tale of two towers

August 4, 20133 Comments

More form the first Saturday back in London… We all took the tube down from Burnt Oak (or rather, the Northern Line rail replacement bus, which for some unspecified reason took us to Finchley Road on the Jubilee Line – it appeared that the driver got rather lost) and went down to London Bridge, to visit the great Borough Market. My main reason was to get one of those really yummy grilled-chicken sandwiches that I had last year. I had been drooling over those for the past twelve months. After we sat and ate them in the gardens of Southwark Cathedral and listened to a little choir singing about how the tory government are destroying the NHS (I joined in the song, of course), we walked down towards Tower Bridge. There was a little event going on in the gardens beside City Hall, so I got a beer and we all sat down in the shade, where I quickly sketched Tower Bridge. My five-year-old son joined me for some father-son urban sketching, and he did his own version! He hasn’t done such observational sketching before so I was well impressed. He was very specific about getting the City of London flag right, that’s my boy.

I love being by the Thames. I have said it many times before, but I’m happiest by the river.

go back to chancery lane

August 3, 20132 Comments

And so back to the London sketches. This was from the first proper day back, and I had just met a few London urban sketchers at the end of their meet-up in Leather Lane. On the walk back to the tube station I remembered this little newsagents on Chancery Lane. For some reason, I want to draw very British things like newsagents. It might sound funny, but we just don’t get many over here, unlike in London where they are everywhere. This one I used to go to a lot for snacks when I used to study every day at the Maughan Library, just down the street. Chancery Lane is pretty quiet on a Saturday, so I sketched peacefully before journeying back on the tube. Here’s one for you: spot the fire hydrant!

First Friday Art Walk, Woodland: TODAY!

August 2, 2013August 2, 20132 Comments

NEWS! Today, Friday August 2nd, I will be taking part in the Woodland First Friday Art Walk, organized by Yolo Arts. I will be exhibiting my original urban sketches at Woodland United Way (716 Main St, Suite B) during August, and they will be for sale through Yolo Arts. That is Woodland as in the city just north of Davis. I will be attending the event between 5-8pm and will be giving a sketching demonstration – that is, I will be sketching the scene and telling people how I do so. If you are near Woodland and would like to come down and say hello please do so, I’d be happy to meet you!

One of the pieces that will be shown is my sketch of the Davis Dairy Queen, above. I did this on location in February and forgot about it, only rediscovering it (and adding a little colour) this week. So here it is, ta-daa! I had been expecting this place to close, but it is thankfully still going strong (it is much beloved in Davis). I sketched it in a brown uniball signo and it is exactly 8″x10″, and will be for sale at the Woodland exhibition.

Here is the website with information about all of the events in this month’s Art Walk: http://www.yoloarts.org/programs-and-services/1st-friday-art-walk

Hope to see you there!

up above the streets and houses

August 1, 2013August 1, 20134 Comments

Whenever an urban sketcher flies he or she is compelled to sketch the plane. You’re sat there for hours inside this huge metal perspective trick, usually with little else to occupy your mind than movies you don’t really want to see. Our flight to London was mostly ‘night-time’ (lights out for sleeping, though daytime outside), but I did get the sketch in, while my son coloured in a superhero colouring book that I drew for him. This year, trans-Atlantic flights are a LOT more expensive than they’ve been since I moved out here, so we flew Virgin Atlantic, who are slightly more expensive than United, but are about a million miles more worth it. The flight itself was smooth and pleasant, the cabin crew helpful and amiable, and the entertainment system, as always with Virgin, was top quality, though I didn’t watch anything myself other than an Alan Partridge special. The food was very tasty, and plentiful. It was cramped of course, as all these flights are (I love how at the end they make you walk through first class, to show you what you could have enjoyed if you had just been a little richer). As you land, the Virgin crew come around and give you sweets, and not just any sweets, but Love Hearts. Virgin is the best.

