The last time I sketched this Frat House it was a different Frat that was in there. I’m not a massive fan of the whole Frat thing, but then I’m a pushing-40 British sketcher so I don’t know, I’m not the demographic. This is that time of year though isn’t it, when the Fraternities do all their Frat Boy stuff, and the Sororities do all their Sor Girl stuff (it isn’t actually called that, is it. See? I’m clueless). I’m actually surprised that the helicopter parents of these students haven’t set up special societies of their own, to keep an eye on them, Mat Houses or Pat Houses, as it were. That is a terrible idea of course, which makes it surprising that they don’t exist (and they probably do). You see all the boards over campus each year for ‘Rush’, why they are in such a hurry I don’t know. Young people, eh. Actually I was in a hurry when I sketched this, as the lunchtime ticked away and I needed to go and eat something unhealthy. Anyway, this is at the very start of campus, the intersection of Old Davis Road, 1st Street and A Street.
green is the colour
Did you see it? Did you see Ireland beating Germany? I missed it! But it did happen. I’m talking about the football now. I’ve been proudly parading my various Ireland shirts from the past twenty-one years, but it’s not just the Republic. Northern Ireland may not have beaten the world champions, but they did win their group and will be going to Euro 2016 in France! I’ve not seen them play in a tournament since Mexico 86, the first World Cup that really did mean the world to me (not for Northern Ireland, but for Panini stickers, Gary Lineker and Diego Maradona. I can still hum the “Aztec Gold” TV theme tune used by ITV, at least I think it was ITV). I was ten. I don’t have a Northern Ireland shirt, despite my family connections (my grandad was from Belfast, my other grandparents all came from the Republic) but I might get one now. Wales also made it to the Euros, and I’m super happy about that, though I’ve never been to Wales and have no Welsh family, I do like Gareth Bale, and their manager. England made it too by winning all their games, whatever. But the Republic of Ireland, despite beating Germany and going a point behind them in the qualifying table, were not quite there yet. They had to go to Poland, and either win or get (specifically) a 2-2 draw. Not easy against Poland and their striker Lewandowski, who has scored about four hundred goals in the past couple of weeks alone. (American readers: I am joking, it was more like two hundred). It was on TV. It was Sunday. I wasn’t going anywhere. While my son played on the floor, I watched the game and sketched, naturally in green. Remember, we needed a 2-2 draw. Unfortunately, Ireland lost 2-1. So near, and yet so far. And so Ireland go into the play-offs to see who will get the final few spots at Euro 2016. There is still hope yet! However, poor old Scotland didn’t make it this time, so the almost-there prospect of a tournament with England, both Irelands, Wales and Scotland all in it was just a distant dream (what, there already is one? Oh right, in Rugby…)
sketching sofia and hennessy
Last week I was invited to attend an undergraduate Design class at UC Davis, DES001, by Professor James Housefield. I was there to sketch the special presentation by two guest speakers, Sofia Lacin and Hennessy Christophel, who form a design team called LC Studio Tutto. It was in a large lecture hall (Kleiber; I’ve sketched the outside before), quite a lot of people in there. I sat on the side at the front, it was a struggle to get a good view of the speakers so I moved on to the floor! They were very interesting, and talked about their local projects, including “Same Sun”, the colourful one on the massive water-tank that you may have seen as you enter Davis westbound from Sacramento. This one. Pretty cool! Very interesting to hear about their design process. Of course I had to sketch quickly and try to add a few nuggets of what they said. A lot of it resonated with me, from what I learned and experienced back in the days of Interactive Theatre at uni. Here’s a tip when doing this sort of sketch, it is always important when doing that to get the relevant information, if you write down the wrong things it can affect the context and undermine what public speakers really said. That said, the line that stood out most for me was “Whenever possible, make a cake of your artwork”. Now, this was accompanied by a very beautiful picture of a cake of their artwork, but, well, I couldn’t agree more. All I could think of afterwards was fire-hydrant cakes. It made me very hungry! 
I kept thinking about cake as I sketched the students listening to the talk. Many of them asked questions, and it was very engaging. I sketched these people in my newer pink pen, which made me think of frosting, which made me think of cake. I was thinking of Battenberg, that’s a nice cake.
