the wheels on the bus go round and round

June 5, 2011June 5, 20112 Comments

Yesterday was Drawing Day 2011. I had intended to do a big complicated many-windowed much-detailed drawing, but never really made the time. I did draw my son’s toy bus though, while he was eating lunch. This is from London and he loves double-decker buses, which he calls “ducker-buckle-bus”. I love the side of the bus, “We Go Everywhere”. And apparently they do – From St.Pauls to the London Eye via Oxford Street and Madame Tussauds? That’s a roundabout route, for sure, but good for the tourists.

another one over…

June 4, 20111 Comment

The inside back cover of watercolour moleskine #7, these are just some of the materials used in this sketchbook.

So, Moleskine 7 started in December in London, with the first page being drawn in a blizzard. With the last page being at the end of May in Davis you might think it went from a blizzard to a heatwave, and in any other year it may have, but right now Davis is unseasonably cold, wet and windy.

You can see the whole sketchbook, from Dec 2010 to May 2011, on the Moleskine 7 flickr set.

when you see me walking down the street

June 3, 2011June 3, 20111 Comment

The last regular page, and chronologically the last drawing done in Watercolour Moleskine #7 – another sketchbook finished! This is the corner of 2nd and G Streets, downtown Davis. That’s Froggy’s there, a popular local bar (they do nice burgers, but the acoustics are horrible), and the Aggies’ barber shop (I have never gotten my hair cut there). I had to do the colour at home, because it started to rain while I was sketching. It was the last day of May. So far, June (normally a very warm and sunny month) has seen epic thunderstorms and tornado warnings. A funnel cloud was seen over Davis on Thursday, and Aubrey Huff hit three home runs yesterday and one the day before. Mad June!

So now I am ‘between sketchbooks’. Well, in reality I’m not, I have my WH Smith sketchbook which I love working in and several others not yet started, but I haven’t yet got my new watercolour Moleskine – number 8 – which are always the ‘main canon’. I want to pick up some more WH Smith books though when I’m back, if they still do the ones with the fabric cover and the long piece of string.

that old red barn

June 2, 2011June 1, 2011Leave a comment

I cycle past this barn in south Davis often; it’s just off the bike path, by Putah Creek winery. I have always like its colour and how the shadows hit it, so finally this weekend I cycled over and sketched it. I love the randomness of the windows, and almost ramshackleness of it’s structure.

take my car and drive real far, not concerned about the way we are

June 1, 2011May 31, 20113 Comments

At my wife’s nephew’s graduation party in the countryside outside Santa Rosa, there was a great old car in barn, a Volkswagen I believe, but a snazzy red sports car nonetheless. My son enjoyed playing in there (“mind your fingers, daddy!” he said as he closed the door), and I had my WH Smith sketchbook in my pocket, and could not resist a couple of quick sketches. I want to sketch more old cars. On the same day was the annual Peggy Sue vintage car even in Santa Rosa, but I missed that. Maybe next year!

phrasebook diplomacy

May 31, 2011May 31, 2011Leave a comment

While sketching this building, across from the Cancer Survivor Plaza in Santa Rosa, I listened to a Portuguese audio phrase book on my mp3 player, to learn some of the language. I think I learnt some, but kept thinking “Rui Costa”. I’ll get there, maybe. I grew up reading Berlitz phrase books, and it’s interesting to see how they have evolved, or not. The audio versions are especially fun, as they often switch between a British and an American accent with comic ease. The British accent is always very RP, as you’d expect, and you can almost see them quietly queuing and smiling politely while bristling on the inside. The one with the American accent, however, always seems to get the ‘complaining about the service’ phrases, the tone being that he really would like to enjoy this exotic foreign food but the waiters keep ignoring him, and there’s nowhere on this damn train to put my heavy luggage. I keep imagining the couple from that episode of Fawlty Towers.

It’s funny; in a way, after years of California I have become that guy from Fawlty Towers. My last visit to London, we had lunch at a pub by the Thames, near Tate Modern. It was ten past twelve, and my young niece wanted pancakes; the ones on the menu sounded scrumptious. Not possible, the young woman taking the order told me, as pancakes are a breakfast item and that ‘stops’ at twelve. There was nothing else that she wanted, and all the lunch items were very expensive. It was not busy there at all. Can we not have the pancakes anyway? “No.” No? Can you ask the chef? “Well, ok I’ll ask,” was the aggrieved response; obviously asking the chef anything was like trying to get audience with the Great Oz. She went and asked the chef. The chef said he could do it, but only for one person. One person! Well that’s a relief, good job it was only ten minutes after breakfast time, or that pancake mix and that pan would have magically vanished into thin air.

I must point out actually, credit goes to my Californian wife for helping resolve that one. My British customer attitude was actually prepared to back down at one point (what we British do best is go back to our table to moan, but do nothing about it). In the end, California prevailed and my niece got her pancakes, and they were very nice too. Next time though, I’ll ask for a Waldorf Salad and a Screwdriver.