Compare that to our United experience in 2012. Ouch. I vowed never to fly United again – rude, uncomfortable, poor entertainment (tiny screens, terrible movies), lack of food (by which I mean they ran out of everything except beef, which I cannot eat), rude (by which I mean the cabin staff slammed the beef dish onto my tray and told me I had to have it, and had no right to complain – all I had said was “no chicken or vegetarian?”), the plane felt like it was falling apart, rude, the obnoxious smell of the toilets wafting through the cabin and – most of all – rude. I don’t like flying at the best of times, but Grrr, United. I don’t want no beef. I put their rudeness down to the fact that City had just pipped them to the League. At least it got my drawing energy fired up, as you can see from last year’s sketches.

In a review of transatlantic airlines, here is all you need to know: United give you beef, Virgin give you Love Hearts.

watching the clips roll in

July 28, 2013Leave a comment

…But before I start posting my London/Barcelona sketches, it’s straight back to Davis California. It’s always strange coming back – while never looking forward to the heat, it was nice to get back to the office (and that magical thing called air-conditioning, which London doesn’t know about yet). I was also looking forward to attending New Belgium’s 2013 “Clips” Beer and Film Tour – we had stumbled across it last year as “Clips of Faith” and enjoyed it a lot – at the Davis Central Park. New Belgium is a micro-brewing company (who aren’t very micro) from Fort Collins in Colorado, a company with a very progressive reputation and some incredibly good beers. I’ve always loved Fat Tire, and like their other seasonal beers too. Anyway, at this event (which is travelling through 21 cities in the U.S., Davis included) you can sample up to 18 different brews made by New Belgium, some of them very unusual sounding and unique tasting (they were out of the ‘Coconut Curry Hefeweizen’ sadly, but I would love to try that one). It was pretty busy there, In addition, they have a great big blow-up movie screen, on which are played several selected short films of under five minutes, from film-makers across America. Because I was sketching most of the time I only caught one at the end, and I’m glad I did, it was called ‘Shot From The Hip’, by William LaBarge, and was a kind of Sergio Leone style showdown between two Davis hipsters, set in front of the Varsity Theatre on 2nd St (you know the one). Very popular cheers from the local crowd as you can imagine, and it was great fun to watch, well executed.

This fellow, Steve Tracey, was selling raffle tickets, but he looked so distinctive that as he passed I made him stop for a minute and a half while I sketched him. I added the colour afterwards. The red flag was on his bike. Both New Belgium and Davis are all about the bikes, and this was a cyclist-friendly event.

I tried four beers:

Cascara Quad (“dark and surprisingly delicate”) which was 10%, pretty nice but probably couldn’t drink too much of
Rolle Bolle (“pale shade of sunshine yellow”) which sounded nice but I didn’t really like much
Biere de Garde (“starts warm and boozy, finishes bone dry”) another stronger one at 9%, but again probably wouldn’t choose this one
Pluot (“aroma: stone fruit, pineapple, Belgian esters and the funk of Bretta” whatever all that means), a fairly fruity one, and I enjoyed it a lot. After tasting this I chose a 12oz size too, and at 10% ABV it explains why I was in quite a good mood when I went to see The Wolverine afterwards (which by the way is an amazing movie).

A funny moment: when I went to get my beers, the lady serving the beer samples recognized me saying, “hey you’re that sketching guy!” Yep, that’s me. This was a fun event and I’m glad I was able to attend and sketch. Here is the page on their site showing where all the next stops on the Clips tour are going to be. Next up is Portland on August 1st.

back from london / barcelona

July 28, 20131 Comment

Sorry for the lack of postage lately, it’s been that time of year when I go somewhere far away for a couple of weeks or so of disruption to my usual daily routine. Airports…I cannot stand them. When will we develop teleportation technology? But I love London, and I love Barcelona! I am not overly fond of the mountain of scanning that appears when I return from such sketch-filled journeys, so I’ll post gradually. As you can see above, I fulfilled a lifelong dream to sketch the Sagrada Familia, and I also fulfilled another Barcelona-related lifelong dream too, to visit (and sketch) the Camp Nou. More of that later. First though I am scanning my London sketches, which include this one below of Trafalgar Square in the early morning hours.

