pennywise

October 20, 20133 Comments

I have a piece currently on display at the Pence Gallery as part of their “Tiny” show. Each artist submitted a piece no bigger than 5″x7″ (about my usual drawing size!) and were given a piece of canvas board on which to create their masterpiece. I usually draw on paper, but wanted to give it a go on this different material, and it was fun. As you can see below in the step-by-step I actually put the paint on first, and then added the ink details. Normally I draw ink first (colouring-in is an afterthought) but the ink stayed wet on this canvas board so that wasn’t possible, but this way worked really nicely. The ink didn’t get glazed over by the wash, and really popped. Because of the rough nature of this canvas board, scanning was a bit difficult, so hopefully you can get a good idea from these photos.

Pennywise…that is – or was, I am now told – a shop in Burnt Oak (where I was born and grew up) that was there my entire life, unchanged. I didn’t exactly need to go there often (great place for plastic buckets and sponges) but it was just one of those shops, always there, with that funny little orange symbol. I’d always intended to draw it. I didn’t have time while in London so took a photo. I am glad I did – shortly after drawing this I learnt that Pennywise has now closed and become something else. “The curse strikes again” I thought. Several things I have drawn have subsequently closed down. I’m not going to list them now but this is why it is important for the urban sketcher to record the world while it is here. This of course is not an on-location urban sketch, being drawn from a photo, but it’s for the same purpose. I wish I could go back and draw all the other landmark Burnt Oak places from my past.

the good life

October 18, 2013October 18, 20131 Comment

I’ve been busy…and not updating. Mostly not scanning. There has been some sketching. There’s mostly been drawing cartoon cut-out skeletons for Halloween, and a cardboard Iron Man suit. Don’t ask. Anyway, these are in fact my sketches from the last Davis sketchcrawl in September, starting at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine and stuff, in the Good Life Garden. Yes, the Good Life Garden, named (I presume) after the TV show with Felicity Kendall and Richard Briers and Jerry and Margo. This place is pretty amazing, for a good life garden. At UC Davis we have world-class enologists, who presumably are experts in Brian Eno. Seriously, Enology is a real thing, and goes hand to hand here with Viticulture, with I believe is the science behind Jaffa Cakes and Digestives (the correct term is McVitieculture, but over here they drop the “Mc” just like they drop the “O” in Oenology, which as you know is to do with wine and is not to be confused with Onology, the science behind Yoko). Ok now all that has been cleared up, let’s get on with the sketches. At the top, the Good Life Garden, in which I got a little sun but savoured the lovely smells while humming that beloved theme tune. Hey, one thing I never knew is that in America, The Good Life was called “Good Neighbours”. Now I’m sorry but that is too close to another show we all know, and yet another theme tune stuck in my head. Apparently it was renamed due to an earlier unsuccessful show called The Good Life starring JR Ewing, I mean, Larry Hagman. I am trying to imagine Paul Eddington in a ten-gallon Stetson, with his middle-class commuter stiff upper lip, no that doesn’t look right.

This bit is the Beer Lab. That is, the “RMI Teaching and Research Winery and Busch Brewing and Food Science Lab”. Or just “Drink!” for short. This is the real University of Beer.

worldwide sketchcrawl 41: downtown davis

October 18, 2013Leave a comment

It’s that time again…the 41st Worldwide Sketchcrawl, and so join us here in sunny Davis for an afternoon of walking around, stopping, looking and sketching. Let’s draw Davis!

DATE: Saturday October 19 2013
START: 12:00pm, Central Park, by the Carousel (near C and 4th)
FINISH: 4:00pm, outside City Hall Tavern (Old City Hall), F St *

As always the sketchcrawl is free and open to anyone with an interest in location sketching. All you need is something to draw with and something to draw on! There’s no requirement to stay for the whole thing, just come out and flex those sketching muscles. At the end we will get together to look at each others’ sketchbooks (always the most fun bit) and see how we have all interpreted our town. Then why not post them online at www.sketchcrawl.com (here’s the link to the 41st sketchcrawl forum) to show the world! And then see what the rest of the global sketching community have been doing on the same day.

Hope to see you there!

*I just saw that I wrote “E St” on the poster – oops! It’s on F St. After all these years I still confuse the two…

2013 art auction at the pence

October 7, 2013Leave a comment

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Pence Gallery‘s annual Art Auction as one of the contributing artists. It was the third year in a row that I have been invited to take part, in the auction; this year I submitted my panoramic sketch of the Davis Art Center (and it sold – many thanks Erie!!). I also went along (after a busy and late day at work; lots of those lately, hence lack of energy to post my sketches on time) with my sketching materials, and drew what I could. Last year I had sketched the patio from down below, this year I took the opportunity to sketch from above. The band was playing as the September evening got darker, and on the far wall is a huge mural currently being painted by artist Anthony Padillo, whom I had the fortune to meet while I was actually sketching this very scene.

Soon it was time for the Auction itself, and this year I brought some bigger paper to sketch on. It is a real education in art, going to an art auction. I know that sounds obvious, well it is really, but there were some amazing artists on display, local and otherwise, including work by the celebrated late local ceramicist (and UCD art professor) Bob Arneson, and even an original print by the father of Art Nouveau, Alphonse Mucha. I sketched in a large Canson pad, and had some nice conversations afterwards. Always fun sketching events at the Pence!

i love it when a lego bat-ship comes together

October 1, 20132 Comments

I have been doing some sketching lately, but I’ve been very busy that I’ve not been scanning it all in. Here is something I drew recently though, another of my son’s toys, a Lego bat-vehicle. It’s all about the Lego now, and I mean the tiny little pieces sort of Lego, with lots of complicated instructions. Lego is great, but blocks are so much smaller than in my day! Especially when they are all over the carpet. Maybe I’m just bigger.