this is gonna be messi

May 31, 2011May 31, 2011Leave a comment

That was a very good final. No honestly, it was – sure, the second half saw the far and away best team in the world close their grip on – oh my – the very mighty Manchester United like a crocodile and a kitten. But these were two great teams capable of greatness, but with one being really really good at keeping the ball. Almost like a chess player who doesn’t allow the opponent to start any sort of move by closing off every alleyway and keeping all knights on the rim (or at least those knights not all over the tabloid papers). When Rooney hit that magnificent equalizer, I thought it was game on, and the second half would be a titanic battle. The moral of the Titanic however is that the iceberg always wins, no matter how great the ship. Barcelona are the best team in the world and one of the best in history, and deservedly so – they haven’t been cobbled together last minute with a massive chequebook like a Man City or Chelsea, and you really get a sense that any of the players can do something unbelievable. That midfield team of Xavi and Iniesta will go down in the history books, we will tell our children about them, and then to top them off with the ever-brilliant Messi? In a season when Cristiano Ronaldo scored over fifty goals in a season, something not ever done before in Spain, Messi then did the same. Manchester United are the deserving champions of England and Ferguson rightly in place as perhaps the greatest British manager of all time, and it was nice to see him give a smile and congratulations to what is obviously a legendary team in Barcelona. I’ve never ever seen Manchester United have only 30% possession in any game. I remember the great final of 92 (I loved Barcelona back then but Sampdoria were my favourite Italian team too) when Koeman scored at the old Wembley, for their first ever European Cup (and a year after Man United beat them in the Cup Winners Cup final), the ‘Dream Team’, in that great orange away kit. In that team was Pep Guardiola, manager of the current Dream Team. With this final being at the new Wembley stadium, with fate involved there was only going to be one winner. I’m glad I watched it.

Now I’m in footy withdrawal – what will I do all summer? Watch the MLS??

it always leads me here, leads me to your door

May 29, 2011May 29, 20112 Comments

Finally, after an almost seven month wait, spread 12 of the Davis Moleskine is complete! 12 of 12 – this is the last page. Why I waited so long I’m not exactly sure, but here it is. This is Bizarro Comics, next to Chipotle on E Street. It is where Bogey’s Books used to be (so named, probably, because of the excessive abundance Davis has in allergy season). This is a three-page-spread, and I decided to just tail it off at the end because it gives the promise of more to come, but I assure you this is the last page. I’ll do another thing now, with colour. Soon maybe.

I’ll post the whole spread all in one continuous shot at some point, when I can figure out how to have it on screen within my blog, but scrollable side to side.

In the meantime, you can see all the other Davis Moleskine spreads here…

rain drops keep falling on my head

May 26, 2011May 26, 20111 Comment

I’ve cycled past this place on many occasions and finally stopped to skech. It’s unusual for such a shop to spell ‘quick’ correctly (as opposed to ‘kwik’ or similar), and say ‘market’ rather than ‘mart’, in fact to use ‘shop’ and ‘market’ together, but let’s not dwell on semantics. I sketched this while on my way to the library on a nice dry day when I didn’t get completely soaked.

Tuesday last week however, I did get completely soaked. I needed to go to the library to drop off some books which were overdue – I just had to go that evening, get out on the bike, maybe get another Portugal book, get home. It was a nice evening, cloudy, with golden rays of setting sun poking through the gaps (I’m not making this up, I even took a photo). For some insane reason, I forgot my ‘just-in-case, you-never-know’ rain jacket, AND my bike light. I obviously wasn’t thinking. While in the library, and having a conversation about art projects and displaying my work there in November, I could hear that rain had started to beat against the roof. Not beat, but slam down in torrents. The deluge had come. I hung out there, did a drawing on a postcard (they have some postcard exchange with a library in LA) while I waited, waited for the rain to disspiate (and presumably for the sun to come back out). I live a long way from the library.

It didn’t stop, but it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t go out in it. It’s only water, falling from the sky. We get loads of it in England. Cycling in it down bike lanes with little or no light was a challenge though. I had my flashing red back-light which is on my helmet, so that at least traffic behind could see me, but for the most part I walked – whenever I cycled I would invariably run into a large pile of wet leaves which people leave on the bike lane in the darkest possible spots (this is one reason a bike light is essential), and I know what sort of eight-legged baddies live in those piles. I passed by this place, not really having much need to buy six-packs of bud-light or large bags of doritos.

Eventually I reached Rite Aid (a store I can’t actually stand; it has such a wierd layout and they have never really codified their queuing system), where I was able to dry off a little and find an expensively-priced and cheaply-made bike light. At first it didn’t work, and it smelled of awful rubber. In the end though it came through, and helped me see my way home, and there are some really dark roads on the way to my house where cars tend to think nobody can see them speeding. I got in and had a cup of tea, and a hazelnut kit-kat. That was nice.

I was going to do some sort of drawing about that rainy journey home as part of this week’s Illustration Friday, whose them is ‘soaked’, but I’ve not had the time. I’ll wait until it rains again.

before the rose parade

May 24, 2011May 24, 20112 Comments

Sketching a parade is not easy. They always tend to move. So I’m not showing you the scribbles I made as the 117th Rose Parade, an annual event in Santa Rosa, California, marched by. We got downtown early, and found a good spot across from the library. My son loves marching bands, I mean really loves them, so this was a bonanza (quite literally; the theme was the Old West, and every band played the Bonanza theme tune at some point). The marching bands are all from local schools, mostly high schools but some young ones as well. My wife’s old schools were represented, though, she lamented, the marching bands just aint what they used to be. We spotted her young cousins marching with their school; we never had anything like this in England! All those uniforms and hats and trumpets and drums; ‘Band’ is a very American thing. I didn’t see many majorettes though, twirling batons. I did see dancing horses though. It was a Mexican troupe, I think, but the horses really did dance, it was amazing. Anyway, here is a sketch I did while we were waiting for the parade to begin. One thing about this parade, local businesses tend to throw candies and lollipops and other such goodies at the spectators. One even threw out packs of corn tortilla, which was nice – I grabbed some of that. Note to self – remember that you don’t actually like corn tortilla all that much, and remember next time that the smell of corn tortilla will stay in your bag for days, including all over your sketchbook. You live and you learn. Anyway it was a fun morning, and after sitting out in the sun, it was time for a nap.