Stay tuned!

Tomorrow: Sketching Jack’s London!

July 16, 20133 Comments

It will be a nice hot day in London tomorrow, so why not join us for a late afternoon to evening sketchcrawl around Whitechapel and Spitalfields in the old East End? We will be starting at 3:00pm outside Whitechapel station, and will sketch until 8:30pm when we will get back together outside Christ Church Spitalfields on Commecial St, a stones-throw from the Ten Bells pub. See the original post on Urban Sketchers London for full details.

Below is a map and guide for the sketchcrawl; I will be giving these out to each participant, along with a hand-made (by me) micro-sketchbook (limited edition! just eight pages long!)

Latecomers: if you can’t make the start don’t worry, you can join in at any time – just look for the sketchers, or meet up with us at the end! However to get your map and micro-sketchbook you may need to find me – let me know before tomorrow morning if you will need my UK mobile number.

See you tomorrow!

Facebook event page

i’ll meet you on the stairs

July 15, 20138 Comments

Amid my many recent adventures I have not had time to post about my current mini-show on the stairwell of the Pence Gallery in Davis! I have several framed urban sketches on display, ranging in sizes, including the panorama of 18th Street San Francisco seen below. I’m very excited to be displaying my work there again.
The sketches will be on the stairwell for all of July so please come by and take a look! Most are of locations in Davis, places you may know well. If you have any questions about any of the pieces or of my work, please let me know!

The Pence Gallery is on D Street Davis, and their opening hours can be found on their website at: http://www.pencegallery.org/

Here are some of the originals on display. Come by the gallery to see the rest!

all-stars on the fourth of july

July 4, 20131 Comment

I just got back from my son’s little league t-ball All-Star Game. It’s the second time he has taken part, and it was a very hot July 4th Independence Day morning. Very humid too, unusual for Davis. We are in the middle of a really strong heatwave out here in the Western US, and we’ve had temperatures of between 100-111 (or more, some reported) for the past week. That scuppered some of the afternoon practice sessions, but the all-star game itself, made up of kids from various different teams, was early enough not to be in the scorching heat. I felt sorry for some of the older kids. Afterwards we went over for the pancake breakfast.

Happy 4th of July!

Sketching Jack’s London: July 17

July 3, 20132 Comments

London! Here is a sketching event just for you, a midweek, afternoon-evening sketchcrawl around the old neighbourhood of that notorious elusive villain, Jack the Ripper.

Join us as we sketch around Whitechapel, in search of its past. We will begin at 3:00pm meeting outside Whitechapel tube station, and then sketch individually or in groups. This event is FREE and open to anybody with an interest in sketching, all you need to bring is something to draw with and something to draw on (although I have made some very special micro-sketchbooks for all participants… see photo below).

As with last year’s sketchcrawl around Temple and Fleet Street, I will provide hand-drawn maps with some interesting information (and it will include the locations of the Ripper’s ‘canonical five’ murders). We will finish up outside Christ Church Spitalfields at 8:00pm. There we will check out each other’s sketchbooks, and then maybe pop across the road to the Ten Bells for a pint in the Ripper’s very own local.

Of course, the London of Jack the Ripper is gone. Thankfully, one might add. The slums were cleared, the squalor washed up. The twentieth century happened. The Blitz happened. History happened. Hipsters happened. Yet traces of Jack’s London still remain, some invisible, some ignored, and some pretty hard to miss. In this sketchcrawl, let’s look for the old East End, the smog-chipped bricks, the weather-worn cobbles, the winding streets, the smell of old pubs, the sudden towering steeples, the London that the nineteenth century left behind. Whitechapel, Aldgate, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, the edge of the City. The Elephant Man. The Krays. Jack Sheppard. Ashley Cole. Er, Jack London stayed here for a while. Even Big Ben and the Liberty Bell were born here. Jack the Ripper is gone, a legend for the tourists, but old London is still there, hiding in the modern world, AND WE ARE GOING TO SKETCH IT!!
(or of course, you can just sketch the hipsters…)