if there’s a bright centre to the universe…

September 13, 2011September 15, 2011Leave a comment

Last weekend, we went on a family trip to the ballgame. It was both mine and my son’s first San Francisco Giants game, though my wife and her mom (big Giants fans) had been earlier in the season, when things had been going a little better for the Giants. This game however was crucial – playing the Arizona Diamondbacks, who were leading in the division, and being several games behind we really needed to win. But that didn’t matter – it was Star Wars day, and the Force would be with us!

Which side of the force was less clear. Stormtroopers escorted the umpires out, mascot Lou Seal dressed as a jedi and waved about a lightsabre, and the opening crawl on the big screen set the scene, hoping that the Giants would beat Arizona and ‘restore freedom to the galaxy’. I love Star Wars, so I loved all this. And maxibig-da-force – the first pitch to the Giants resulted in a home run straight away from Cody Ross, and the ballpark went wild. AT&T Park is a great place. Set right by San Francisco Bay, it’s one of the great stadia of the world. Behind the seat, in the ‘breezeway’ (I think I have my terminology correct, my reference is a Curious George book) are rows and rows of beverage stands and souvenir shops and beer and garlic fries and t-shirts and TVs showing the action.

"imperial troops have entered the base! imperial troops have ---"

My three year old son is a big baseball fan, though we’re on about the same page in our understanding of all the terms. It’s a simple enough game, someone throws the ball and you hit it and run, complicated by all the subtleties and statistics and terms. There’s a lot of standing around and not-much-happening, but to the baseball fan it’s tense stuff, and while there’s ample time to get up and walk around and get your garlic fries, you really don’t want to miss that three-run-homer or that spectacular catch. It’s typical to compare a big sport to the big sport you follow, but baseball is a completely different type of game to football (and I know little enough about cricket, though I kept calling the pitcher the ‘bowler’, and shouting ‘howzat!’ every time someone caught the ball). No comparison there may be to footy, but being a Giants fan is a lot like being a Spurs fan. Last year we were World Series champions/beating both Inter and AC Milan, this year we’re losing by baseball scores. It’s a frustrating life, made more so by success.

There’s my son Luke above left, and my brother in law Kris on the right, the biggest Giants fan I know. He in fact took me to my only other baseball game, at the Oakland A’s, back in 2002, the first time I came to America and the first time I tasted garlic fries. I wore a Spurs shirt that day, but here I wore a Giants top. I did however spot a guy in an Arsenal shirt (he stood out a bit); after the previous week’s 8-2 drubbing by Man United, baseball scores probably felt a little light to him. Hey, you can’t let an 8-2 Arsenal defeat go without comment, can you? (And after Spurs lost 5-1 to Man City, it was pretty much the only thing that could cheer me up!)

first page of moleskine #9 under way... top of the ninth, you might say

Decorating the breezeway walls were framed examples of old Giants kits. As a football kit fan I’m hugely excited by baseball jerseys, since they are so classic, and (usually) so unchanging. This one is from the early 60s, and the differences to today’s tops are very subtle. This aspect of the sport adds to its classic Americana feel. Baseball loves its heritage, and the Giants especially, with statues of its great players dotted around the area. Below is Willie McCovey, beside McCovey Cove, where many home runs do splash (it’s not like Henman Hill). I can’t pretend to know much about these guys, but I will say this – what an amazing view, with the Bay Bridge in the background, and baseball players really do look like lightsabre-wielding Jedi, don’t they?

The Force alas was not with us. The Arizona D-Backs (seriously, the fans sing that?) won the game, and will probably win the division. As Vader might say, “NOOOOOO!!!!!” (and don’t EVEN get me started there…) But we had a great day out, and Luke ran the bases after the game, and I got some nice sketching in, and it was a great family day out, so in a way we did win, from a certain point of view.

delta skelter

September 10, 20115 Comments

I have drawn this place before recently, the Delta of Venus in Davis, but this time I drew it bigger and with a fire hydrant in front of it. I sat behind said hydrant across the street in the shade. Another in my series of slightly larger Davis scenes on loose watercolour sheets.

let’s draw uc davis

September 10, 20111 Comment

Next week, it’s time for another sketchcrawl in Davis! This time on the UC Davis campus, which will be starting to bustle with the incoming new students.

START: 10:30am, Memorial Union bus terminal (by the red phonebox)

FINISH: 3:00pm, at the Eggheads near the Art Building

As always, this is free and everyone is welcome, all ages/levels. All you need is something to draw with and something to draw on!

For more info leave a comment below or visit our Facebook event page.

See you there!

god save the queen

September 10, 2011September 10, 20114 Comments

How long have I wanted to draw this building? How many times have I got off the bus outside over the years and said, must sketch that one day? I have drawn the sign, and a fire hydrant nearby, but never the building. I’ve even ended a sketchcrawl there. Last Saturday however I finally went and drew the place, Dairy Queen on 5th Street in Davis. It’s classic Americana. The sign isn’t a modern ‘DQ’, the building isn’t all late-2000s strip-mall fakery, and the food is just what you expect (at least I expect it is, I only had a slurpee type drink, and I don’t eat hamburgers). I learned a funny thing, apparently in other states the Dairy Queens close up in wintertime, because nobody eats ice-cream when it’s snowy, while in California they stay open, because we’re the sunshine state. No, hang on that’s Florida, we’re the golden state. I don’t know if it’s true or not. Either way, these are the sorts of places I like to draw, thought obviously it takes me years to actually do so.

pence gallery art auction 2011

September 9, 20111 Comment

Tomorrow (Saturday September 10) is the date of the Pence Gallery’s 2011 Art Auction, in which the work of about 140 artists is on display for sale in the auction. the silent auction has been going for the past couple of weeks, and I was finally able to get over there myself yesterday to check it out. There is some amazing work there! The silent auction is still on until 5pm on saturday, and then in the evening the live auction and gala event will take place, with local food, drink and music, as well of course as the art. Tickets are available on the Pence Gallery website.

