Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl reports – Oct 2019 – Feb 2020

April 4, 2020April 5, 2020Leave a comment

Let's Draw Davis! Feb 29 2020

Because I was so lax in my posting (“lax” is another word for “lazy”, but my excuse was I had lots of books resting on my scanner and if I moved them the cat would jump up there and wow is that the time, gotta go) I never got around to showing the results of the recent “Let’s Draw Davis” sketchcrawls, those in October, November and December 2019, as well as February 2020 (we missed out January because I was very busy coaching soccer, and right now with the planet on hold, I’m not doing so much of that). So, now is a good time to report on the sketchcrawls. By the way, “Let’s Draw Davis is a series of sketchcrawls – meet-ups for those who want to sketch with other sketchers and then show each other their sketchbooks at the end – that I started back in 2010 after I came back from the first Urban Sketching Symposium. I had been on sketchcrawls in Davis before – the very first time was way back in December 2005, one of the early Worldwide Sketchcrawls (Enrico Casarosa’s ones, they are still going every three months), and I joined in a few other times since, but I decided that we as a town really needed to have something more often, monthly, advertised, free and open to anyone at all who likes sketching (as the worldwide sketchcrawls always are), non-judgemental, non-critiquey, beginners or experts just getting out and seeing their town and putting it in sketchbooks, and then if other people see you doing it, they might be inclined to join in. Being monthly means that if you miss one another comes along next month. except, sometimes it is difficult to organize them, so there are now a few others who help with the organization, and we have a really good group of regulars (including of course Alison and Allan who were sketching with me even back in that early ‘crawl of 2005, and inspired me to keep sketching Davis). There have been a lot of sketchcrawls over the years, most of the same locations repeated, I’ve made a lot of posters (and stickers and occasionally maps), and also made many sketching friends. Perhaps my favourite event was the 2017 Davis Centenary sketchcrawl, when we drew buildings that were all 100 years older or more. Let’s Draw Davis (I came up with that as a name while furiously scribbling notes on the flight back from the Portland Symposium, full of energy and ideas, finally deciding that to needed to ‘get myself out there’ in the art world of Davis rather than always hiding away, actually meet other artists and learn about their work, and it’s been for me personally a great success on that point). From there I did a sketchcrawl in London to mark the launch of the new Urban Sketchers (USk) London chapter there in 2012, called “Let’s Draw London” (I really like alliteration; this one kicked off the “Let’s Draw London” sketchcrawls that have continued ever since). I have long thought about doing a monthly sketchcrawl in Sacramento called either “Let’s Sketch Sacramento” or “Sacramento Sketch Saturday”, and if we ever get the Earth back to normal I still plan on doing that. Oh I have lots of plans for all sorts of themed sketching events.

BUT ANYWAY… the recent Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawls!

OCTOBER 2019: OLD EAST DAVIS

Ok we will start with the one in October. This one was in Old East Davis, which is the the few blocks east of G St downtown. It’s an old neighbourhood, with some interesting houses (such as the Schmeiser House – aka the Swastika House because of the big turn-of-the-century swastika in the brickwork on the chimney). We met at the Amtrak Station, did a bit of sketching around there, and then went off from there. I enjoyed talking to people about perspective, giving a few pointers here and there, but then I wandered off and drew a few things, starting with the ‘Davis Tower’ opposite the main Amtrak station building.

I then went along 3rd Street, opposite the Trackside Center which has been threatened with redevelopment for a while now, but it doesn’t seem to be happening just yet. This is the entrance to the Cable Car Wash.

And this is the long-term favourite subject of mine, Nails By Tam. Now I drew this originally back in 2006 with coloured pencils, before I even started using watercolours to colour in my sketches, and I’ve also drawn it when it was in a different location, but it seems to be back here now. It’s a little out of the way, I sued to cycle past it on my way home years ago, so it reminds me of the first half of my Davis existence, I felt a lot younger then.

Then we all met up again at the Amtrak station…

LDD Oct 2019 photo

NOVEMBER 2019: FIFTH STREET

For November we met at the corner of Central Park for a sketchcrawl along Fifth Street. The annual Turkey Trot race had just packed up nearby – I ran in that race by the way, I did the 5k! I am really into running now – and I had my new iPad, so was able to do a quick demo of how that works, showing a video of a sketch I did on a trip to Portland the weekend before. But I love my pen and paper, so my main sketch that day was the corner of 5th and B (actually this stretch of road is where 5th stops and becomes Russell). Highly autumnal (or fallumnal as I think they say over here):

Then i turned the other direction and drew with the iPad. I never quite finished it off (I could have done later but I never had the time) but it was fun to do this and show people how the iPad works for this sort of thing. I’m very much still learning though.

