captain america shoe

June 15, 20132 Comments

While this isn’t in the chronologically-accurate-no-shoe-left-behind book of all my son’s shoes ever (each being a black and white pen drawing), this is his current shoe, drawn in the Stillman and Birn ‘Alpha’ book I am using to draw several of his things in full technicolor. This is his ‘Captain America’ shoe, by Stride-Rite, latest in a series of themed shoes which are great fun to draw. I waited for it to be worn in a little. Super-heroes are GO! in this house, and that is as much me as him, naturally. Marvel, DC, we love ’em. Pow!

the beat goes on

June 13, 2013June 13, 20132 Comments

This is The Beat, a beloved record store which for twenty years has lived on the corner of J and 17th Streets in midtown Sacramento. It was the existence of this record store, with its huge stock of new and used CDs (including stuff I hadn’t even seen in the UK), that first brought me to discover midtown Sac back in early 2007. I would go out there on weekend afternoons fairly regularly after that, sketching the very sketchable neighbourhood, popping into the Streets of London pub for beer and fish and chips, browsing comics at Big Brother, buying pens at the University Art Store. I don’t come out here very often these days (nor do I buy music much any more, maybe an album every six months or so from a band I already know) but when I do I always pop into The Beat and browse the racks. I spent a lot of my youth browsing the racks at London record stores – Loppylugs in Edgware, Notting Hill Record&Tape Exchange, HMV/Virgin/Our Price – most of which are either gone or dying breeds. Even Tower Records, which I always knew from its celebrated spot at the corner of Piccadilly Circus, is no more – Tower was in fact a Sacramento native, named for the Tower Theater next door to the original Land Park store, and when the chain closed the original is all that remained. The world does things differently now.
I went by again recently to sketch The Beat one last time, because at the end of June this record store is being forced to move, and I don’t yet know where it will end up. They aren’t going out of business, it’s just that the landlords gave them a 90 day notice to vacate now that their current lease is expiring. The property is owned by the same family, the Soehrens, that built the premises back in the 1920s and apparently have been pretty flexible in the past with rent reductions, but times are tough; they haven’t stated who the new tenants will be, but hopefully it will be one that gives the neighbourhood as much character as The Beat does. I hope they will be able to stay local, but I for one will miss them in this spot, since they’re usually my first destination when walking to midtown from downtown Sac.

Sketched on location on Canson Montval watercolour paper with a micron pigma pen and Cotman watercolours.

Also blogged at Urban Sketchers

uncle vito’s

June 12, 2013June 12, 20131 Comment

After my talk last Friday, I signed my name in some books at the bookstore and then popped across the street to a local pizzeria/bar, Uncle Vito’s, for a couple of cold pints. It’s been a long time since I was last in there (and I sketched it then too). They have a fantastic mural outside, and I don’t know if ‘Uncle Vito’ is a Godfather reference, because as you know Vito had no nephews/nieces, only children and godchildren. Either way, I always call this place ‘DeVito’s’ by mistake. I remember back when this place used to be a Chinese eatery called Wok’n’Roll. They do good beer here, but I didn’t get food. Last time I did, I got the garlic fries, and it was like getting a mountain, there were just so many. Tasty, but far too many for me alone! It is funny, having sketched almost all of the Davis bar areas now, how different they all are. This one has a mirror sloped enough so you can see more of the bar behind it. It also has a leg-shaped lamp-shade. Some of the locals in the bar commented enthusiastically on my sketch, and took photos of it in progress, which is always nice. Part of my talk that evening had been how I am more comfortable with people watching and commenting while I sketch, much less shy about it. I can also hear all the other sounds going on around me, the sports on the TV, the sounds from the kitchen, the laughter of people enjoying their weekend; I did overhear one frat-boy student type at the bar to my right, who I didn’t speak to, say something to his girlfriend about people with red hair looking like Tintin, (“what’s with that?” he exasperated) – perhaps he did not see the red-haired person sat right next to him? There I am, by the way, reflected in the mirror there (and no, that is not Bud Light in my pint glass).

illustrating journeys and urban sketching at the avid reader

June 11, 20139 Comments

Last Saturday evening I was fortunate enough to give a talk at my local bookstore The Avid Reader about travel journals, urban sketching, and Danny Gregory’s latest book ‘An Illustrated Journey‘, in which I have a chapter. I gave a talk there last year about ‘The Art of Urban Sketching‘, and I have always liked that store – it was the place I first worked, years ago, when I came to Davis. I had a little office under the stairs.

