all creatures great and small

February 9, 2012February 9, 20124 Comments

Don’t be distracted by the scale of the sketches, these vehicles are polar opposites in size. But I don’t really need to tell you that. More from my sketching day around North Beach in San Francisco. I saw the small Smart Car perched on Union Street and given my recent batch of yellow vehicle drawings, I had to sketch it. It’s a little bit like an updated Guido from Cars (incidentally, have you noticed how the sterotyped Italian is still a mainstay of kids cartoons? Guido and Luigi in Cars, Cow Bella from Pajanimals, Bella Lasagne from the old series of Fireman Sam, Mr Carburettor from Rory the Racing Car, Mr Sabatini from Bob the Builder, that Crow from Dangermouse…). The one below was parked on Columbus, almost as a tourist attraction, so many people were stopping to photograph it. It was indeed a thing of beauty, long, sleek, open topped, classic. I had to stop and draw it – I checked the parking meter first though, to see how long I might have. Twenty minutes, good good, but I kept it small. Eventually the owners did come by, two fellows dressed in SF Giants gear (it was FanFest at the ballpark that day), and they were happy to let me keep drawing, in fact they were even letting passers by get into the car to take photos! I showed them some of my other drawings, and they told me I should go to Belmont, where apparently they paint the fire hydrants up like people. That’s a place I have to go to!

fly away peter, fly away paul

February 8, 2012February 8, 20123 Comments

Another one from last Saturday’s solo sketchcrawl around San Francisco. This is the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Washington Square, North Beach. You may have seen it in Dirty Harry briefly. Peter and Paul; I suppose if you’re going to name a church after saints, they’re the big guns really, and here you get two for one. North Beach is the Italian neighbourhood of San Francisco. It was a busy afternoon in Washington Square, lots of people about – there usually are, whenever I sketch down there. This time there was a large crowd of people in red dressed as pirates of some sort, out on some heavy drinking bar-crawling event of some sort. Never really seen the appeal of pirates, comedy or otherwise. Anyway, I enjoyed sketching this, with a uniball signo pen in my Stillman and Birn sketchbook.

san francisco, one morning in february

February 7, 2012February 8, 201214 Comments

First post in a few days, but I’ve got some drawing done… I went to San Francisco on Saturday for a whole day of sketching, because the weather was nice and it was nearly my birthday (in fact it’s today). The first thing I did after arriving at the Ferry Building was head straight up Telegraph Hill. Well no, the first thing I did was buy a walnut brownie, as I always do, but then I went uphill. I wanted to draw a big panorama. the problem is, unless you go up Coit Tower itself (and why would I do a sensible thing like that) the good views are mostly broken by trees. For the sketch of the Golden Gate Bridge above I had to stand on a wall besides quite a steep shrubby slope. But what a view! And no morning fog.

I did much the same for the second one, looking in the other direction. That’s the Bay Bridge, with the Ferry Building in front of it, and the financial district overshadowing it. These were drawn in my Stillman and Birn sketchbook, the one I got from the Lisbon Symposium, but only just started using. It was very nice too. Watercolouring will take a little getting used to after so long with the watercolour moleskine (you can’t lay it on quite as thick) but it’s pretty nice with the pens, so far. These were done with a micron 01. More SF sketches to come…

prickly business

February 2, 2012February 2, 20121 Comment

Yesterday I drew a cactus at lunchtime. It was standing out by a building called The Barn. I don’t know why, but this reminds me a little of the republican primaries.

and the seasons they go round and round

January 31, 2012Leave a comment

Here is another familiar scene, but drawn in a different way, at lunchtime today. My recycling bin is always bursting at the seams at this time of year, so I like to recycle the nicer brown envelopes for some sketching. I used a different pen, a black Y&C Calligraphy pen from Japan (well, from the University Art store in Sacramento), which was really fun to draw with. I have drawn this same view, of the south Silo from the steps of Bainer Hall, every six months since mid-2007, once in Winter, once in Summer, once with leaves and once without. One way to capture the changing Davis seasons. Here are the others…

call her green, and the winters will not fade her

January 30, 20123 Comments

I’ve not been feeling well the past few days (I’m home doing nothing but watching telly, drinking tea and listening to the dishwasher right now), but yesterday I managed to get out for some fresh air on my bike, and cycled around Davis in that laborious way you do when your legs are saying, you should be at home on the sofa. The sunshine was good for me though. I stopped on 8th street to do some sketching, after I saw a row of bicycles, each painted tip to toe in a different bright colour, nailed to stakes alongside someone’s garden fence. That’s peculiar, I thought, so I drew the lime green one. It’s so green it reminded me of Fungus the Bogeyman. Interesting public art in a bike-mad town.

the art of urban sketching!!

