in restless dreams i walked alone

January 14, 20146 Comments

My spare time is spent sketching the streets of Davis, over and over again. Last Saturday it was actually a little bit cloudy (that is basically our winter, right there) and so in the afternoon I biked down to E Street to continue the Panoramarathon. Yes, the panoramarathon that’s my word, I try to say it a lot, with different stresses every time, I keep wanting to say Panathinaikos or Parasaurolophus, but I’m getting the hang of it. I stood opposite De Vere’s Irish Pub (you’ve seen the inside of that on my sketchblog before) and Bizarro World comics. There are two places I am glad are right next to each other. I love to go to the comic shop, maybe pick something up and pop into De Vere’s for a pint to read it. This time I just picked up a 2014 Marvel Comics calendar. This year I have decided to read a lot more comics, in both paper form and digitally; I have downloaded a couple of good graphic novels on sale on Comixology, and I am considering a subscription to Marvel Unlimited to catch up on years of old comics in digital form. I have been buying more paper comics too, they are works of art and it’s nice to buy stuff at comic shops, I’m grateful they exist. A comics education to come for me this year.

Here are a couple of closer views from each side of the panorama:

I sketched with my headphones on, listening to a history podcast (“In Our Time” with Melvyn Bragg – if you want to hear Mr. Bragg rushing historians through their subjects and getting annoyed with them because they’re not saying exactly how many Vikings fought at Stamford Bridge and then chiding them for taking too long, this is your podcast). As I sketched, a young man with a guitar on his back came up to me, and gestured as if to say something. I took off my headphones and he said, “Are you pretending to be an artist?”

You what? “Are you pretending to be funny?” I replied straight away, and he walked off. What the hell? Strange thing to come up and say to someone. Anyway next day I was in Newsbeat, buying a Snickers bar, when someone behind me said, “Oh wow Snickers, that is good shit that, I survived up the top of a mountain eating only Snickers.” I examined the chocolate bar and said, “yeah, I’ve never heard of Snickers before, thanks.” Then I realised, I think it was the same guy, perhaps he goes around downtown Davis saying stupid things? Like I go round drawing stuff, maybe that’s his thing, a ‘say-stupid-things-crawl’? Or maybe it was two different people, or I imagined it and just need to get more sleep. All things are possible.

So this right here is in the very heart of downtown Davis, E St between 2nd and 3rd. The next panorama I will post is on the other side of this block and mirrors it in some ways. Panoramarathon (or ‘Panoramasnickers’ as it will soon be known) continues…

panoramarathon: olson and sproul

January 14, 20144 Comments

I love this new word, “Panoramarathon”. I have invented it, so there. It’s what I am using t describe my current burst of energy, I’ve done six in a row in my Seawhite book now (finally using it for what I actually bought it for, page after page of full-on panoramas) and will just keep going, especially while this weather continues (the Polar Vortex – a word I didn’t invent but whoever did is probably enjoying this one – didn’t get to California so we’re having balmy days in the high 60s and low 70s). This above was a lunchtime sketch (inked on site and coloured at home) of Olson Hall and Sproul Hall, two big UC Davis buildings. I need to draw more campus so I am going to do that, even those big white repetitive buildings I don’t like much. This is number 4 of the panoramarathon. Click on the image for a larger view.

Hey why not join in? Ok folks here it is, “Panoramarathon 2014” see how many consecutive two-page panoramas you can do. Ok, ready…GO!

when the half light makes for a clearer view

January 13, 20143 Comments

Sophia’s Bar, Davis. Click on the image to see a larger version. 2014 has started as a very busy little year so far, with not enough time to sketch. Not enough time..? Well, make time. I’ve been feeling a little headless-chicken-esque, so one Wednesday evening I decided I needed to go and pour myself into another bar panorama, this time at Sophia’s, a bar which I have sketched before, but I had not included the fishtank before. The fishtank was going in this time, for sure. My friend Tel, who I grew up with but now lives in Korea for some reason, would like that fishtank. Years ago he used to make me go with him after school all the way to a shop in Colindale called Vibratanks to see the tropical fish in their bright tanks, his nose pressed against the glass staring at the tetras and guppies and swordtails. To get him back, I would make him come to WH Smith in Brent Cross where I’d spend ages looking at pens, travel guides and adventure gamebooks. In a twist of irony he now sells books, while I am sketching fishtanks. Anyway, I sat with an amber beer and covered the pages in paint before going in with the pen. I was spotted by the owner Kenneth who remembered my previous sketch, it was nice to meet him. After sketching the wider view I went to sit at the bar to get a better view of the bottles, and spent a good deal of time chatting to people, many from all over the world, while scribbling away continually. I am on a bit of a roll with these panoramas now, and have done a few more since then (yet to post; I am calling it the ‘panoramarathon’) but still 2014 continues to be busy, busy, busy. I’ve just remembered that when I am so so busy, and so so stressed, it’s always best to balance it with some art. No time for it? Make time for it. You’ll be glad you did.