Saturday was also the hottest day of the year so far, in fact probably the hottest ever recorded on that date in Davis – 109 degrees Fahrenheit at one point we saw, and that sort of heat will drive you bonkers. So big thanks to all who braved the heat and came out to hear me talk!

An Illustrated Journey & the Art of Urban Sketching

The two books. USk spotters: see also my ‘Lapin’ pencil case and ‘Paul Wang’ Moleskine

Ramble on more like. I had a plan, not a script exactly, but you know how it is, once you start talking about this subject you go off in all directions. That’s how I travel, funnily enough. We had a good turn out, I counted about twenty people. Here is store owner (and my old employer) Alzada Knickerbocker introducing me.

I prepared a big board of sketches to show people during the talk, so I wouldn’t have to keep scouring through sketchbooks to find the example of that one bridge I sketched that one time, and so on. I enjoyed making this, but I accidentally put one image on there twice (doh!).

For each of the attendees I also made something special – a micro-sketchbook, only 3″x4″ big and eight pages long. I cut up a load of different paper, mostly Strathmore drawing paper, but also some thinner Canson paper, some watercolour paper, some squared paper, even a few grey tinted sheets. I also cut up a whole bunch of those brown Chinese envelopes I like to draw on, the ones I get at work from all the graduate applications I deal with. I stapled them together, stuck a little ‘Pete’ sketch on the front and voila, micro-sketchbooks. I made a whole bunch, and I will probably give out the rest at the next sketchcrawl, or bring them to Barcelona.

I had a lot of very good questions at the end, most of which I was able to answer without going into too much of a tangent. I hope. I wanted to get across the message that sketching is for everyone, accessible and approachable and doable, and that the important thing is to use sketching as a tool to observe and build a relationship with the place in which you exist. Location sketching, especially when travelling, is much more rewarding as documentation of your travels than drawing from a photo later on. When you sketch on location, you are in effect having a conversation with a place. When you’re not together, it’s not really much of a conversation.

I enjoyed my conversations with everyone who came on Saturday and met some interesting folk! It was nice to have a few familiar faces there too for support (including my very supportive wife, and my young son who sat quietly to the side drawing the whole time, good lad). Thanks also to Alzada and the Avid Reader for inviting me to speak again.

Keep on sketching!

an illustrated journey at the avid reader

June 3, 20136 Comments

Exciting news! This Saturday, June 8th, I will be giving a talk at the Avid Reader bookstore about keeping travel sketchbooks, and presenting Danny Gregory’s excellent book “An Illustrated Journey”, which as you will recall I contributed a chapter. The book features drawings and writing from forty traveling artists from around the globe and I was honoured to be involved and am constantly inspired by seeing the work of others. Bring your own travel journals and sketchbooks to show!

WHEN: Saturday June 8th, 2013 @7:30pm

WHERE: The Avid Reader, 617 2nd St, Davis CA

Hope to see you there!

Facebook event page

ka-chow!

June 1, 20132 Comments

Just a selection of the various variants of Lightning McQueen, my son’s favourite toy character. And of course upon finishing this, he points out which ones I did not draw, cars which to me look identical but to him have one slight variation that makes the most immense difference. Minute details are everything to that five year old. Never, ever forget: young kids are not stupid, they notice EVERYTHING, way more than adults do. It keeps me on my toes, let me tell you. I was the same, as a five year old counting the vertebrae on the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, oh I was the same. This was drawn in the excellent Stillman and Birn ‘Alpha’ book I’ve reserved for pictures of the boy’s things. I like Lightning McQueen as well, “Cars” is fun.