Drawn in a Stillman and Birn Alpha book in ink and watercolour.

bright green boots

September 24, 20135 Comments

My son’s first football boots. Or as they say here, ‘soccer shoes’. No, no they say ‘cleats’. It took me years to work out what ‘cleats’ meant. They are the studs. Anyway, my son has finally started playing football (soccer, cleatball, or whatever) and he loves it. These are his new (and very green) diadora boots, sketched in the S&B Alpha book.

Me, I am the referee. Refereeing under-six, three-a-side was very nerve-racking. I had my first game, twenty-minutes long, in which it actually rained (our first rain in months and months). It went ok. I need a stopwatch!

Football boots are so bright and colourful these days. When I was a kid they were all black, with a white logo (usually white; Roy of the Rovers I remember had a yellow Nike logo at some point). Then there’s the old brown leather boots; I think of that other strip in Roy, “Billy’s Boots”, with those ancient and possibly magical boots. (Good idea for a comic strip, “Pete’s Cleats”…) Speaking of Roy, I should go back and find all the old “You are the Ref” strips, though of course they have those in the Guardian now. Maybe I’ll learn something…

1956 mercury montclair

September 22, 20136 Comments

The other evening, after dinner, I cycled down to the Marketplace parking lot in north Davis (that cultural hotbed) where there was a meeting of classic automobile enthusiasts. By that I mean that the automobiles were classic, not that the enthusiasts were classic, though they probably were, I don’t know about how to judge an enthusiast’s classic status. The ones I met were very nice. Anyway the sun was already going down and so I didn’t have a great deal of time to choose a car to sketch, but this beauty stood out above all the others. Now some of the cars were spectacular beasts, and some were, to be fair, verging on the old banger. This fine automobile however was bright and shiny and oozing in fifties Americana. Its yellow trimmings reminded me of California sunshine (that, and the fact I was in California and it was sunny, for a few more minutes anyway). So I sketched it, and you can see my reflection in it, and the owner liked it; it was his first car, in his family since 1977, and it is a 1956 Mercury Montclair. Now this says ‘America’ to me, not your beige Toyotas. Three people sat in the front, like in the movies, cruisin’ low and slow, all of that. I do like to sketch a classic automobile. They’re having one more this year, next month, same place. I might get there earlier this time, and sketch some more.

the incredible sagrada família

September 17, 2013March 1, 20255 Comments

Another one checked off the life-long wish-list! This is the famous and magnificent Sagrada Família, the ongoing masterpiece of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. I love to sketch a cathedral. Of course this isn’t technically a cathedral, it is a “Basilica and Expiatory Church” – there’s no bishop, you see. It’s also only really half a church, because as you probably know it is not quite finished yet, stunning and unbelievably detailed though it is. It is over a century and a quarter in the making, entirely funded by donations, and naturally is a huge draw for tourists. It is expected to be finished by 2026, with a massive central spire still to be added. I quite prefer it like this. It is quite something to think that this will look really different the next time I go to sketch it. Finally however I have sketched it, this building I have always wanted to see and draw.

This was done on my last day in Barcelona, when my wife and I took the metro out on a bright Sunday morning. We found that lovely spot across from the pond looking up at the Sagrada Família, and as I sketched there were other urban sketchers from southern Spain also there capturing the view. Always nice to meet the Spanish sketchers, I’m a big follower of the various groups around the country, and learn from them a lot. Once they were gone, I was joined by a group of elderly Catalans; the old woman sat next to me chatted away to me in Catalan, tried to teahc me a few words, and they kept me in good company while my wife went off to take photos. This is the Nativity Façade, which pre-dates the Spanish Civil War, sketched in the Stillman & Birn ‘beta’ sketchbook.

I didn’t go inside this time. The queues are fairly enormous, and our time was limited. I’d love to in the future. There will always be another trip to Barcelona.

la boqueria

September 15, 2013March 1, 20255 Comments

I was really excited about visiting the Boqueria market off La Rambla in Barcelona. Its full name is the Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria, and on a Saturday afternoon it was a colourful vibrabt place. I knew I would need to sketch in here, though finding a good spot where I was out of the way was not necessarily easy. I wandered the whole market, taking in all of the colours and smells – fresh fruit, fresh fish, chocolate, wine, olive oil, all sorts of goodies. I had some delicious snacks from a place called Rostisseria Ramon, breaded mushroom and spinach things, I forget exactly what they were called except they were tasty. I eventually found a spot next to a market stall that was closed for vacations, and sketched the scene ahead of me. The butchers opposite were very interested and kept checking my progress excitedly. I added a nose and mouth for the third butcher as he felt left out, and he was well pleased to be included. It is fun talking to people as you sketch these types of scenes, even though my Spanish and my Catalan is really non-existent. I coloured it all on site and went off to draw the sign.

The market dates back many centuries, in various iterations. The current roof structure dates back about a hundred years. Below, there I am with the Stillman & Birn sketchbook. I really enjoyed sketching this one! Markets, now there is another sketching theme I am really warming to…

let’s draw uc davis

September 15, 2013Leave a comment

Time for another sketchcrawl in sunny Davis…join us next Sunday September 22 for some sketching on the UC Davis campus!

We will meet at noon at the Good Life Garden, located in the courtyard of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Food & Wine Science (http://rmi.ucdavis.edu/). From there we will sketch individually or in a group as you prefer, before reconvening at 4:00pm at the Wyatt Deck in the Arboretum to check out each others’ sketchbooks.

As always this sketchcrawl is free and open to anyone who likes a bit of location drawing. It’s a great way to really explore our town, and meet (and learn from) other sketchers.

Hope to see you there!