Sometimes when you are going to sketch people, it’s fun to pre-prepare a block of colour so that you can draw over it. I’ve done it before, it is fun. Unfortunately this time I chose red, and although one of the speakers Sofia was wearing red, the overall effect didn’t really work quite as well as I’d hoped, and the likenesses weren’t all that close. That’s ok. Perhaps I needed more words all around the figures like I did when pirate-sketching that one time. I didn’t have much time on me though, because it was wrapping up, and was my turn to speak. I got a few minutes to say some things about sketching in general, and show my sketchbook to the audience projected onto a big screen. 
One interesting thing in this class, Prof. Housefield has his students all stand and sketch for five minutes at the start of class, while music plays over the PA. They all sketched an image of Magritte’s pipe, but I sketched them. Just five minutes though! Overall it was a lot of fun, and I had some very nice conversations afterwards. I didn’t mention, but a couple of weekends ago my sketches were featured on the UC Davis Instagram account all weekend as an “artist’s takeover”. Which meant that I myself had to start an Instagram account. I’m @pwscully, if you are interested. (@petescully, which is my Twitter and everything else handle, was already taken, so I went with my “novelist name” – thanks, kid Pete of the 80s – and now in 2015 of course I don’t use for the book I have actually authored). I haven’t got the hang of the old Instagram yet either, and approach it grumpily as another thing which doesn’t quite make sense. But I’m veering off topic.
So many thanks to James Housefield (I’ve sketched him too) for inviting me and many thanks to Sofia and Hennessy for their inspiring talk. I hope you can check out their work.
autumn calling
Saturday afternoon meant sketching. I spent the morning coaching my son’s soccer team (did I mention I am coaching my son’s soccer team? We are called the Blue Torpedoes this Fall, and AYSO is a lot of fun) (I designed the badge again) (by the way when I say ‘soccer’ you know I really mean ‘football’ right, I’m only saying that because that’s what they say) (ten years in America won’t break me) (although I did in my weekly handout point out to the team that ‘soccer’ is in fact an English term derived from ‘Association Football’, it’s also a sport from England so you know, listen up, I know what I’m talking about), and then in the afternoon I opted against going to the UC Davis ‘Brewfest’ because ‘tired’ and ‘expensive’. The Aggie’s homecoming football game was on Saturday (obviously you know when I say ‘football’ I mean ‘American football’) (actually so people understand me, over here I always call it ‘American football’, or ‘gridiron’, or ‘helmet-ball’ or ‘space-rugby’), anyway my family all went to see it but I opted out because ‘sketching’. It was lovely weather. I cycled downtown with the intent of drawing something beautiful. I have a book out you know, so I’d better get sketching. I didn’t sketch enough in September (because ‘busy’ and ‘lazy’), and I didn’t want anyone buying the book and then looking up my site and it all being Lego that I drew two months ago. So I have been busy sketching the past week or so, and will be posting those soon. Well, I couldn’t decide upon ‘beautiful’ but this corner downtown of 3rd and F Streets had the sunlight hitting it in just the right way, with those two trees looking a lot barer and autumnal than other ones. Leaves were tumbling gently; fall is in the air (you know when I say ‘fall’ I mean ‘autumn’). This is the University of Beer, which I have sketched before on the inside a few times, and it was busy on a Saturday afternoon. I even saw someone wearing a USA 94 football shirt (alright, soccer jersey), the one with the wavy red stripes (think “Alexei Lalas’s beard”), which made my football-shirt-geek self jump up and down with excitement. Though I do have the USA 94 Ireland shirt (the one Ray Houghton wore when he scored the winner against Italy), I was actually wearing the 1995 Ireland Umbro shirt (the one Father Dougal used to wear to bed on ‘Father Ted’). The mid-90s, ladies and gentlemen, a high point for me. I should have sketched him, or rather his shirt. I did pop in for a pint post-sketch though, and decided to give my pencil a quick run-out with a five minute sketch of the afternoon drinkers cooling off from the heat. Yes, Autumn is coming, but it’s still in the 90s.
my new book…creative sketching workshop
I have a BOOK coming out!
It is called “Creative Sketching Workshop“, and I am very excited!
