I would open the window, look out towards the tall trees of the park, smell the dewy morning air, listen to the birds, watch the streetlights slowly flicker off, one by one.
modern love walks on by
we need to talk
The 22nd of the You See, Davis series (see the rest here); this 24-pic davis-themed series will end soon, and has been a little slow in completing lately, but has so far gone from autumn to spring.
If you eat out in America, you may know this feeling. You’re in the middle of a sentence, when “So how is everything today?” inserts itself rudely across the table. You’ve just taken your second large bite of your roast chicken, when “would you like to see the dessert menu today?”. “Can I get you a refill on that?” after two sips of a diet coke. See that’s not good service, good service is knowing when not to butt in.
my baby don’t care for clothes
One of my art goals this year is to learn to draw baby. One particular baby. So far I’ve mostly drawn him asleep; only twice have I drawn him awake, both times from a photo. Above are the second attempts; the boy with his easter bunny. I drew in pencil and scanned before adding watercolour; still learning. I tell you what though: the top he’s wearing, I totally want that top in daddy size. It’s damn cool. Luke’s got some cool baby clothes. Of course, he quite likes to stain them.
every day is just like starting over
Welcome to the new petescully blog!
Well, petescully volume II. This is in all senses a continuation of the old blog at 20six, so expect the same again. I spent three years blogging at 20six, and now I’m here.
As way of introduction to this blog, my name is pete, I constantly sketch things around me, I write about some things, I am from north london but i live in california. I just became a father. Life is pretty bloody good; but being British, I can still find some things to complain about. I’m not a blogger who writes about all the petty things at work, or announces “I’ve just eaten mayonnaise” (46 comments), or reveals secrets learnt the night before in the pub. My personal remains so. I hope you enjoy what you find here.
For all 600 past entries, please visit :
from the pencil of young pete
I drew this 19 years ago, when I was just thirteen. 19 years ago!! The Berlin Wall was still up! Nelson Mandela was still in prison! George Bush was the new President of the USA!
I was digging through my old drawings from when I was a kid recently and thought I should share them with you. I remember drawing this (I still use the ‘mechanical’ eraser I used in this very drawing, there’s continuity for you!); I was a huge Beatles fan, and trawled the record stores and junk shops of London for old original LPs (plus a load of old albums my uncle gave me). Note how I’ve given Macca his real first name too.
I did another version of it at 16 (below left), in 1992, with stronger values and less chin, but I prefer the first one for its innocence. I was doing my GCSE art in ’92 and several of the other pictures below are from that time; below right is a watercolour copy of Cezanne that I did at 15 or 16, from a postcard picked up at the National Gallery – I used to go down to London most weekends to go to the galleries (and the record stores).
Ten years later I ended up living in Cezanne’s town of Aix-en-Provence, which is where I met my wife (and therefore how I ended up living in the US). Funny old world.
Below is another from 16-year old Pete in 1992, an unfinished one of Jesus from some other painting I can’t remember. An interesting choice for such an atheistic lad as I, but even though I’m A NonBeliever I know aestheticism sometimes trumps atheisim; years later I did a one-person art performance piece at university about being drunk on the underground, which ended up with me on a crucifix (supposed to be King’s Cross).
The pencil one below left is a pastorly Peter Cushing (looking more like the Crow Man), also from 1992. I seemed to have an easier time with light and dark values back then than I do now. It’s from one of my horror-movie books; I was really into old Hammer Horror films (I have another sketch of Christopher Lee too), and in 1992 I wrote and performed an eight-song musical called “Dracula AD 1992” (an homage to the 1972 Hammer movie), which included such classic songs as “This Motel’s Giving Me The Willies” and “Freshly Impaled Village Maidens”. Below right: a later picture, 1995, 19 years old and obsessed with oil pastels. Doesn’t look massively like me, but you get the idea. I didn’t wear glasses very often back then.
Originally posted at 20six.co.uk/petescully
don’t mention the torch
Let’s make it clear : the Olympic Torch is not actually important. It doesn’t matter if it goes out; mankind is sufficiently advanced to find a way to light it again. You don’t need heavy-handed sky-blue thugs (Seb Coe’s own words) to protect it from people venting their anger at the one-party-dictatorship in China and their brutal crackdown on Tibetan ‘separatists’. If you have to put it out and jump on a bus, it’s okay, you can admit it. The whole torch relay was started by the Nazis anyway. You can’t pretend that it was never political.
I’ll tell you what I think of when I see the Olympic torch (apart from the Aryan-supremacist iconography and the former symbol of the Tories) (and yes, apart from a Mr.Whippy). That bloody Chariots of Fire theme by Vangelis. And I’ll tell you what I think of when I think of that. An exchange trip to France I took at college, when I shared a room with a guy who listened to it on his headphones, after dark, when he thought I was asleep (I so wish I had been), and I could hear him busy doing the 15-centimetre sprint, tossing the caber, giving the bronze medal a good polish, slapping duncan goodhew on the head. And yelping, “putain! putain!”, as if I couldn’t hear him or something. I don’t know what he was thinking of, but I bet it wasn’t Nigel Havers.
originally posted at 20six.co.uk/petescully
still seeing davis
I bet you thought this series was over…well I said I’d make it to 24 and I will. This is number 21 of 24. I apologise for the hiatus; it was due to the recent writer’s strike.
Originally posted on 20six.co.uk/petescully
E – A – D – G – B – E
My guitar, the hohner acoustic i’ve had for eleven years now, bought at macari’s on charing crosss road in january 1997 when i worked at a chocolate shop on oxford street, been with me to several countries, now here in california. That orange plectrum attached to the strings there is the same one they gave me when i bought it, it’s still the only one i’ll use. The wood is matt, and browner than it looks here. I do have another fancier electric, but this is the one i grab the most. I played some soothing songs to my baby son today, he seems to like the sound and the shape of the guitar; one day, in the future, I will buy him his first guitar. He may even get this one. This wasn’t my first guitar, however; my first proper one that worked (not including the bad car-boot acoustics i had) was a westone electric that my brother gace me, I loved that guitar, though it’s clapped out now. I passed it on to my nephew just before moving to america. Boys and guitars, important allies.
(purple micron .01, w&n cotman watercolour, moleskine watercolour paper)
Originally posted at: 20six.co.uk/petescully
april is the cruellest month
Sketched today at lunchtime, while on my lunchbreak, after eating lunch. Orange flowers by the arboretum, uc davis; that i believe is the law school there, that building type thing like. They love lawyers in america. If you’re not a lawyer or a doctor, or maybe a cop, then you cant get into a tv show.
originally posted at 20six.co.uk/petescully
petescully 