January 29, 2012January 29, 20126 Comments

Very exciting news!! They’ve only been and gawn and done it. Check out your bookstore this week, and see if they have a copy of The Art of Urban Sketching, the first book by the global non-profit, Urban Sketchers! As you may know I am the Urban Sketchers (USk) correspondent for Davis, ever since the site was first founded back in November 2008, so have been eagerly anticipating this book since the USk founder, Gabi Campanario, first announced he was putting it together. He has done a tremendous job, as have the hundred or so other contributors (all correspondents on either the main blog or the regional USk blogs). Check out the cover, illustrated by Ch’ng Kiah Kiean and Paul Heaston.

The book has three main sections: “Becoming an Urban Sketcher”, explaining what we mean by ‘urban sketching’ and how to take it up yourself, with peeks inside the featured artists’ sketching kits. The second section, “See the World, One Drawing at a Time”, which takes up the larger part of the book, is a voyage across the world, city by city, through the location drawings of local urban sketchers. Yep, Davis is in there too! See below; there’s a photo of me sketching with Luke, and of course, some fire hydrants. It looks great!

The third section is called “Drawing Inspiration”, and is divided into several themes such as ‘skylines, cityscapes and perspectives’ (a beautiful panorama by Gerard Michel is in there, plus one of my absolute favourite sketches, Toledo by Luis Ruiz), ‘monuments, cars and urban furniture’ (check out the great Bay Area lamp-posts by Jana Bouc), and ‘cafes, restaurants and bars’ (my favourite bar-sketcher, Stephen Gardner, is featured in there). Believe me, there is a lot in this book, and it is all excellent and inspirational.

There is part of Gerard’s panorama above, with cityscapes by Stephen Gardner and Shiho Nakaza, using that brown-black uniball signo pen that I love so much (I ‘discovered’ its delights myself last year, but it was Shiho who actually first showed me the pen, at the Portland Symposium).

What I think I really like about this book is that I feel so familiar with most of the work, through following all these urban sketchers over the years. Some of them I was less familiar with and can now discover or rediscover without having to click here or scroll down there. The biggest pleasure though is that this is all work by a community of sketching friends, many of whom I have had the honour of sketching alongside and learning from in person. Every time I pick it up, I want to go and draw something. And I’m sure you will too! The thing about urban sketching is that it’s accessible to all, all you need is soemthing to draw with and something to draw on. Oh, and something to look at, of course, and what better thing to look at than the town or city where you live?

The Art of Urban Sketching is published globally on February 1st, so check out your local bookstore and see if they have it or can order it for you, or of course get it on Amazon (it’s currently #1 in their section on ‘painting’!). I’m on pages 30, 46-47, and 381.

Like ‘The Art of Urban Sketching’ on Facebook

say hello to my little friends

January 27, 20123 Comments

I’ve been drawing fire hydrants this week, ones I have not drawn before. The taller yellow one below was drawn at the end of last week’s sketchcrawl; the stumpy yellow one above is on the corner of 2nd and University. The other two are drawn on brown envelopes – I work with graduate applications, and recieve mail, transcripts, from all over the world (well, mostly China). I like to recycle the envelopes from time to time for some drawing, and well it’s that time of year. The one above was drawn on an envelope from Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in China, and is a hydrant from the UC Davis campus (they are white and blue). The one below is drawn on an envelope from Sri Lanka, and is found in the parking lot of Davis Commons. There are still one or two styles of hydrant in Davis that I’ve not yet drawn, I’m sure!

inside the walls of the old city hall

January 27, 2012January 27, 20123 Comments

You know the old City Hall building in Davis that I have sketched about a million times? This one here? Well I noticed the last time I sketched it that there was a sign outside saying ‘City Hall Tavern’, which was news to me. Apparently, this building (a wing of the restaurant Bistro 33, and the former police station among other things) has now been converted into a bar, so after the fun of last weekend’s sketchcrawl I popped by for a pint of Weihenstephaner. It’s very modern inside, dark walls and cycle-themed (there are rotating bike sheels all over the ceiling), and some sort of games room which was blocked by a curtain. It would be an interesting bar-room to sketch, though I only had time to do a quick one of the bar area itself. I’ll go back some time for a bigger sketch. It’s certainly an interesting use of this historic space.

Here are some previous outside drawings of the old City Hall building. It’s on F Street, near 3rd, Davis:

the (slightly scary) wheels on the bus

January 25, 2012January 25, 20121 Comment

Also from last Saturday’s sketchcrawl…after lunch at Crepeville I found that big yellow ex-schoolbus (if ever it was a schoolbus? I’m not so sure) that I have seen around Davis for ages. It was on C Street, and so I crouched nearby and put it in my Moleskine. As I was sketching, a lady walking by with her dog stopped and asked me if I was that guy who drew the picture of the Dairy Queen. Yep, I did!

This is a slightly peculiar bus. Obviously it’s privately owned, you’re not going to see it out picking up fares, and there is a Viking helmet in the front window. But look at the spikes on that wheel! They really are that big, like something out of Ben Hur or something.

Funnily enough, I think I have drawn this bus before. If it’s the one that used to be parked out near the PG&E plant just east of downtown Davis, then I have; here it is.