And we met up right there afterwards – Marlene Lee took these photos, you can see more at the FB page: https://www.facebook.com/LetsDrawDavis/

DECEMBER 2019 – E STREET PLAZA

For the festive crawl we went back downtown to the big Christmas Tree on the E Street Plaza. For this I also used the iPad, sketching in ProCreate. I have drawn the tree that is put up here a few times, even though I always say “last time! I don’t like drawing Christmas trees!” But actually it turns out I do, especially when I have a new toy that makes drawing the lights and baubles so much easier. I was still getting the hang of colouring in but I like that you can do the sky in a different layer and make the clouds look all fluffy. Also you can zoom in to draw smaller details. Merry Christmas folks, several months late!

In the window of the Avid Reader Active store was a large well-dressed Santa Claus.

I went to draw Zia’s deli, though I never got around to finishing it so it stays like this. I wasn’t feeling that energetic that day (I had just gotten over a cold I caught in England a couple of weeks before – these days I’d need to quarantine myself for ages if I felt like that again) so after standing for over an hour sketching a Christmas Tree I had little zap left, so I rested and went inside to look at pannetone. I love a bit of Italian pannetone at Christmas. Then to finish off the day I sketched the glorious orange trees near the Union Bank.

Here are some of us who finished off the crawl, this is Jim Coulter, Allan Hollander and me with my iPad (this is another pic by Marlene Lee from the FB page).

LDD Dec 2019 photo

FEBRUARY 2020 – ORANGE COURT

And so bringing us into the Present Day. Present Day? February 29th was just over a month ago, but if that wasn’t the longest month in the history of months I don’t know what is. March 2020 was a bit crap, but we closed out February with a lovely sketchcrawl down at Orange Court, one of my favourite spots in Davis (because it’s where you find Sophia’s Thai Kitchen, my favourite food in Davis). We had a good turnout, and as it turned out, this would be the last bit of social gathering for a while.

LDD Feb 2020 photo

We were supposed to have a sketchcrawl in March at the UC Davis Arboretum, but that got cancelled, along with everything else everywhere. We now live in Shelter In Place world, with no end in sight, so perhaps the next Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawls will be virtual. In fact, I’m going to look at my calendar (yeeeeep, seems to be free) and schedule one soon. It’ll just be drawing the view from your window or something but hey, that’s something. Ok, I’ll announce that soon.

In the meantime you might want to check out the Let’s Draw Davis FB page at: https://www.facebook.com/LetsDrawDavis/, where we announce all our sketchcrawls and such, as well as the public group page where people can post their own sketches of Davis or results from the sketchcrawls: https://www.facebook.com/groups/LetsDrawDavis/

Phew, that was a long post! The next one will be shorter, and then there will be another long one, and that one will have more of the silly nonsense like in the one about 1980s/90s British kids TV shows, but will probably be about X-Men or ramen noodles or something.

Time Bandits on a Saturday Afternoon

April 2, 2020April 2, 20207 Comments

I was Drawing the Living Room before it was cool.
This was done back in early November, shortly after I got my new iPad Air and Apple Pencil, and I was trying out ProCreate for one of the first times.It was a Saturday afternoon, and staying in on a Saturday afternoon (after a busy Fall Season of Soccer) felt like such a luxury. I put Time Bandits on, got out the iPad, and sketched away. Time Bandits is one of my favourite films, ever since I was a kid and would watch it all the time. I didn’t exactly get John Cleese’s Robin Hood down (or even looking human) but I think I nailed David Rappaport’s Randall. I really like sketching with the Apple Pencil, though it was an odd sensation on such a smooth surface at first, I really find I enjoy it more than with the Surface Pro’s pen for example. I love it for note taking as well, one of the great things about that is that you can spend the whole meeting scribbling football shirts and Magneto or just random patterns, and then just erase them quickly when someone looks over their elbow at you, or if you need more room for the real notes. I cannot stop actually using a pen in any way, that has been my way since I was a kid. Constantly scribbling on stuff. When I’m on the phone I draw the most detailed nonsense. So, one of the other interesting things about sketching with ProCreate is that you can use layers, so you can do the linework on one, colours on another, maybe a layer of warm airbrushes, and they all go together, it’s a different way of sketching, and I love it. I want to play with it more (and I have been).