The piece I have is above, called “Arboretum Bridge” because it is a bridge in the Arboretum, imaginitively enough. A very Davis piece. If you fancy bidding for it, why not head to the Pence?

(Incidentally, I have an upcoming show at the Pence this December…)

once upon a time…

September 8, 2011September 8, 20113 Comments

It looks a bit like something you’d come across in a fairy-tale forest. This funny looking building is on G St in Davis, and it’s hard to believe I’ve never drawn it before, not from the front anyway. It could be straight out of Hansel and Gretel or something. I drew it one lunchtime last week, finishing off the colour at home. On the way home I left breadcrumbs so that I might find my way back. Always thought that was a bit silly, leaving a breadcrumb trail in a forest where 1) there are birds and mice and other animals who will eat the bread, 2) there are big bad wolves who colud follow the trail to find you, and 3) you’re in a forest with no food except bread, which you’re throwing all over the floor. Sure, there may be a cottage nearby made out of cadbury’s chocolate fingers or a family of bears who cook their porridge at three different temparatures and then decide to go for a walk (Goldilocks, it’s a sting, don’t fall for it girl!). Fairy tales are funny things. When I tell them to my son at bedtime, we always end with “and they all lived happily ever after,” followed by “except for the big bad wolf who had no head,” or “except for the poor giant who was fell from the falling beanstalk and couldn’t get back to his castle, and was left with nowhere to live.”

I think these are offices of some sort. There aren’t any wolves-in-granny’s-clothing here, nor amateur-architect-swine. Safely in the realm of the real world.

she may not look like much but she’s got it where it counts, kid

September 7, 2011September 7, 20113 Comments

I had wanted to draw this train engine, moored on the railroads near the Co-Op, during the last Davis sketchcrawl but it was not there. I went back a week later and there she was. I drew an engine like this (in brown pen on cream paper) as part of my Davis Moleskine (it may have been the same engine, I’m no trainspotter) but really wanted to show its bright, patriotic colours. I sat in the shade and sketched with my uniball signo un-151 pen, which actually does take a wash pretty well, but more importantly it draws like a dream.

Drawn on Strathmore hot press paper. Including colour (added later) it took about two hours, mostly in the on-site drawing. There is the penwork below.

cannery row in monterey in california

September 6, 20111 Comment

Cannery Row in Monterey is an interesting place to sketch, and I’ve had my eye on this building above for a few years now. This ramshackle former gallery sits right on the waterfront, grizzling in the Ocean fog, timbers presumably shivering. I got out one afternoon while other family members tried to take an afternoon nap (not an easy task given the noise of seagulls and traffic), and sketched down Cannery Row.

This end is closer to the Aquarium, and is a tourist-trap mecca. Signs everywhere offer quotes from Steinbeck to people who go, ah yeah, must read that book some day, get an idea of what it was like, and then never read it, because they don’t really need to know what it was like beyond what the signs in the street tell them (that would be me, then). I can imagine the smell and the noise and the seagulls following trawlers because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea, and I can say it probably isn’t too different from today, except the smell is more likely to be chipotle grilled popcorn or something. Still it’s fun, and not quite as trashy as Monterey Fisherman’s Wharf pier (popular with pelicans and parolees on the day I went there). I’ll keep going back.

Finally, of course, a fire hydrant. While sketching this, a group of young men stopped to look at my sketchbook, and one of them, a black lad decked out in hip-hop gear, was so impressed he said, “Man, you got a motherf*#*#r’s details, man!” I cracked up; that was hands down the best compliment I’ve ever received. Especially for drawing a fire hydrant! And so, I went and met the family for a cold ice cream and a hot brownie. I do love Monterey. We go there every year.

and i swear it is a new day

September 3, 20113 Comments

Old City Hall, yet again. Hot weather is still the name of the game in Davis, though summer is cresting. This was drawn on the last day of August. That’s always a strange time. As a kid it meant summer would soon come to an abrupt end, and school would begin. Now I work for a university in a university town, and though I work all summer it still feels like the days are counting down to when the great hordes will arrive. There are a lot of students here in the summer, with summer classes being so popular nowadays, but in a few weeks it will be Fall and the craziness begins. New students, returning students, returning faculty, bikes and new cyclists everywhere…

Drawn on Strathmore 8 x 10 inch hot press watercolour paper, with the uni-ball signo um-151 which, I am pleased to report, did pretty bloody well with the watercolour wash!

varsity blues

September 2, 20111 Comment

The Varsity Theatre in Davis, drawn last Friday evening after work. I had considered finishing this at home with some additional colour, but I got back and realised I quite like it like this. This place shows a lot of art-house and independent movies, though I’ve only been to see a film there the once (An Inconvenient Truth back in 2006). In fact it only reopened back in 2006 (I was working at the bookstore acros the street the day it opened), but the building dates back to 1950. It makes this place feel very ‘Hill Valley’; I fully expect that it will be showing Jaws 19 with a holographic shark some time in the next four years (but only if Jaws 19 is considered art-house, which is unlikely. More likely we’ll see a Jaws reboot before then – you heard it here first!). People always have great memories of cinemas. For me they are like Tardises, you step inside and suddenly space and time mean nothing, I can never fathom how so many big screens fit into what look like fairly smallish buildings. They are full of memories too; sweeping movie moments, first (or last) dates, that smell of popcorn. This place is no different, is a beloved Davis part of the Davis community. I should know, I’ve drawn it enough times.