choco-taco

March 10, 20165 Comments

“Sudwerk Choco-Taco” is an actual beer that I actually had. It’s quite dark, darker than I usually like, but it was really nice, I would have it again. I like trying the different craft beers that we have out here, and in fact I’ve started recording the ones I have tried by using that ‘Untappd’ app on my iPod. Admittedly there are times when it can be hard to remember, so I make a point of writing them down, or in this case, drawing a picture of it. And of course, why draw the glass when you can draw the rest of the bar as well? This is another bar sketch of De Vere’s (I do one from time to time, last time was January 2015). I’ve been very busy lately, and so one Saturday night I went and watched Deadpool. By the way, Deadpool is awesome. Don’t take your kids!!!! It will make you laugh. After watching Deadpool, I popped by the Avid Reader to buy Star Wars Top Trumps cards, and then into De Vere’s to read Deadpool comics and do some bar-sketching. The bar-sketching thing sometimes comes down to me needing to sit somewhere and draw a complicated but structured scene. I used a brown-black uni-ball signo um-151 (“say my name!” I hear this pen yelling to me, “say my whole name!”) and also a light grey Tombow marker to mix it up a bit. There’s also some Pigma Graphic pen in there for the thick lines. I had a couple of other beers, a Smithwicks red, which was very nice, and the Aggie Dry Hop lager by Sudwerk, which is alright.

I was also celebrating, from 5000 miles away, my older brother’s birthday; he turned 50 on that day. This is a year for milestone birthdays. Wish I could have been there celebrating with him – happy birthday Perks!

I have some more bar sketches yet to post, ones from New York City. In the meantime if you’d like to see some more, this Flickr set “Pubs, Cafes etc” has loads of mine, from pubs around the world.

when you’ve absolutely positively gotta draw every single person in the room

March 8, 2016March 8, 20169 Comments

I’m often asked what materials I use to draw with. Here are some of them, although they are weighted very heavily towards the brown-black Uni-ball signo UM-151 pen, which I use the most. Also I use Winsor and Newton Cotman watercolour paint to colour things in. The rest is really a bonus. you can find out more on my ‘materials‘ page. I drew all of these using that brown-black pen in a Stillman and Birn ‘Zeta’ sketchbook, the one with the very smooth white pages. Each individual tool took 5-10 minutes at most to sketch.

i’m only leaping

March 7, 2016March 6, 20164 Comments

This is a Leap Year. For those of you on other planets, a Leap Year is one where everybody makes rubbish jokes about those who have birthdays on February 29th technically being far younger than they really are. It happens once every four years and apparently we have them to correct our imprecise calendars; if we didn’t then we’d have a situation eventually where the sun would be getting up at lunchtime and something to do with aliens. So we call this extra day ‘Leap Day’ and act as if it is somehow ‘extra’. To make it really ‘extra’, another day in the weekend would have been nice. Saturday 27th, Sunday 28th, Leap Day 29th, Monday 1st, etc. Apparently though we can’t do that because, again, aliens. Anyway I sketched more spring blossom on Leap Day lunchtime, revisiting a scene that I sketched in November when those same trees were flaming with red and orange. That autumnal scene is below. I didn’t sketch them while leafless, you will have to just imagine them naked. Now they are clothed in brilliant white blossom, tinged with pale green. The Chemistry Building looms behind, unchanged and like a rock. I mean literally like a Rock, because the adjoining Rock Hall lecture building is away to the left, off-screen. The trees’ positions look slightly different, due to my slightly different standing location (you go where the shade is on a sunny day). It’s a test of observation. Two seasons in Davis.

i love parrots in the springtime

March 6, 2016March 6, 201610 Comments

This is Cruess Hall, UC Davis. It’s the home of the UC Davis Design Department. I’ve given a couple of guest talks in classes here before to design students about keeping sketchbooks. I wanted to sketch it while the blossom was so pink; even now, a week or so later, it has already desaturated. By that I mean it is still pink, but less so, it has lost some of its saturation. That reminds me of a joke, “What do you call a grey parrot? Polyunsaturated.” Actually that isn’t an old joke, I literally just made that one up a few moments ago. It does remind me of another joke, which goes “What is a polygon? A dead parrot.” Now that one is old, I read it in a joke book when I was 7 or 8 years old. I remember it now, I remember it was one of those “5001 jokes for kids” books. That book has had more influence over my life than any book ever, and yet that joke is the only one I remember now. I remember laughing so much when I read it, I was in hysterics. I couldn’t even tell the joke, it made me laugh so much. I stopped trying in the end, because I’m sure nobody else would have the same reaction as me, so the joke became my own, if I ever needed cheering up I was just ask myself, “what’s a polygon?” and laugh away for hours. Now I know that there is another very famous comedic episode about a ceased-to-be parrot, but I maintain to this day that the Python sketch is only the second funniest parrot-based piece of humour in existence (maybe the third now, if ‘Polyunsaturated’ ever takes off). Now I don’t want to give the impression that we Brits have some obsession with parrots expired or otherwise, we don’t go to school and take the pledge of allegiance to the dead-parrot-sketch (though we probably should). That said, a couple of years ago I dressed as a pirate for Halloween and went trick-or-treating with a parrot on my shoulder (well my son was trick-or-treating, not me, I just had to go with him). One person made a dead-parrot-sketch reference to me, and I pretended not to get it. So they explained it to me, they actually explained the dead-parrot-sketch to me, like, in full detail. As they said in Casablanca, “we’ll always have parrots.” (And that joke was taken from Red Dwarf).

So, this is Cruess Hall. It is also the home of the UC Davis Design Museum. Hey guess what, I will be having an exhibition of my sketchbooks there this Fall, tentatively scheduled from September to November. More details as they become settled, and I’m scheduled for a talk as well, but it will be fun. And hopefully 100% parrot free (except if anyone mentions polygons).