2013 – twelve months of sketches

January 10, 20146 Comments

We are well into 2014 already, and it’s already a busy little year, but it’s time to reflect on the sketches of the past year. Here are most of them. I used a variety of sketchbooks (Watercolour Moleskine, Stillman & Birn Alpha and Beta, Seawhite of Brighton) as well as some being standalone ones made for shows or for sale. I sketched Davis, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Portland, London, St.Albans and Barcelona; I sketched bars, cars, toys, churches, food trucks, bridges, sketchers and pirates; some of the places I sketched no longer exist as they were then (and I forgot to put my last Davis Dairy Queen sketch on this chart – that one now has closed down too). Some periods were full of activity, some periods I actually pulled back from sketching considerably, for one reason or another. I don’t know it was my favourite year as a sketcher, I may have had more productive years but I can certainly see some progression. Switching about my sketchbooks was one of the most challenging aspects, getting used to different papers. The paper you draw on has an enormous effect on how relaxed you are sketching; this Seawhite sketchbook is ok, and I will finish it, but I likely won’t be using another as my main book. I’ve found I have less time for sketchcrawls, and have been ok with not sketching, but I have also had bursts of creative energy which I’ve just wanted to share with everyone around me. Among my sketching highlights have been the Jack the Ripper sketchcrawl in Whitechapel, London, where I met some incredible sketchers ; sketching both Sagrada Familia and the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, both lifelong dreams now fulfilled ; being featured in Danny Gregory’s book ‘An illustrated Journey’, with my sketch of Vipins in Burnt Oak appearing on the cover, and many more. I also produced two short comics which were included as part of the band Art Brut’s 10th anniversary album (they appear on the app, in which there is a short comic with every song). I sketched at the Pence Gallery’s 2013 Art auction where I also sold a large panorama I drew of the Davis Art Center. I also sketched the grand opening of local artist Heidi Bekebrede’s excellent new Davis Song mural, a tile of which is based on my red bus sketch. However it’s been a year in which I feel I’ve struggled to keep up, lacked energy, had to learn my limits. I do have plans and ideas for books and projects, and maybe 2014 will be the year I press the button and get them done, art goals, and if they get done they get done, great, and if not, c’est la vie. One question I’m often asked when sketching is, “nice sketch, but what’s it for?” I just like urban sketching because it’s fun, not because it is for something. It is for me, and now, here are my 2013 sketches for you.

Roll on 2014…

final stretch of the year

January 3, 2014Leave a comment

This was the very last bit of urban sketching I did in 2013. I went down to C Street and sketched this frat house, with the Davis Community Church on the corner of 4th St, in the very clear blue sky weather. Well, I say weather. This is the Land that Weather Forgot. The first New Year’s Eve I ever spent here, there was a massive rainstorm, and whole swathes of the local area were flooded. I remember cycling to the edge of town on New Year’s Day to look at what were effectively new lakes where fields used to be. I was so new to town I just expected it to always be like that. Well, it isn’t. It didn’t rain very much in 2013, barely at all. Lately the weather has just been well, nothing. Not even cloudy. It’s not like I want ice storms and tornadoes or anything, but it feels like whoever is in charge of weather here left it on one setting and then went missing. Anyway… 2013 is over, and here’s the last panorama. This frat house is new, built only recently. It replaces a very similar looking frat house, one much older that was demolished last year. That building was well known among former Davis students, a fairly grotty place by many accounts, but much loved and one of the oldest (perhaps the oldest) building in town. Well this one i here now, overlooking Central Park, and it catches the afternoon shadows in the same way so finally it’s in a Scully sketchbook. I like a panorama. Below are the two halves of it, larger so you can see them better.