Time Bandits though, Time Bandits always makes me happy. Right now I’d love a Time Hole Map.

playing catch up

April 1, 2020April 1, 20203 Comments

And so it is April. I pity the Fools. No seriously this year is not the year for that, read the room folks, read the planet-sized room. Well I’m still at home and sat at the desk, so let’s plod through the rest of 2019’s many many sketches. It was my most sketchingest year yet. 2020 is pretty sketchful as well, though I’ve barely started scanning. I have decided that I bunch the rest of the 2019 sketches together thematically, such as those on campus, those from downtown, those from sketchcrawls, those from trips I took (Portland, London, Hawaii), iPad sketches (I only started iPad sketching in the autumn, I’ve posted some already). So to get us going, here are the sketches I did on the UC Davis campus (or just around it) in the second half of last year. These encompass a lot of lunchtime sketches, in the usual places I have sketched before. Above is Hart Hall, which is not (as I have pointed out to you before) names after Tony Hart. Not everything is named after Tony Hart! Hartbeat was, but Heartbeat (with “Every Loser Wins” singer Nick Berry) is not. Take Hart was named after him, but Hart To Hart (with Bobby Wagner and Steffi Powers) was not. Similarly the body parts called the “toe”, the “knee” and the “heart” were not named after him, nor was he named after them. Same goes for RC Willey. Ok so now that completely necessary explanation is out of the way, this is one of my favourite buildings on campus to sketch, but it does I admit always make me think of Tony Hart. I wonder what he did with all those pictures that kids would submit to The Gallery? It’s why I never sent anything in to him. I used to imagine that maybe he ate them in some sort of ritual to steal their essence, though I can’t connect that theory to why Mr Bennett kept getting his foot stuck in a bucket. Look I used to watch that show a lot when I was a kid alright.

The UC Davis Bike Barn, drawn many times by my hand. Oh by the way the Bike Barn is NOT named after that other British TV show for teens, Byker Grove. It’s not even spelled the same. However if you should look it up on YouTubem you;ll get the Byker Grove theme tune stuck in your head, and every time you walk past the Bike Barn you will start singing it to yourself. I do anyway. Don’t tell anyone.

Here is Freeborn Hall (on the right), which is actually scheduled to be torn down at some point, if they ever get round to it. It’s pretty historic. Bob Marley played there. I was saw one of my favourite bands Art Brut play there, but this was not a good venue. That’s ART Brut, not HART Brut. Though they might be named after Tony ‘Art, I’ll have to check. They are nor named after Brut after shave, nor are they named after British kids TV show Art Attack, hosted by youthful Mersey matey Neil Buchanan. Neily B was the younger brighter more “1990” Tony Hart, though Neily was really really small (like Morph) and would present his shows among normal sized paintbrushes and felt-tip-pens which looked gigantic. It was probably just a trick of perspective thinking back on it. Anyway this is Freeborn Hall and it’s scheduled for destruction. I mean demolition.

This is Robbins Hall, not far from Hart Hall, just on the other side. It is not named after Robin Hood, though I can see why you might have thought that. Speaking of Robin Hood do you remember that old British kids TV show from the early 90s “Maid Marian And Her Merry Men”? That was a fun show, it had Cat from Red Dwarf in it, and Baldrick from Black Adder as the Sheriff of Nottingham, several other people. Maid Marian was the brassy main character while the Robin Hood character was some wimpy yuppie. Elmo from Brush Strokes was in it too. It was much beloved. I liked all that sort of Robin Hood stuff back then, especially the more silly stuff with music. I even liked the really silly Kevin Costner version with Alan Rickman playing Baldrick’s character from Maid Marian, even though it came packaged with that Adam Bryans song that was number 1 for fifteen years, “Everything I Do (But I Won’t Do That)”. I liked that stuff so much that for a school drama project I wrote and performed a short four-song musical called, imaginatively, “Robin Hood” (I didn’t believe in silly humourous subtitles, I wanted it to be taken seriously ok), with the highlight song being called “Don’t Fuck With Me I’m Robin Hood” (which was actually based on a dream my friend Terry had, although later he told me that he had made that up). Anyway, Robbins Hall is the sketch above.

