between a rock and a hard place

November 16, 2009November 16, 2009Leave a comment

The Central Bar at the Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas. Stopped there first on my overnight trip to Sin City. Not much sinning going on, but lots of beer and some great Bavarian food at the Hofbrauhaus afterwards, and excellent company too. My idea to come here first, but then I remembered I’m actually off guitars at the moment. This bar kinda looks like the inside of the TARDIS. That pink light turned yellow from time to time, and then blue, sometimes green as well, though that may have just been through the bottom of the beer bottle. Those people there, playing video blackjack or whatever it was, at the bar. This was the only sketch I did in Vegas, I wasn’t there for long enough. Came back 24 hours later, much the wiser.

plane sailing

November 15, 2009Leave a comment

I took an overnighter to Vegas, to see my Best Man; last time we’d been there together was for my wedding. He plays poker there now, so I flew down for some chat and some beer. Having seen so many other urban sketchers drawing in the airport, on their various trips around the globe, I thought I’d finally get a sketch in (on this one occasion when I’m not chasing my nearly-two-year old son around the departure lounge; oh that will be fun on our trip to London). This is a Southwest plane at Sacramento airport (SMF).

it’s a bit complicated

November 10, 2009November 10, 20092 Comments

#1 in a series of 1. Most likely. Might be a story idea, or just random thoughts. This is the living room. By the way, if you do ride your bike around town at 4am, please remember your bike-light. I always do. It’s the law. It’s also annoying when a fellow cyclist comes hurtling towards you the wrong direction of the bike lane with no light on. You feel obliged to make some sort of self-righteous grunt or comment as you pass. But then, you don’t want to be That Cyclist, either.

stop, look, listen

November 8, 2009November 8, 20091 Comment

Think of a big STOP sign, and you will stop thinking about what you were thinking; if you need to, that is. Well I was listening to The Jam and sitting outisde Uncle Vito’s Pizza (not very good pizza, btw) in downtown Davis on a sunny Sunday afternoon in downtown Davis, at the corner of 2nd and E streets.

I was thinking about perspective. Incidentally this is just the other end of the block from this one I did about a month ago.

shoe business

November 6, 2009November 7, 20096 Comments

Having been drawing all of my son’s shoes, I felt it necessary to include all our family’s shoes. (All together now: “Once upon a time there were three shoes: Daddy shoe, Mommy Shoe and Baby Shoe…”) This is in fact the first page of moleskine #5 but I’ve been drawing it slowly.

In fact it’s not yet finished, as I intend to add a wash of colour to the shoes. I’ll post it when it’s complete, but I kinda liked it like this too.

I’m really getting into drawing shoes. What’s that proverb about walking a mile in another man’s shoes? Isn’t it something like, make sure they fit, and make sure he isn’t chasing you?

Mine is the adidas trainer, in case you were wondering.

every leaf speaks bliss to me

November 5, 20091 Comment

November in Davis means warm and cool sunny afternoons, with turning leaves and long, lazy shadows. Alright, what I’m saying is we have nicer weather than back home in London, where it rains and is cold. But now the clocks have gone back, it also gets dark earlier, so less time for sketching. I don’t really have the time anyway, so here is another one scrambled in during lunchtime yesterday. A building (I think it’s owned by Allstate) on the corner of 4th and D, with a tree outside it.

Oh, was it Guy Fawkes Night back in England? I had forgotten to remember.

nailing it down

November 2, 2009November 3, 20093 Comments

This place, ‘Nails by Tam’, is found on 3rd street in Davis, way down near L street (aka Linguistics Street, as per my street re-naming rules). This is the first drawing from Watercolour Moleskine #5. Actually that’s not true; this is the second, but I haven’t finished the first one yet, on page 1 (it’s of shoes, if you’re interested). But this is the first posted. I drew this yesterday on a quick cycle downtown. I had to draw some urban on Urban Sketcher’s first birthday. It was fairly warm and I had to chase the moving shade of a telegraph pole in order not to get sunburnt (haha, it’s November, folks back in England).

I have drawn this place before; it’s very sketchable. The last time was back in 2006, when I coloured it in watercolour pencil (see below). I think it’s nice to see how my style has evolved and improved over the past three years. But I do like the effect in the old one. nails by tam

a year of urban sketching

November 1, 20095 Comments

A year ago today, the Urban Sketchers super-blog was born, the brainchild of Spanish-born Seattle artist and journalist Gabi Campanario. Happy Birthday USk! We have grown into one of the increasingly popular destinations for those rediscovering their own artistic nature, a message that if you are disposed to record the world as little pictures in little books (as I am), you are P1010070 certainly not alone. There are hundreds, thousands, maybe one day millions of us. As one of the founding members (my San Francisco sketchbook was the first banner) I’ve been very proud and humbled to appear among some of the real luminaries of the sketching world, from whom I continue to learn every day. As the USk correspondent for Davis, California, today I posted my 100th post! A nice milestone to reach.

You can follow USk on Twitter, on Facebook and of course at the Flickr group. Here is the Birthday Press Release.

But Urban Sketchers is not resting. The next step is becoming a non-profit organization, “dedicated to promoting the artistic, storytelling and educational value of location drawing“, and raising money to award scholarships to help artists. This is very exciting. There may be a book. There may be annual international meet-ups of urban sketching artists – I had better start saving!

So now seems the perfect time to spread my message, inspired last night by Eddie Argos of Art Brut telling everyone to go home right now and form a band (and don’t play Rock Band and Guitar Hero) , I am telling you all to get a pen (or pencil), get a sketchbook (or any paper), go outside (or inside) and just DRAW. Draw anything, anything you want. Look out of your window, draw that. It doesn’t matter if it’s any good, it comes from you and that’s the important thing. I tried to draw at the gig last night and my sketches were rubbish, no really they were bad, but I’ll always think of where I was when I did them. It’s a record of where and who you are. One day, you might forget.

So just go out and DRAW! It really is brilliant fun.

day of the jack-a-lantern

October 31, 2009November 1, 2009Leave a comment

So, Happy Hallowe’en folks. I might be the only person in America who spells it with an apostrophe. That’s ok. This is the smaller of our two pumpkins, this is the baby one for my toddler son. He tries his best to say ‘Jack-a-Lantern’ but it comes out as ‘Gelarkajah!’ which is infinitely cuter.

So October is over. Not been my favourite October ever, but, you know. November begins tomorrow. I will not be attempting the NaNoWriMo novel writing challenge this year because it will be interrupted by a trip home to draw things in England. Shame because I have an idea for a story; maybe I’ll motivate myself to write it one day. Or maybe I’ll draw pumpkins.

circo sandal, again

October 29, 20094 Comments

#9 in the series of Luke’s Shoes. I’m back to drawing this series, which covers all of my son’s shoes since he started wearing shoes. These are the Circo blue and turquoise Sandals – I drew the other one back in August – which now at last he has stopped wearing. These were the favoured footwear all summer, had a good innings. But weather gets cooler, feet get bigger.

Drawn with Copic 0.1 and Micron 01, in a Moleskine cahier.