rows of houses all bearing down on me

January 2, 20143 Comments

Happy New Year! I hope 2014 is at least one year better than 2013 was. Here is a panoramic sketch I did a few days ago in downtown Davis, on the stretch of 3rd Street in between C and D. We’ve had some pretty mild weather here lately, sunny, not that cold. Quite dull in fact. Good weather for standing in the street sketching, but not the sort of weather you expect around the end of the year. While sketching this I listened to a couple of podcasts, one about history (the Black Death) and one about language (the Old English alphabet). Gettin’ medieval on yo’ ass, as they say. The small building in the middle with the crazy coloured patterns on it, that is an old building I’d wanted to sketch for a few years simply because it was so old and ramshackle, and then they went and gave it that psychedelic paint job. This is the way in Davis nowadays, every blank surface downtown has to have some colourful mural emblazoned on it, some very good, some not quite as good. This particular one works quite well I think. Currently being painted on the side of the building on the far right of the sketch is a very colourful abstract piece, though in this case I don’t know that a bright mural along the edge of a house like that really adds to the overall look, but it’s a matter of taste. Curb appeal.

Here is each side of the panorama for a closer look.

So, a Happy New Year to you, in Davis and around the world!

big red samurai

December 31, 20131 Comment

I hope you all had a nice Christmas…mine was (and still is) filled with Lego, my son got rather a lot of it. Yes, I got some too, but mostly I was building my son’s Ninjago sets. Ninjago, as you can imagine, is all about Lego Ninjas and all that stuff. Lego is so complicated these days, full of tiny little pieces fitting together in intricate and specific fashions. You almost have to be a molecular physicist to build the sets these days. And it’s GREAT! This particular beauty is the Samurai Mech, a large robot type thing piloted by a little Samurai called Nya, or something. It took ages to build, hours. While building I had no idea what piece I was constructing but it all comes together nicely. My son opened this one on Christmas Eve, and I spent much time after he went to bed building it, while we watched Love Actually (a movie we last saw at the cinema in London a decade ago). I drew this in the Stillman and Birn Alpha book, and there are many more to draw.

ace of spades

December 30, 20131 Comment

This is a quick lunchtime sketch of a new piece of public art in Davis (and there is so much new public art in Davis), located near the entrance to the Arboretum behind Davis Commons, on the bike path (yes, there are so many bike paths in Davis). A few months ago I recall the Arboretum was asking for donations of shovels (or spades as I call them), and this ultimately was the result: the Shovel Gateway. It was commissioned by the Davis Arts Council and the UC Davis Arboretum as part of the renovation of that whole area (it’s now the ‘Arboretum and Public Garden’) and was designed and built by sculptor Chris Fennell. More than 400 shovels make up the sculpture. It almost resembles a laurel wreath, and is an interesting and welcome addition to Davis’s scenery, and an opportunity for thousands of people in the coming decades to make bad jokes when they see it like, “I really dig that”. We can handle that.

empire building

December 29, 2013December 29, 2013Leave a comment

I hope you are all having yourselves a Merry little Christmas. Mine has been very nice, one long Lego-building bonanza. We’ve been over to Santa Rosa a couple of times to visit family, and on one afternoon before Christmas I went downtown to do a bit of afternoon sketching. It has been quite sunny here lately. This is the Empire Building in Santa Rosa’s Old Courthouse Square, built in 1910. Christmas shoppers bustled about getting those last minute stocking stuffers.

mince pies

December 17, 20137 Comments

Christmas is coming. Which means mince pies. These mince pies in particular were made by a fellow Brit at work, and who kindly made me a whole tin of these little bite-sized festive treats (thanks Jean!). They were delicious, and very nice with a cup or tea or three. So, I had to draw them. It was an act of unbelievable will power to sit and smell them in front of me while drawing and not eat any until I was done. Well, in fact I’d had a few first, but still, the rest of them didn’t last long afterwards. Hopefully I get some time to make some myself, though mine are always messier and uneven, not that I notice the shape as they fly into my belly.

Dear Americans who don’t know: mince pies are not made with meat. The “mincemeat” used is something else entirely. I must admit I stopped trying to encourage my American family to eat them some years back, because I realized that there would be more left for me. And Santa of course, who loves them. Home-made ones are much nicer; although in England I always used to get those yummy ones from Marks & Spencer. One thing about M&S mince pies though folks, they always seem to have a useful best-before date of December 24th. Make sure you give Santa the freshest ones.

One other thing you may be interested in, my American friends, when a Londoner says “mince pies” he might also mean his “eyes”, which is Cockney Rhyming Slang. I don’t really use that one myself, mostly because it makes me suddenly very hungry at the very thought. I really love mince pies.