Ok above is the Silo which has been under a lot of refurbishment for a very long time now. Outside they usually have a truck for Peet’s Coffee. Peet’s is a chain of coffee shops here in the US, and I made them change their name to Peet’s because Pete doesn’t drink coffee, he drinks Tea. Speaking of Tea, did you ever watch that show T-Bag? It was another British kids TV show from the late 80s or so. All of these references are like 30 years old. That particular show was a bit mental, I never really liked it much. There was one kid called T-Shirt, he used to creep me out a bit, a bit too “TV kid”. The witch was funny. I liked the shows with witches in it. Grotbags (from Rod, Hull and Emu); Rentaghost, they had a witch in it I think; erm, Wizbit, Paul Daniels is in that and he did magic; yep, all the witches, I liked witches. Anyway folks, this is the Silo. Sometimes I come here for a sand-witch.

This is also at the Silo, one of many food trucks that park here. This is one of the food trucks they decided was a good idea to park right in the way making it conveniently harder for people top walk past. It does BBQ which stands for Beef, Bacon and Queues. I don’t eat meat like that so I don’t know if it’s any good by it does smell nice so I sketched it and breathed in the meaty aroma. Hey speaking of food, do you remember the old British TV cartoon called the Poddington Peas? It’s another one that had an incredible catchy theme tune. “Down at the Bottom of the Garden, with all the Birds and the Beas, a Little Lotta Little People, they’re called the Poddington Peas…” You remember that surely. I must admit I didn’t really watch it, I just liked the theme tune. The great thing about living in the 21st century now though is that rather than simply remembering all these theme tunes to impress people with later (and I know Americans who have never heard of any of these things are genuinely impressed, or at least an impression was genuinely made), you can just YouTube them to find them. I didn’t watch shows like ‘Raggy Dolls’ or ‘Rosie and Jim’ but I remember their theme tunes vividly, so I think either my sister or my nephew watched them.

This here is the Tri-Co-Ops building on the UC Davis campus. I especially like the blue piano sat outside. I always think to myself, if Yoda were here he would name this the “Do-Co-Ops”. That blue piano reminds me of, for some reason, Rod Jane and Freddy. They were the musical trio from Rainbow, popular 1980s kids TV show, the one with Zippy and Geoffrey and co. It’s actually Rod, Jane and Freddy, not ‘Rod Jane’ and his friend ‘Freddy’, though if I ever become a country and western singer I would take ‘Rod Jane’ as my stage name. Commas are important. I wonder how many other acts have been betrayed by their lack of comma? ‘Son, Knee and Cher’ for example, or ‘Bat, Man and Robin’, or the other Byker Grove musical three-piece, ‘P, J and Duncan’, who mysteriously killed off one of their members when they transitioned to ‘Ant and Dec’ I’m thinking that maybe Ant ate J, or maybe J is buried under Dec’s deck. Anyway this is the Tri-Co-Ops house, or the Tri, Co and Ops House if you will.

And finally just on the edge of campus is the frat house of Theta Xi. No not ‘The Taxi’. Although it does look like it just says “OX”. Which naturally reminds me…ok this show wasn’t British I don’t think but it was on kids TV in England during that same time period, “Ox Tales”, starring Ollie the Ox. It was Dutch/Japanese I think. Ox Tales was a hilarious show I genuinely used to watch and love, and the theme tune is truly one of the greatest of all time. They should have called him Ollie the GOAT. Anyway, not including the Walker Hall series, these are my sketches from campus (or campus-adjacent) in the second half of 2019, plus a whole bunch of silly half-baked memories of 30-year-old British kids TV shows I didn’t even watch that much. I blame social distancing.