end of the season

June 1, 2013June 1, 2013Leave a comment

Last week my son had his final t-ball game of the season. T-ball for those who don’t know (and I didn’t, until I was in this world) is baseball for four-five year olds, the lowest level of the Davis Little League system. Little League is played by just about all of the six hundred million kids in Davis, and the games of t-ball (so called because for the first few weeks they use a tee to hit the ball from, until they are used to live pitching) are played on the fields at Community Park. The bigger kids play at the Little League field across the street. Parents have to volunteer for a bunch of stuff, and I did a morning shift recently working at the Snack Shack, which was fun. Anyway, my son’s last game for the Diamondbacks was against the Reds, which means you might not be able to tell the teams apart in the sketch above (in the watercolour Moleskine), which doesn’t matter much since I sketched pretty randomly. Also, there is no scoring in t-ball – all the kids get to hit, and run, and field. Playing first base is the best thing because the kids always have something to do. See when a kid hits, it just gets thrown to first base, and then back to the pitcher. After the game, we had a pizza party for the kids, and they all got little trophies (there it si below sketched in the Stillman & Birn Alpha book). Next year he’ll move up to the next level (‘farm’) where they use a pitching machine. But first, the All-Star Game…

moment of brief cool

May 29, 20133 Comments

Memorial Day was Monday, and for once we had some cooler weather. Yea, even a drop of rain. Not much though. I went out and drew a building that I have sketched before, in more leafless times, coincidentally on another public holiday. On US national holidays, the flags come out in downtown Davis. Cooper House on 4th St is a lovely historic building, and I stood sketching while listening to podcasts about football and about history and about language (right there are my main interests). Sketched in Micron Pigma 01 on Canson paper. I enjoyed this brief moment of cool air; this weekend we are back to the hot weather. We’ll be hitting the hundreds. Ouch, Davis.

“At the market. Corner of 3rd and C. Near the Hotdogger. By the basket shop…”

May 26, 20132 Comments

Last weekend we had another Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl at the Davis Farmers Market. It’s always a good place to sketch. Located in Central Park, it’s the centre of our town’s life on a Saturday morning, a bustling colourful meeting place where the local people come together.

As I was sketching the place above, which serves as the information centre for the market, as well as a great place to buy baskets, a woman behind me was on the phone giving very loud directions to a friend who was supposed to be meeting her there. “I’m at the Market. Corner of 3rd and C. Near the Hotdogger. By the Basket Shop. There are Musicians. Near the Indian Food Stall. At the Basket Shop. Yes Near the Entrance. By the Benches. Next to the Basket Shop.” etc. When finally she put the phone down, she had to repeat the entire exchange to her husband, who presumably had learned to zone it all out. “I told her, I said meet me at the Market. Corner of 3rd and C. Near the Hotdogger. By the Basket Shop. There are Musicians. The Basket Shop, I told her.” And so on. Finally her friend arrived, looking ever so lost despite the clear and well-drilled directions, but they were so excited to see each other, that the lady once again said, “Yes well I told you to meet me here, Corner of 3rd and C. Near the Hotdogger. By the Basket Shop. There are Musicians. And Baskets, and Indian Food,” etc etc. You see, it’s great to come to the market and take in all the sights and sounds of everyday folks’ conversation.

My last sketch was made on 4th St. It was much quieter there.

celebrate davis 2013

May 24, 20131 Comment

Last Thursday May 16 was the tenth annual “Celebrate Davis” event, held at Community Park, the big park near my house. There were food stands, live music, bouncy castles for kids, a petting zoo, a big zipline was set up, even a dunk tank where kids can throw balls at a button to send some poor volunteer splashing into a vat of water. Mostly there were stands from various different businesses from Davis, this event being organized by the Chamber of Commerce. I did a little bit of sketching: above is Cochon Volant BBQ (“Flying Pig”), which I sketched with the smell of grilled pork wafting all around. I don’t eat pork any more but I’m sure it was lovely. I also sketched an old police car which was parked nearby, the local police were letting kids get in to take photos. This looks very 70s TV cop show to me. I wonder if it ever drove through big piles of boxes on the sidewalk, like they did in the 70s, on cop shows, on TV.

Celebrate Davis 2013 ended with its usual spectacular firework display, which thnaks to out location we can see from the comfort of our bedroom window.