The book is due to be published in the next week by North Light Books in North America, Apple Press in the U.K. and Tan Yang International in Asia. My sketch above features the British and American covers. The book consists of 21 chapters – workshops – written by twelve different artists, myself included from all around the world. The workshops are themed along the sort of lines an urban sketcher might encounter, such as ‘tall structures’, ‘deserted spaces’, ‘drawing a crowd’, and of course ‘bar sketching’ (quite a few of my bar sketches in there!). I’m absolutely thrilled and honoured to be in their company! You will love their work. I plan to do some blog posts focusing on them (and how they have inspired me) in the coming weeks, but if you would like to get to know them better, check out their websites in the links below!
My eleven brilliant co-contributors are…
- James Hobbs (http://www.james-hobbs.co.uk/) – London, UK
- Virginia Hein (http://worksinprogress-location.blogspot.com/) – Los Angeles, USA
- Nina Johansson (http://www.ninajohansson.se/) – Stockholm, Sweden
- Ilga Leimanis (http://ilgaleimanis.com) – London, UK
- Kumi Matsukawa (https://www.flickr.com/photos/macchann/) – Tokyo, Japan
- Shiho Nakaza (http://www.shihonakaza.com/) – Santa Monica, USA
- Melanie Reim (http://www.melaniereim.com/index.htm) – New York, USA
- Rita Sabler (http://www.portlandsketcher.com/) – Portland, USA
- Liz Steel (http://www.lizsteel.com/) – Sydney, Australia
- Paul Wang (https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyworkshop/) – Singapore
- Samantha Zaza (http://szaza.com/) – Morocco
Yeah…that’s five continents right there. And along with me, twelve very individual approaches to sketching. Some of my long-time sketching heroes are on this list.
Where to buy the book: obviously at your local independent bookstore, that’s my recommendation! In Davis, the Avid Reader on 2nd St will be stocking it. But for the rest of the world buying online…
- North Light Shop – direct from the publisher in the US, and they have free shipping on orders over $25, so get another great book too (such as James Hobbs, ‘Sketch Your World‘!)
- Amazon (US) – says it will come out Nov 2 (also has the wrong cover posted…)
- Amazon (UK) – lists publication date as Oct 15, but people have been getting it already!
And some reviews already…
- Parka (Teoh Yi Chie) wrote a very nice review of the book on his website, ParkaBlogs: http://www.parkablogs.com/content/book-review-creative-sketching-workshop-pete-scully
- Cherie Haas at Artists Network wrote a great article about the book, focusing on my chapter about drawing a series, specifically my drawings of my son’s shoes: http://www.artistsnetwork.com/articles/art-demos-techniques/sketching-idea-choose-a-specific-subject-and-draw-a-series
So…if you’re thinking of delving into sketching it will I hope this book will be help you get out there and get sketching! Hope you like it!
And yes, it does have FIRE HYDRANTS…
october or not-tober, that is the question
Orange you glad it’s the weekend? Actually it’s Monday now so very much not the weekend, very much Monday. But it was still the weekend when I drew this, and what a nice time to have a weekend, at the end of a ridiculously busy week. Those are the best. On Sunday I had actually nothing to do, nothing that couldn’t wait, so I spent the afternoon downtown with my sketchbook. The night before there had been a tremendous thunderstorm over Davis, one which had knocked our power out for a couple of hours. There was so much lightning that we didn’t really need candles. The rain was much needed though, and gave everything a fresh autumnal feel the next day. It was bright and breezy, still warm but not hot like it has been, and I decided to return to Orange Court, a good spot for practicing perspective. That by the way was the reason behind the ‘Orange’ joke. Straight ahead of me is Sophia’s Thai Kitchen, let’s face it one of my favourite spots in Davis. Their food is amazing. I was sat on the decking in the shade beneath a tree, and there were loads of little green bugs and ants crawling and flitting all around me. I did most of the colour there on site, but those bugs got the better of me so I retreated to a comfy seat in De Vere’s Irish pub, a block away, to finish off the rest. I have been doing precious little proper urban sketching lately, but this month I will start ramping it up again. “Inktober”? I’m not going for faddy fads, though I might do one of the lesser known ones, this month is full of them. “Thinktober” I could do though, where you spend all month thinking about doing stuff but don’t actually do them. “Octobler”, where you just eat Toblerone. “Mocktober” where you make fun of everything. “Etctober”, and so on.