band of coyotes at shine

March 30, 2020March 30, 2020Leave a comment

And now a look back at the distant past when we could go to things like parties and gigs. Not that I ever go to any such things anyway so it’s not something I’m really missing. However I wanted to show you this sketch I did back in September when I was in Sacramento with my wife, at her father’s party in midtown, the one he holds each year to celebrate when he moved to the area. (He is generally a bit more social than me!). It was held at a cafe bar called Shine, and he had a couple of bands come to play at the party, one of which was called Band of Coyotes, and those are the ones I sketched. They were very good. I really enjoyed drawing this though and it was probably my favourite drawing in that particular sketchbook, because I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but I just drew anyway, starting in the middle and working my way outwards. I added paint in a very let’s-see-what-happens fashion too, not having great light to really see the colour, and I loved the multicoloured outcome, going from warm in the middle and cooling off outwards. I put on a lot of washes, so many that it actually went through the thin Seawhite of Brighton page, I didn’t mind. It’s always more pleasant to draw when you have good music to draw to, no doubt. A lot of the time I wouldn’t want to draw musicians, they might turn out to be pretty bad, or maybe they themselves are kinda nobs, and you don’t want to draw those, but this band were very good, and I think that comes across in my enjoyment of sketching. Oh man, I want the world to go back to normal, and I can go and draw everything again.

Home sweet home sweet home

March 29, 202015 Comments

The confinement continues. I don’t watch the news, not as much as I should, but I watch the numbers, and the numbers aren’t looking great. So I sketch. I’m really drawing this house a lot. It’s relaxing to sketch. Above, the view from the couch. We were watching Spider-Man Homecoming, which is one of our favourite films. We had just watch the original Tron movie from 1982, which I had never seen before, and I must admit I wish I had not seen yesterday either. It was not just the early 1980s slow computer generated scenery, surely technically advanced for the day (though even as a kid, I remember it looked naff and didn’t really want to see it), but the uninteresting story and barely perceptible storytelling. The only thing I enjoyed about it was that the bad guy was played by Evil from Time Bandits, David Warner, whose voice I could listen to for hours. He actually played two characters, a human bad guy who looked like Arsene Wenger, and an computer-game bad guy dressed like a cybernetic prawn. Other than that the movie was just bats, and gave me a headache. So watching Spider-Man afterwards was much more of a palette cleanser.

Above, this is my desk area. Working from home, this is where I sit. I’m there right now too. I’m here a lot. This was another late evening sketch, drawn from the dinner table. On the screen are the latest coronavirus numbers. Even though this was only a few days ago the numbers are so much worse; we are no closer to flattening this curve. Not going to lie, I’m very much not enjoying this whole timeline. And like you all, I’m snacking way more while at home, so there’s another curve I won’t flatten. I haven’t been for a run for a few days, mostly because I am staying up too late (sketching, and worrying) and feeling too tired next day. I keep saying to myself, I’ll go to bed earlier, I’ll get up early, run before breakfast, energy and positive for the day. But I find it’s harder than I think.

Here is the other view from the couch, looking at the desk and the table behind it. That box of tissues on the coffee table is in each picture. That coffee table is nice and big. We used it tonight to play Carcassonne. I just got that game last week as something new we could all play together. I really liked it, I want to play it more. I’ve never played it before so we are still learning. I’ve not really played any of those European-style table-top games before. Any more time at home and we’ll end up playing loads of them. I hope you are all doing well out there, at this crappy time. Let’s hope we’re out of this soon.

London Times

March 26, 2020March 25, 2020Leave a comment

After a couple of weeks city-hopping the low countries of Europe, we Eurostarred it under the channel to fellow-EU-country-at-the-time UK for a week of family time before flying back to America. Seems like a Golden Age Of Travel now. That week was interesting, in an Interesting Times kind of way, but there were some highlights, like going to the new Spurs stadium to watch Tottenham v Inter (sure we lost on penalties, but I got that beer that pours from the bottom of the plastic glass). I did manage a few sketches that week though. Above, this is the York Water Gate found down in Victoria Embankment Gardens, by the Thames. This gateway dates from 1626 and if you turn your head sideways, you can read what I wrote about it, copied from a plaque. I used to like coming to these gardens to read and study when I was doing my master’s many years ago. There were a few dodgy characters lurking around, on the prowl for picking pockets. I social distanced myself from everyone even back then. Still it was nice to be back in London, on a warm early evening, down by the river. I like it by the river.

