Another lunchtime sketch; taking a risk with my allergies flaring up like 70’s trousers, so kept it quick, a drawing of a digger outside work. I used the hi-tec c in the stillman & birn gamma book. The workmen came along as I was getting near the end, and were kind enough to let me finish before driving the digger away.
it’s not big but it is kleiber
Another lunchtime sketch, braving the pollen (allergies are really bad this week) but more importantly, braving the squirrel. I sat beneath a tree besides the bike racks to draw Kleiber Hall (or half of it; I must master that trick of turning the page sideways to fit more in) when along came a squirrel. Nothing unusual about that, but this one seemed, I don’t know, determined. I thought it might be after my mint M&Ms (which are, I must confess, bloody amazing), but it wasn’t aftre food. It kept creeping right up to me from every angle, a look of indignance and annoyance on its face, like an Englishman who has been rudely queue-jumped but won’t actually say anything. No amount of shooing, chasing, stamping my feet, making vague threats was going to get this squirrel away. I was worried it might have rabies, except it was obviously competely sane, even if I appeared not to be. This furry thing was fearless. It took me a while to realise it was just territorial and that it owned the tree I was sat near (it had a Monopoly card to prove it, and I think the rent included nuts), so despite informing this squirrel about my rights to sit and sketch beneath any public tree I damn well please, I gave in and moved to the shade of a different tree. The squirrel, all pleased with himself, immediately leapt into his tree and sat on a branch like a little lord. Like he couldn’t have done that anyway!!
Next time I’ll draw the squirrel. If I’m brave enough.
having a mayor
Ken and Boris (and some other people) are the choices today for the London Mayoral election. I’m for Ken, personally, not ‘he of the unbrushable hair’. I wish I were there to vote, but I missed the first one in 2000 (living in Belgium), missed the second one in 2004 (off visiting France), missed 2008 (moved to California), and obviously I’ll miss this one too. But I still care who runs my home city! Boris could at least offer to shave his head if he wins. So to mark election day I drew them in my Stillman and Birn book in a pilot hi-tec C, a quick lunchtime sketch when I couldn’t leave the office due to the high pollen count. Ok here’s the inevitable pun, I’m hoping Boris gets a low polling count and has to leave office.
look around, round, round
(Click image to see larger size)
Here is something I drew a while ago (Martin Luther King Jr Day, in January, hence the flags), in my panoramic accordion sketchbook, but did not scan and stitch together until now. I sat out there for a couple of hours, followed by another hour or so on a day later that week, and just sketched and turned and curved as best I could. It’s a good exercise, but tricky all the same. It looks even more different now it’s on a computer screen. The plan is to fill the whole book with similar scenes from Davis as the seasons change. Other seasons may be more colourful, but this represented sunny winter. There is a detail below. All drawn on an accordion sketchbook from Cass Arts in London in uniball vision micro pen.
somethin’ groovy and good ’bout whatever we got
Cycled over to the Tri-Co-Ops again at lunchtime today (sounds like a dinosaur, huh) and sketched one of the main buildings. Pigma Sensei pen with watercolour in Stillman & Birn gamma sketchbook. I was really drawn to the gnarly trees.
let’s draw london!
Next month I will be back in my home town of London, to see the people I miss so much, and also to do a bit of drawing. I will be a guest blogger on the recently launched Urban Sketchers London website, and so I am pleased to be organizing a sketchcrawl on Saturday May 26 around the historic Temple and Fleet Street areas. Why not join in? Let’s draw London!
The sketchcrawl will begin at 10:30am, meeting outside Temple tube station. All you need is something to draw with and something to draw on, and this event is free and open to everyone, artists and sketchers of all levels. What better way to explore the hidden nooks of your city than with a sketchbook? It’s only half about the drawing, it’s also about the looking, the act of observation through which you build a relationship with your surroundings. Plus it’s great fun to sketch with others!
There will be a midway point at 1:00pm outside Temple Church for those who come late or leave early, and the sketchcrawl will finish at 4:00pm in Gough Square, by the statue of Dr.Johnson’s cat. It’s just off of Fleet Street, but like a scavenger hunt you’ll enjoy finding it! There we will look at each others’ sketchbooks, and then maybe pop into the old Cheshire Cheese for a pint.
I hope to see you there!
‘the house!’
This is The House, a building at UC Davis near the tri-co-operatives, a part of campus I had not explored before today. I cycled around there looking for something to sketch, and found this pleasant little spot. (I sound like Alan Whicker or someone) The House is home to CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services), who do a great and necessary job on campus. The House has an imaginative name (a bit like The Barn, sketched recently), but I keep imagining it being bellowed by Christopher Lee, “The House!”
hotting up
Still adjusting to the new house. This weekend gave us the hot weather test. Davis is a place where it gets hot, very hot, and I’m not joking. Just not usually this early! Mid-90s weather came out of nowhere, disguised in mid-80s forecasts, just in time for Picnic Day (and it always feels hotter in Picnic Day crowds). That’s mid-90s as in Fahrenheit, not as in Britpop. On Saturday we sweltered, but by Sunday, another scorcher, we’d figured it out. It’s starting to cool down again now, so this was just a dress rehearsal for the real stuff in July. Come on Davis Summer, do your worst.
know what i mean harry?
Do you know the difference between Basil Fawlty and Victor Meldrew? There is a broad range of character defects between the two but I’ve narrowed it down to this – things tend to happen to Victor, without them necessarily being his fault, whereas Basil’s woes are almost always entirely his fault and pretty preventable. As the episode of Fawlty Towers goes on you see him diggin further and further into a hole which it is almost impossible to get out of, and you can just tell is going to get worse. So what about Harry Redknapp?
I won’t go into the story, footy fans know it, non-footy fans have turned off already. Harry has been great for Spurs and may continue to be but this England job thing hangs over the whole club. Sure the FA are waiting on their decision – but I think it might make things a lot easier if Harry actually came out and said if he will or will not take it if offered. Spurs’s season since this whole thing came up has resembled an episode of Fawlty Towers (at least, I can’t get the image of Basil/Harry falling off the ladder trying to ‘look at girl in room’, that being the champions league), and wondering whether this business-end-of-season-collapse is Harry’s fault for not committing or the FA’s fault for not asking. That is, is Harry a Basil or a Victor?
Hmm. If someone had said to me in mid February when we were nine points clear of Arsenal that two months later we’d be six points behind them and sinking, I’d have said “I don’t believe it!” Now I keep imaging Harry picking up a puppy instead of a phone.
student community center
A newer building on campus, the new Student Community Center, opposite the Silo. Sketched yesterday lunchtime. There has been a lot of redevelopment in this part of campus since I came to Davis. Drawn with a copic fineliner (fairly well used) in the gamma S&B sketchbook. Decided against colour.
The weather is heating up, it was 88 degrees in Davis yesterday and very warm at night. Picnic Day – tomorrow – will be a warm one this year…
petescully 