getting to where you should be going

July 29, 20112 Comments

The first few of a good many “travelling” sketches. The first above was sketched on the flight from Sacramento to Philadelphia. I must say US Airways were pretty good. The last time I flew with them (to Vegas in February) the plane was small and couldn’t carry the weight of all its passengers. The ones I took for these longer journeys on the other hand were modern and spacious, and more than capable of carrying a few extra big-macs. When I got to Philadelphia airport, I had more than five hours to occupy myself. There are only so many airport stores to look in and departure lounge seats to draw, so I took the train into downtown Philadelphia, a very grand East Coast city with nice yellow traffic lights and ornage fire hydrants (wait for the next post!).

Finally I left Philly, and got my plane back home across the Atlantic. I didn’t watch any of the offered movies, but I did play a few games of chess against the airplane computer. And beat it almost every time (except for one in which I did all I could to get a stalemate, and I got it – I aint losing to the back of a chair). Sleeping was a little more difficult. It always is. I can fall asleep on a five minute bus ride, and miss my stop, but put on a flight across the Atlantic and I’m like a Bizarro Rip van Winkle.

my thoughts are far away

July 29, 2011July 29, 20112 Comments

I am finally back from the 2nd International Urban Sketching Symposium in Lisbon, and the accompanying trip home to London, with a massive amount of sketches to scan and post. Where to begin? Well the obvious answer would be at the beginning, but I don’t know if I can be as linear as that, though I will try. So I’m starting in the middle somewhere. This sketch, drawn on “Day Zero” in Lisbon (the day before the Symposium, but halfway through the actual trip) is of the famous Torre Belem, one of the most recognisable landmarks in Lisbon, sat amidst the waters of the Tagus River. It dates back to the early 1500s. In the background is the 25 de Abril Bridge, which resembles a cross between the San Francisco Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge (the same people built the Bay Bridge as it happens). I had arrived in Lisbon that day after five rainy days in London, and the blue sky immediately made me feel more at home (I’m a Californian now, aren’t I).

I have so much scanning yet to do from this trip, it may take me a while! I completed a whole small red moleskine sketchbook, largely with people sketches and journal notes from the trip, and filled the majority of my watercolour moleskine. I met a lot of very cool people from countries all over the world, many of whom I had been following and admiring for several years. It was a busy schedule, for sure, and having twice the number of participants of last year’s symposium in Portland it felt a little overwhelming, but Lisbon blew me away – what an amazing city. Beautiful, colourful, historic, vibrant, yet relaxed, not overcrowded and hectic like London was. I want to go there again!

For now, here’s a photo of me sketching in Belem. This is a pose, as the drawing was just finished. I’m telling you it was a pose because I have since seen many photos and many drawings by other urban sketchers in Lisbon that show how I really look when I sketch – if you think I hold my pen in a funny way, you should see how I contort myself when I sit and sketch! I never noticed before. I’ll get around to posting everything very soon. In the meantime, please check out everyone else’s drawings and photos on the Urban Sketchers Lisbon Symposium Flickr Group.

I’m sketching all over the world

July 20, 2011Leave a comment

Sorry for the lack of posting… I’ve been in London sketching in the rain, and am now in Lisbon for the 2nd Urban Sketching Symposium! Sketches will be (and already are) coming thick and fast so stay tuned! Many thanks to those of you who helped me get here by buying dome of my drawings. Now I shall get some sleep, lots to learn in the morning!

the space between us

July 13, 20112 Comments

The Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at UC Davis, sketched from afar on the Old Davis Road. Pass by it every day, always wanted to sketch from this spot, beneath a shady tree at the other end of the vinyards, planted a couple of years ago or so. UC Davis is a leading institution for viticulture and enology. California has a lot of wine-growers. I like this sketch; it illustrates the colours of Davis, the local ‘palette’, and gives a nice sense of location – not just northern California in the middle of July when the grass is ochre and the sky is permanent blue, but my actual location while sketching it, sat distantly among the foliage.

Tomorrow my location will be even further away, as I’ll be flying off to England, and then to Portugal…

tomorrow never knows

July 12, 2011July 12, 20114 Comments

When it comes to packing for a trip you have to be strategic. Clothes, well that’s quite easy for me. I travel fairly light, I know what I like and there it is, I’m packed. I’ve been packed for days. Art materials, well that’s a different teapot of sardines. Even though I should have it down, I have to pore for ages over which pens to bring and which to leave behind, which pens still kinda work ok and which have worn down nibs but are good back-ups for the more intense cross-hatching of those trees I need to draw. My Winsor and Newton Cotman paints have been filled with all manner of possible colours for a while, but since drawing the above sketch – in my new small red moleskine, which is acting as a kind of journal / place for smaller quicker sketches for the upcoming London/Lisbon trip – I have added another paint to the set, Prussian Blue, because four blues just wasn’t enough. “You Never Know,” that seems to be the catchphrase. Just look at all the pens which made the final cut! That is mental, no truly it is mental. I am trying to cover all my bases, but I’m probably going to shave quite a few off this. Still, it is the 2nd International Urban Sketching Symposium, and when it comes to my sketching needs, You Never Know.