beer we go
I am back! I have been busy. I have more busy to be busy about but that is coming. In the meantime here is a sketch I did a couple of weeks ago at the University of Beer on 3rd Street in Davis. I had just sold a couple of sketches at the Pence Gallery’s annual Art Auction (hooray! Thanks for buying them!) and was in the middle of a very busy period of history, so an evening at the pub trying a few new different beers was in order. Not my greatest bar sketch but I enjoyed drawing it. It was a strange night in downtown Davis though. The evening before a man was tragically killed in an altercation at another bar about a block away, which has since prompted the City Council to impose a 45-day moratorium on all new bar and restaurant development / expansion. The downtown Davis area has been becoming a lot busier at night in recent years, but Davis as a city is growing, and becoming more of a destination. Being before the UC Davis school year officially began, it wasn’t particularly busy on this Saturday night so was quite a pleasant evening, which I followed by the long walk home. I’m not a fan of the walk through the too-dark streets of Old North Davis, which are poorly lit because ‘residential’ but I always think a better lit street is a lot safer than one where you can’t see the person about to jump you. They say, “well we want to be able to see the stars” but forgive me if I’m wrong, the streets between fifth and eighth aren’t full of budding astronomers every night. Oak Street is the worst, the road I cycle up after work, in the winter months when it’s dark early it is complete pitch darkness. Ah well, at least on this night as I strolled back to my bed I had the internal glow of four and a half craft beers to light my way. This was the first spread of a new sketchbook, another Seawhite of Brighton one, which I’m hoping to fill quickly…
do the maths
This is my – oh hang on, wait a minute. Today is “International Talk Like A Pirate Day”. Right, I’ll start again.
Yarr, this be the ol’ Mathematical Sciences Buildin’, yaaarrr, this be where I be workin’ each day. Click on the ol’ picture to see it bigger, yarr, or be usin’ a telescope, me old shipmate. So aye, yarr, ye lily-livered-landlubbers, I be drawin’ this oh I can’t keep this up. Talking like a pirate is not easy you know. When I went to the Swashbuckler’s Ball a couple of yarrs ago (did you see what I did there? Did you see that?) someone said I did a really good pirate voice, but I wasn’t doing one, I be just talkin’ normally. Anyway, if for some reason you were unable to translate my piratespeak (and if you weren’t, shame on you. Like the old saying goes, “fail to translate my piratespeak once, shame on me. Fail to translate my piratespeak twice, er, er, I won’t get fooled again.”) Ok, where was I? Ok, so, this is the building where I work. It’s called the Mathematical Sciences Building, or “Math” Sciences Building, as some people call it. Or “Maths Sciences Building” as I sometimes call it. Ok so for those who don’t know, in America they say “Math” but in Britain we say “Maths”. We also say “Mathematics”, and so do Americans, and let me tell you they don’t like it when pretend to assume they say “Mathematic”. They definitely don’t say “Mathematic”. “Mathsematic” is right out, don’t ever say that. Anyway…this is where I work, it was built almost ten years ago and I’ve worked there for most of that time. It’s a nice building, though the elevators are very slow. I drew this to use for work (I like to have a few sketches of the building to use for various things) and I will do a colour version to, but I wanted to highlight our brand new sign which was installed a month or so ago. On either side is a different symbol, one for Mathematics and one for Statistics. It’s been years in the making so it’s very exciting. Many UC Davis buildings have been getting modern new signs, as part of the campus branding process, which has been (for me) very exciting to watch develop over the past decade. So anyway, I haven’t drawn the MSB (that’s what I really call it) for a few years so here we are.
this is ink land
These are my pens. These are not all of my pens. These are some of my pens. I like the Uni-Ball Signo UM-151 pen, and I order them from Jetpens. The one I use the most is on the left, the brown-black version. I go through a lot of these. They don’t run with a watercolour wash (unlike the black one, which does). The coloured ones are fun to have too. For thsoe who don’t know I colour in using watercolour paints. There are a couple of other pens in this picture, one is the Pigma Graphic (a thick-lined version of the Pigma Micron), the white gel Uni-ball Signo (this has a very prominent white gel that shows up on even very dark surfaces, unlike a lot of white gel pens), and the black one is the Pentel 04 which is not quite as nice as the Uni-Ball Signo UM-151 but is still pretty good. Oh, and there’s my trusty H2 pencil. Tools of the trade. Hey if you are interested in what materials I generally use when sketching, I have recently updated my long-in-need-of-updating Materials page. Hope you like it!