Earlier that day we had been to Brick Lane to visit the Classic Football Shirts shop, one of my favourite places of course. My son picked up a youth size 1994 navy Spurs away kit, quite a find. I actually bought that same shirt (adult size) on the day it was released, I was only 18, and it still fits. I wore it when I met Jurgen Klinsmann at his first training Spurs session in Mill Hill, where our old training ground used to be, near Copthall Swimming Pool. I met a few other legends that day, Sheringham, Barmby, Mabbutt, Anderton, Ian Walker, even Rony Rosenthal. But best of all of course was my long time hero Ossie Ardiles. What a gent. He even waved to me from his car when he drove past me and my sister walking down Bunns Lane. Look when I was six I used to want to BE Ossie Ardiles, that was my ambition when I grew up, to somehow be him. Anyway I digress. We ate at some food trucks (I got some tasty fried chicken and chips at a little truck called Mother Clucker), and I drew this ice-cream van above, Dappa.

Let’s call this one “Before Social Distancing”. We’ve never been social on the tube anyway. I drew these quickly with different pens while on a packed Northern Line carriage back to Burnt Oak. I always get very sleepy on the tube.

Here is Sophie the Stegosaurus. We like to go to the Natural History Museum, one of my favourite places in the entire galaxy, but my son mostly likes all the rocks and geology. I love the dinosaurs. This was a very quick one. Stegosaurus is my favourite of the dinosaurs.

We went to St Albans with my mum, and had a look at the cathedral there. I also joined one evening the London Urban Sketchers for a sketchcrawl down the banks of the Thames. After a busy day, I ended up down near London Bridge, I called my uncle Billy on his birthday. And then I met with the sketchers and drew them. There were great amazing vistas to behold, but this was a shirt summer evening sketchcrawl and I was done with architecture for now. It’ll be different next time I am back. So, I just sketched the sketchers. Here they are…

And then they laid out the sketchbooks as they do, and looked at them. They get large groups in London, I remember the very first Urban Sketchers London sketchcrawl in 2012, which I organized, called “Let’s Draw London”, we had a whopping number of over 50 participants, but that seems about average these days. I think the 2016 Wren crawl had around 70 or 80. It’s nice to come back and see familiar faces.
After that I met up with my friend Roshan (who I’ve been mates with since late teenage years) and we hung out on the South Bank for the rest of the evening, I sketched some singers who were performing at a pop-up bar by the river.

And that is that. At the end of the trip we flew back home to America (see the in-flight sketch below) and got back to work, and the credit card bill. That was a long trip. I’m still not completely recovered! But I have been back to London since then.

My book in Chinese (and French)!

March 26, 2020March 24, 2020Leave a comment

5 min sketching Chinese

Last week I got a nice surprise in the post, a copy of my 2016 book “5 Minute People Sketching”, newly translated into Chinese. (I don’t get anything extra for that unfortunately, apart from a single free copy). I can’t read it, but my Chinese speaking friends showed me where my name is, and that is the first time I’ve seen my name in Chinese, which gave me a thrill. This is the second language other than English that my books have been published in. While I was in Belgium last summer I did manage to find both of the other ones in French: “L’Art Du Croquis”, on the shelf there, and “5 Minutes Pour Dessiner Les Gens”, which I was happy to find in a huge bookstore in Brussels. It was funny to come back to Belgium two decades after my year living there to find my name on a shelf. I wouldn’t have expected that back then. I definitely wouldn’t have expected to see my work published in Chinese too! That was one nice surprise among all this madness going on right now. Maybe I need to be spending some of this time stuck at home writing another book, maybe the long-talked-about sketchbook about Davis. I should have enough drawings to in it…

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A Pair of Days at Disneyland Paris

March 25, 2020March 24, 2020Leave a comment

And so after so many places in Belgium and Holland we returned to France, and to our first visit to Disneyland Paris. We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel for that walk-right-into-the-park experience, and we were not disappointed. My wife is a huge Disney parks fan but has only been to the original (like a million times) so this was a novel experience. I have to say I really liked it, it wasn’t as crowded, the sidewalks seemed to be wider, the two arcades behind Main Street were nice and accessible and I really liked the Castle. I had to sketch it. Everything was a bit different from California, Space Mountain for example (which is still Hyperspace Mountain) repeated Star Wars phrases in French (naturally) and had an outside starting point, while Thunder Mountain Railroad was definitely longer and faster, and was located on an island that the ride went under a tunnel to get to. I also really liked Pirates of the Caribbean (“les morts ne raccontent pas d’histoires!”), probably more than the Californian one. The maze of caves near the pirate ship too was so much fun to run around. And of course, serving champagne on Main Street during fireworks (though I didn’t indulge). So yes, we liked it.

