in this quiet little place

August 4, 2011August 4, 2011Leave a comment

After arriving in Lisbon, I bumped into fellow Urban Sketcher Jason Das at the hostel, and we took the bus down to the historic district of Belem. First stop was the massive Mosteiro dos Jeronimos, a huge UNESCO-listed monastery built in the highly decorative Manueline fashion. Above, a surprise, the tomb of Vasco da Gama, the real Vasco da Gama! The one they named that Brazilian football club after! The Mosteiro is pretty epic, and if I’d had time I would have attempted a larger all-encompassing drawing from the outside, but I liked to draw smaller snapshots, capturing some of the details.

I haven’t done much drawing inside large religious buildings, with their epic grandeur and special light. We don’t have any cathedrals here in Davis. It’s something I would like to practise though; I’ve seen some other people’s sketches inside such buildings and it’s an inspiration.

i could drink a case of you

August 3, 2011August 3, 2011Leave a comment

I thought I’d just share drawings I did of the bags I took with me to Lisbon. You’ll not be interested in the blue suitcase, it’s just a suitcase and is not of interest to the urban sketcher. Here it is anyway. The interesting bag is the red one, which I decided to bring after much deliberation and deciding, as my main sketchbook-shoulder-bag. I have gone through many bags in the search for the right one, and in so many ways this bag (by Eddie Bauer) fits the bill perfectly – the right size, the right number of zipped compartments, and pockets on each side that are just big enought to carry a can of drink (so it doesn’t take space up inside the bag). Perfick. Except for one thing.

It squeaks. It bloody squeaks. It’s the strap, I have tried several straps but for some reason it doesn’t lose the squeak. It sounds as though I have mice in my bag. I sound like a rusty robot walking down the street. Oh well. The bag still worked perfectly for me in Lisbon, though I did get a lot of attention from cats.

One thing I’d like to point out about suitcases. The baggage carousel at the airport, to be specific. When you get off a plane, and go to collect your bags, you don’t need to stand right at the carousel, with your entire family and trolley and a hundred other bags, you can stand back a little and let other people see the bags. When you see yours coming, you can step forward and pull it off. It’s EASY. But no, people apparently think it’s better to stand practically on top of the moving carousel, thereby blocking the view for anyone else and standing in the way of anyone who wants to pull their bags off (bags which they see only at the very last second, because a crowd of people are in the way). Grumble grumble grumble, dear editor I know, but airports are little enough fun as it is. So please folks, stand about four or five feet back from the carousel at least. Grumble over (can you tell I don’t like airports?).

they’re changing the guard at buckingham palace

August 2, 2011August 2, 2011Leave a comment

Perhaps it was the hangover of royal wedding fever that got me wanting to go to and sketch at Buckingham Palace. Maybe it was just that I decided, on this sketching day in London, to get out at Green Park, where I’d not been in such a long time, and walk over to the Mall rather than head down to the River or the City. Either way, I had forgotten about the Changing of the Guard, and arrived at the Palace about half an hour before it started, just as the crowds were gathering. The Queen was home, as the sovereign’s flag was flying, and amazingly the sun was shining. It had rained every day, heavily, since I’d been in London and so perhaps this was to be my lucky day! (Fat chance, it bucketed down later on.) ‘The Mall’ by the way is pronounced as in ‘pal’ not as in ‘small’, a note to American tourists. There are no Sears stores or Gaps or food courts (though I’m sure Victoria has a few secrets). The Queen’s guards know their audience though. Sticking to tradition, as they performed their historic ceremony at the gates of the royal residence, the Scots guards in their bright red jackets and tall bearskin hats belted out the theme tune to ‘Superman’. Or perhaps it was ‘Superma’am’?

I made hay while the sun shone. That’s St.James’s Park above, one of the smaller but more decorated Royal Parks, looking off towards Big Ben and the London Eye. Below, a statue of the Queen Mum, and behind her a statue of Colin Firth.

i scream for 11p lemonade sparkles

August 2, 2011August 2, 20113 Comments

The irony about ice cream vans when we were kids is that they really kept us healthy. Sure they offered us Rocket ice lollies and Funny Foots and 99s with a Flake, but we got our exercise in running after them. We would hear the jingling of the bells (thinking about it now I can still taste vanilla on a humid July afternoon), and there would be a dash about the house, what do you want? Quick! Quick! followed by the mad scramble outside along with the other kids on the block, only to see the ice cream van which leave the bushy corner of Kirton Walk and head down towards Colchester Road. You knew it had a stop about halfway up there, so you ran and ran and ran, until you got a stitch and could barely breathe let alone order an 11p lemonade Sparkle. More often than not, we’d make it, and come away happy (and well exercised). It was an achievement, something Kids Today surely don’t understand, they probably download their ice lollies from the internet or something.