meet the new boss, same as the old boss

July 11, 2011July 11, 2011Leave a comment

I sketch this every six months, once in the winter, once in the summer. It’s been a routine since about 2007. Sometimes I do a lot of detail and it takes me a couple of lunchtimes, and other times I go quickly and do the lot in one fifty-minute sitting. Above is one of the latter. I did it last week using a green micron 02 pen and a black micron 05, colouring in watercolour as always.

To see the one I did in January, with all of the previous ones in the same post, have a look here.

bricks, guns, candy (and dollar bills on the ceiling of a bar)

July 11, 2011July 11, 20113 Comments

More from Jacksonville, southern Oregon. I sat beneath a shady tree and sketched the historic city hall. It is very peaceful around there, the chirruping of birds only broken by the families of visitors humming by on Segways. I sketched this with the uni-ball signo pen, and as I was about to add a tentative wash the pen said no, I will run. You can but but I can’t hide it. So it stayed black and white. You can colour it in if you like (just don’t use watercolours or sharpies on your monitor).

I had to draw this antique gun exchange. With all of the antlers and horns on the front of the shop, I wondered if it was really supposed to be a gnu exchange. You homo sapiens and your gnus. I also sketched a rather interesting candy dispenser, with glamourous looking shiny beads on it, in the window of a clothes store called La Boheme. It seems to fit nicely with the clothes I sketched before.

When I came here on the same day last year, I finished up the afternoon by sketching in the JVille Tavern, accompanied by a nice local beer (Ashland Amber Caldera). I setched this bar from the other side last year. This one was sketched quickly in my small red moley, and spattered with some paint afterwards to add an interesting effect. Those things inexplicably pinned to the ceiling are dollar bills, not butterflies.

hit the road, jack

July 10, 2011July 10, 20111 Comment

I had my bike with me in Oregon, so I cycled to Jacksonville. I went there on the same Sunday last year, and was retyrning to sketch the things I’d missed last time. It didn’t take long to cycle there, and it was a beautiful journey, much of the road running alongside a creek, with rolling hills, vinyards and even a snaowy peak popping out aboce it all. I had to stop at one point to sketch the view above, overlooking Jacksonville. As sson as I entered town, the sketching stool came out and I drew the First Presbyterian Church, a lovely wooden building which dates back to 1881.

And a fire hydrant; why not. More to come…

for now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring

July 9, 20111 Comment

Ashland in southern Oregon is famous (very famous) for it’s popular (very popular) Shakespeare Festival. This town is Bard friendly, and the British theme pops up here and there, such as in this pub, the Black Sheep. Set up a steep wide staircase off the main drag, this big pub serves fish and chips, beans on toast, and other such grub. They also have an old red phonebox; I think there are more red phoneboxes in American pubs than on English streets these days.

Ashland is a nice place. It was already a hot day and we went for a stroll through Lithia Park. While my son played at the playground, I sat by the heavy gushing creek and drew the sketch below. There were notices all around that on one morning the week before, a cougar had been spotted in that very park. That’s a mountain lion, not the other type of cougar. It gave tips on what to do if you see one – don’t turn around, make yourself look big, try not to make it laugh etc – and it reminded me that there are a lot of wild animals about in America. We’ve had mountain lion sightings in West Sacramento. Last week news reports told of coyotes in north Davis killing a cat. I saw a great big centipede in the bath once. Gotta be careful. Give me British beans on toast any day, much safer…

go tell it on the mountain

July 8, 2011July 8, 2011Leave a comment

Sketches in my little red moleskine (I like to carry a smaller book for these very quick more scribbly sketches now) on the trip up to Oregon last Friday. It’s a long hot journey, and we usually have to stop once or twice. One place we like to get out and stretch our legs is at the Weed Airport (yes, it’s really called Weed, and boy do they make a deal out of their mildly amusing name), beneath the most incredible mountain I’ve ever seen (perhaps even more so than Mont St. Victoire), Mount Shasta. It’s a hundred degrees on the first day of July, so it’s refreshing to see so much snow on the peak. Sketchbooks out. Of course, I now share my paints with my son, so he likes to get his own stamp on my sketchbook now. There is his version of the mountain and the sun and the plane just below there. Beside it, a windsock, you gotta draw the windsock.