Our Thalys train from Brussels to Marne-La-Vallee was, amazingly, on time. I was sketching with the brush pen here, my son wearing his new Charleroi shirt. We spent some of our time on the train playing MarioKart on the Switch (I lost). When we got into Disneyland we had dinner at ‘King Ludwig’s Castle’, a lavishly decorated Bavarian themed restaurant, and we had hearty Bavarian fare (on our first night in France).

On the other side of the main park, in the place where California Adventure would be, is a second park called Parc Walt Disney Studios. I liked it there, although there was not as much going on, except the incredible Ratatouille ride. That one we enjoyed. In that whole area there were a number of mobile food carts, one from each culinary area of France (crepes from Bretagne, tarte flambee from Alsace, cider from Normandy etc), and then around the corner there were more, but from different European countries (we had some nice sangria and tapas from Spain, while my son went back to enjoying his favourite Belgian waffles).

The hotel was incredible. I enjoyed spending time in the pool, and they even gave my son a ball so he could have a kickaround on the grass (that made his trip). Above, I sketched my family playing ping-pong. Below, I tried one more fancy drink this time in the music-themed Cafe Fantasia. It was called the African Dream, made with rum, papaya, St Germain liqueur, lychee puree and bissap, I don’t know, I’ve heard of rum. It was tasty (and expensive), I got it because it looked like a vacation.

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Above: Thunder Mountain Railroad, on an island in the middle of a lake. I drew this while tired legs were resting, colouring in later.
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And finally, one more train journey, this time the Eurostar from Marne La Vallee to London, going back to the UK to see the family, go to a Spurs game at the new stadium, and hopefully unwind after a very busy trip.

Back in Belgium (Brussels and Bruges)

March 24, 20203 Comments

We leave these depressing times and return to the European travels of last summer, before social distancing was even imagined. In the last chapter we were all done with Amsterdam, that was all finished, now it was time to return to my favourite country: Belgium. Land of very slow queues but very quick access to beer and frites. This time I was returning with my family for some more touristy travels – no Charleroi, more Bruges. In fact we were staying in central Brussels, although due to the heatwave-related Thalys delay we got in later than expected, but still early enough for an evening stroll around the Grand Place, Mannakin Pis, the chocolate shops, the waffle stands and of course the friteries. Belgian frites are just the best. The next day though we took the train to Bruges (or Brugge as it’s properly called in Flemish). We walked up the steep hill to centraal station, stopping for a pain-au-chocolat (or “couques” as they call them here) on the way. The ticket machines in Belgian stations are not very good for foreign visitors with US credit cards, as they didn’t seem to take them, so we had to line up in the slow Belgian train station ticket office line. By the time we figured out a way to but tickets online instead we had reached the window. I love the train system in Belgium, it goes absolutely everywhere and runs a good service, but I forget that when I last used it I lived there and had one of those Belgo-passes I think they were called, where you just paid an amount and got ten train journeys. Ah well, tant-pis, we got where we needed to go in the end. I sketched on the train as the language switched from French to Flemish. The heatwave was over, now we had an overcast muggy sky. We arrived in Bruges ready to tourist.

I last went to Bruges in, whew, either 1999 or 2000 and was pleased to see that it is still a medieval city. Above is a sketch of the Grote Markt. Bruges was busy as usual, as always expected, and we even took a horse-drawn carriage around the city. I love all the old architecture and lanes and canals. The first time I was here all those years ago it was Christmas-time and there was a lovely Christmas market in this square. I decided not to colour in (since I was touristing with family) but I packed a lot in while my wife and son explored. Below is the incredibly large Belfort on the other side of the Grote Markt. It reminded me a bit of Orthanc, the large tower of Isengard where Saruman lived, with Gandalf on the roof ready to jump onto the back of a massive eagle.

Below is a stone lion which is at the entrance to the twelfth-century Heilig-Bloedbasiliek (Basilica of the Holy Blood) in De Burg (don’t start singing The Lady In Red). The shield is the Bruges city coat of arms. Inside this basilica they have an old holy relic brought back from Jerusalem during the Second crusade, a phial containing a cloth which has some of the blood of Jesus on it. Glad they never called this place Christ De Burg (don’t start singing The Lady In Red). The building was amazing, dating back to the time of Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders. That would be some time between 1134 and 1157.