the plastic people of the universe
As you may have gathered I like to draw my son’s toys, especially his Lego, but many of his other things too. This is all in a book, a Stillman and Birn Alpha book, and is primarily as a keepsake for the future. When he’s grown up, he’ll be able to look through these and remember his toys, and he’ll probably say “Dad, can I borrow those back now please, Dad why do you have an entire basement full of Lego, Dad you’ve been drawing Lego continuously without sleep for twelve years ” and so on. Well, here are some more.
ABOVE: Ok…we have Ka-Pow (I think), Ultron, Nevula, Morro, Wolverine, Jay the Blue Ninja, Lavel, Sensei Wu, Falcon, a Nindroid, Lloyd the Green Ninja, Wonder Woman, Star-Lord, the Flash, a Sormtrooper, Ant-Man (Scott Lang), Luke Skywalker, Captain america (right there two of my favourite heroes), Skylor the Orange Ninja (but she’s yellow, right? Mustard Yellow at least but my son insists she ‘s the Orange Ninja), Krusty the Klown (that’s mine!), Red Skull, Cyclops and the Emperor. Phew!
ABOVE: So…Kai the Red Ninja in his Airjitsu outfit, Scralet Witch, Han Solo, Taskmaster, Catwoman, Imperial Guard, Iron Man Mark 6, er…the king of the Lion tribe in Chima…Batman, one of the Chima Phoenix tribe, Cole the Black Ninja, Zane the White Ninja (actually maybe the Titanium Ninja by this point), Pepper Potts, Tony Stark, Lasha, Superman, Miles Morales Spider-Man, Master Chen, Wyldstyle, Deadpool, Clone pilot, Storm, Nova Officer.
ABOVE: Finally…Yellowjacket, a Chima lion, a knight, a Sandtrooper, Aquaman, Lloyd (Ninjago Season 5), Kai (Ninjago Season 1), an Ogre, Magneto (white gloves era, probably when headmaster of the Xavier School), a Skeleton, Modok, a Battle Droid, Nya as the Water Ninja, an X-Wing pilot, a Season 5 Ninjago Ghost, Rocket Raccoon, Thor, Lex Luthor, a Knight, a Chitauri and…snow-suit Batman. Because what makes more sense than Batman wearing white and light grey.
Have you seen the Lego movie? It’s brilliant, it’s awesome, and I love that guy at the end, I presume he is the hero, the dad character who has that big Lego city. He’s living the dream. We do between us now have a lot of Lego, so when I say I am drawing his Lego, I really mean “and mine too”. But right now, Lego mini-figures are the number one play-thing. We get the big sets, but really it’s all about the figures that come with them more than the big vehicles. Right now, Ninjago and Chima rule the roost. Marvel, DC and Star Wars get in there but I don’t let him mix them up (just to wind me up, he puts Venom’s face into Taskmaster’s hood). Now I have drawn a bunch before, but I felt it was time to draw some more. And then some more, and then some more because I just can’t stop. I can’t Lego of the pen (really Pete, really???). Of course I should have drawn them as the majority really are, ie all taken apart and scattered across the floor, but I’m a puritanical President Business wannabe aren’t I, so I drew them as nature intended. Or at least as best I could gather them up. And there are loads more. Let me tell you something though – this took AGES. Absolutely ages. I’m not kidding. Half the time was spent looking through all the Lego for the right figures! Matching up the ones that were in pieces, trying to make sure there was a fair amount of female representation (not easy in Lego-world) (and I’ve noticed that female figures all have these little curves painted into their midfriffs). Finding the right weapons (I’m sure I got a few wrong, my son’ll be the first to tell me). Drawing them all one by one, and then colouring them in with watercolour, oh man that was a long process, I never want to do this again. I will of course, when there are more to add to the “draw-all-my-son’s-things” log. But it was hard work my friend, hard work.
petescully 