This one wasn’t going anywhere. It was parked outside the British Museum. It has a very happy face, doesn’t it? I think they should still make people run a couple of blocks before they allow them to buy anything though. It’s all part of the experience. We did also do a little sketching in the British Museum Great Court, which I hadn’t visited in years. I’d like to spend some more time in there sketching, really do a big one of the roof and go through all the great exhibits, but alas I live so far away these days. It’s such a great place to visit, and completely free to enter.

if the sun don’t come you get a tan from standing in the english rain

July 31, 20111 Comment

The smart thing to do would be to check the weather forecast and then decide what to do, but of course as anyone who is familiar with London summers (or winters, autumns and springs) knows, the weather forecast cannot be relied upon anyway. We’d planned to do a walking tour around Westminster (one of the London Walks; I illustrated their book a couple of years ago, including the chapter on Secret Westminster) and wasn’t going to be put off by a few drops of rain. Indeed it looked like it would be just another breezy, grey Saturday, maybe the odd drop here and there but nothing to worry us. We met the group outside a tourist-packed Westminster station, giving me enough time to grab a ten minute sketch of Big Ben (above) before learning about Westminster’s secrets. As we stood behind Westminster Abbey looking at Oliver Cromwell across the road, the rain suddenly turned into a torrent, and pretty much stayed that way for the next few hours.

It was an interesting tour, to be sure, despite the massive downpour. We went down backstreets of Westminster I never even knew about, and took a stroll through the old Westminster school. Of course I attempted to sketch as we went along, which was a challenge I’ll admit. Once it was all over (a little earlier than planned, I suspect), we went to a pub in Whitehall, the Old Shades, to dry off and have something to eat.

Not that the rain deterred us too much. We still spent a day around central London, popping into the National Gallery, squeezing through the crowds at Hamley’s, looking through the football shirt shops (hey, it’s me).

And then in the evening, a night out in Camden Town with friends (one of whom, Ralph, I hadn’t seen in over twenty years). Before meeting up, I grabbed another very quick sketch standing on Camden High street. So despite all the rain, that was a fun day, and it was a fun night as well.

sitting in an english garden waiting for the sun

July 30, 2011July 30, 2011Leave a comment

I always get up early on my first morning back in Burnt Oak. Often I will go and sketch in the kitchen, listen to the news, have a cup of tea. It was pretty gloomy out, so I looked out the window and sketched the back garden. Later on, it would rain, and rain hard, and we would be out in central London getting drenched, but at this point it was just overcast, a typical changeable English summer.

I drew these the next day, in the rain. This gnome has slept in that garden since I was a kid, and though his paint has peeled away, he hasn’t woken up yet. These were drawn onto a postcard which I sent to my son. I sent him postcards nearly every day, each with a drawing on them. I must say, this is very much the English palette. While Lisbon has a lot of yellow and blue, London has its greeny grey and brown.

hey paper champion!

July 30, 2011July 30, 20111 Comment

Five hours to kill in Philadelphia, so what do I do? Do I go down to the historic centre, visit where United States of America was made, see the Liberty Bell, see where Ben Franklin lived, eat a Philly cheesesteak? Well I wouldn’t do the last one as I don’t eat that sort of meat. No, for me it’s all about Rocky. I took the train to 30th St Station (an impressively grand station, in what I must say is an impressively grand city), checked out a map with my ipod on the free wifi (gotta love technology), and walked over to the famous Museum of Art, where Rocky Balboa famously ran up the famous steps, humming the famous tune under his breath, jumped up and down a few times, then ran down and got back into his tourist bus with the scores of other people doing the same. I for one walked up the steps. The view is very nice. At the bottom of the steps and to the side is the famous (and impressively grand) statue of Rocky, a prop from the movies which has become a pilgrimage spot for folks like, well, me. Well I wish they had a statue of Clubber Lang, he’s my favourite. Him and Mickey. “This guy’ll kill ya to death! He’ll knock ya to tomorrow!” Anyway after a sketch and a few photos of the Italian Stallion, I sauntered back to the train station, having only enough time to stop and sketch one Philly fire hydrant. I liked the yellow traffic lights here too. And then I flew to England, to tell everyone I saw Rocky. They were suitably impressed.

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.

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.