We had lunch before all of our touristing in a nice little restaurant called De Zevende Hemel. There I ate my moules. I’m a big fan of moules. These ones were nice, but just nice. The trappis beer I had with it was delicious, La Trappe.

We got the train back to Brussels, and while the family got an early night, I went out for one last sketch of the day. I was looking for a historic cafe called A La Becasse. I had never been there before, and it was hidden away down an alley near the Grand Place. There I had a table to myself in the corner, a Hoegaarden Grand Cru, and just enough time before closing to get a lot drawn. I actually sketched this paint first for the most part, adding in the ink afterwards. There were a few American tourists in here talking, but it wasn’t particularly busy. They have a lot of beers on the menu, as a good Belgian ‘estaminet’ should (that is another word for tavern), and dates back to 1877. Here’s their website: https://alabecasse.be/en. Every time I saw the name, I kept thinking “…the lady loves Milk Tray”. But then that made me think of The Lady In Red again, get that song out of my head.

If that wasn’t enough, I couldn’t help getting one last portion of late night frites from Fritland, near the Bourse, whose frites I absolutely love. Filthy delicious. Even seeing this picture makes me so hungry, and just want to get back to Belgium.

The next day we touristed some more (I did a quick sketch on the metro, above), going up to the Atomium (I don’t know if you are allowed to show that online, it was always banned, but it’s a massive great big sodding metal building you can see for miles). I don’t really love the Atomium, because it reminds me of being bored, when I lived in Belgium and I would sometimes come here, not all that interesting, and go back, or maybe I would get the tram that goes all around the city to reach here, so I would have somewhere to read a book and watch the city go by, and I never liked reaching the destination. Still, we all had fun walking in the parks around it, and (food photo alert) we got waffles from a waffle truck, simple no-nonsense waffles with a little bit of sugar on them, none of that fancy chocolate and kiwi fruit stuff for the tourists, and we all agreed it was the best waffle we had ever tasted. Cheap and cheerful, no pretensions, the most Belgian thing ever.

That isn’t of course to say Belgian doesn’t do fancy. When it does fancy it can outdo all of you. I’m talking about chocolate. There are some crazy super fine chocolatiers in Brussels, but maybe the nicest ones we had were at Pierre Marcolini (at least as recommended to me by my Belgian friends, and they would know). This is the real fancy stuff. Not cheap either, but worth it. I got some for my wife as a souvenir. We got some others from places such as Mary and Neuhaus, but we ended up leaving them for family in London. I tell you what, all this talk of Belgium makes me very hungry.

And then we left Belgium on yet another train, this time headed to France and our first ever trip to Disneyland Paris…

through the rear window

March 22, 20205 Comments

The days indoors continue. So I am looking out the window. I did get out for a run yesterday, staying away from people, and this evening (Sunday) I managed to go out for a walk, this time avoiding the green belt path I know lots of people take, to social distance as much as possible. I ended up walking down some streets I’ve never explored, and was amazed at some of the designs of the houses. I’d love to draw those. Right now is not a good time to be on the streets sketching. So, looking out of the window it is. Amazingly I have never drawn this view from the upstairs back window before. I had always thought of putting a desk in that room and using it as an office, but we never got round to it, and now it’s just basically the Room of Requirement. It’s where guests sleep when they visit, and for all I know there might still be some in there somewhere, finding their way through all my travel books. The cats love it in there, full of places to hide, though it’s not much bigger than a broom cupboard. But ti does have a pleasant view, so my project now during this period of indoorsiness is to Do Something About It. Isn’t that all our project? And yet, with this whole thing going on, even getting out of bed is a struggle. I did find some time a couple of days ago to Do Something In The Yard though. My yard is beyond help, but since we got someone to get rid of the tree, it feels a bit more manageable. So I cleared a little space and built a soccer rebounder (not pictured in the sketch below as it’s a bit too far to the left). I had ordered it ages ago, but it turned out to be bigger than I thought. I finally built it a couple of days ago for my son to use in the yard, but it really does rebound a lot, so will take a bit of control. Sleeping in the foreground is one of our cats, Whiskers. They are indoors cats, but I let them run around and explore the yard. They love all the nooks and crannies and webs and branches, and Whiskers likes to get into weird-cat-noise contests with a neighbour’s cat, and guard the bottom of the fence while our other cat Sawyer just rolls his eyes.