right through the very heart of it

November 19, 2008November 19, 20088 Comments

The final bit of urban sketching done in New York (I also took a lot of photos for reference drawing later, but you can’t beat being there on the streets tasting the air). Here I am just off Washington Square, looking up Fifth, indeniably NYC in November. I never went up the Empire State. Always thought it would be better to go up the Rockefeller anyway, because at least from there you can see the Empire State – I love seeing that building. I also adore the Chrysler – it’s one of those buildings that when you first see, you cannot stop taking photos of it. It could be the most beautiful modern building in the world (and I say modern meaning in the past 100 years). I sketched it from the steps of the New York Public Library, itself a fantastic old building (but not one with baby changing facilities, I might add).

One of the things I love about New York is that you always feel a little like you’re on the set of Ghostbusters. Things are so familiar. And not just Ghostbusters, but any of the million or so other movies or shows that have been set here. Not a feeling you get strolling down Edgware High Street.

I still hadn’t eaten, which is not a good thing (and surely an impossibility in the big apple), and as I previously mentioned, I wanted something ‘New York’. But then I happened across a little Belgian place, the BXL Cafe in narrow 43rd Street, which called me in to taste some Maredsous beer and some absolutely amazing moules frites (better than I have had even in Belgium, I might add). I drew the place (right) in copic and faber-castell brush pens; trying something different for a change. Overheard some Scottish women talking about shopping for their kids, sounded like they had saved up a long while for this trip, and I felt sorry for them because the pound has absolutely plummeted this past couple of months. I overheard a lot of British people in New York – more than I did New Yorkers – the place is choc full of them. Probably why I felt at home.

Came back down again the next day, with my wife and baby, to go to Central Park and see the amazing fall colours. We ended up getting a little lost on the Subway, which is enormous fun with a stroller by the way, and sitting in a cafe off Sixth trying to feed the baby (while overhearing, of course, English people). And I finally had cannoli, something definitely New York, and it was good. New York is good. Can’t wait to go back.

go west, where the skies are blue

November 18, 2008November 17, 20081 Comment

New York City, continued… I moved up Manhattan to the West Village area, hoping for some lovely old bricks and some leafy autumnal streets, and yep, that’s what I got. I think I had in mind the excellent work of Nina Johansson when choosing what to draw here (though I’m a lot scruffier). I sat and had a beer called magic hat outside a cool, dark little pub called the slaughtered lamb, on west 4th. A great spot to watch the world go by, and other such cliches. Oh, and to watch taxi cabs nearly have crashes, that was fun as well. I love the yellow cabs in New York – better than our London black cabs (yes, better, that’s right). Not that I ever take either. I always wonder though, is that cab the Cash Cab? My wife wondered the same thing too; we love that show. I gave up on the magic hat after about two thirds of a pint, because a big red-eyed bug had decided to come in for a swim. I photographed the work in progress, for fun. I then wandered over to Washington Square, admiring the trees and the bundled-up chess players. I sat and quickly drew a guitarist, as you do around here, and took in the scarf-wearing intellectual atmosphere around NYU. I wanted to go there a few years ago, to study drama perhaps, but the fees are so big. I just love the area I think. I was looking forward to this neighbourhood most of all, and I was enjoying the sunny cold and the leaves, but I realised I hadn’t eaten anything that day, so pressed on up town. And, hot dogs aside (I don’t eat them), I decided that I really wanted something that tasted of New York.

choc and awe

October 6, 200810 Comments

A quick one; a cup of tea and a chocolate bar. My illustration friday entry for the theme of “sugary“.

The chocolate bar is a Milky Way, but don’t let that deceive you, British friends – American Milky Ways are nothing like our Milky Ways. They are in fact almost exactly like our Mars Bars. They also go very well with tea. The Milky Way/Mars Bar thing is one of many instances where our two cultures look different and call itself different things but are in fact the same. I can’t be bothered to name any others.

I got that mug at the Getty in LA. And you know what? I didn’t actually drink this cup of tea from that mug, I drank it from a different one, with my name on it. I just thought the colours and pattern would be better next to the milky way. I used to have a funny way of eating Mars Bars: I’d eat the sides first, then I would nibble off the top, and then the rest. A friend at college once gave me a king-size Mars Bar for ny birthday with a big note on it saying “eat it properly”.

hampstead revisited

October 4, 20081 Comment

Another drawing of those houses by Hampstead ponds, this one done on bristol paper (no, that’s not one of sarah palin’s offspring); these buildings have a very hundertwasser quality, and I’m sure are very expensive (although possibly less expensive right now than before).

The last one I did, in my moleskine with a brown wash, is below. I’m leaving this one washless.

graffiti about slash-street affairs

October 1, 2008October 2, 2008Leave a comment

I could get used to these. A month ago I did this labour-intensive drawing; tonight I finished a second one. You can I’m sure guess the theme. All will be revealed when we turn to the answers page, a singer once said.

I am still around, I have just been busy. But I found time to fit this in too, which helps create balance. Plus I stay up far too late for someone who works so early. These things sometimes accompany those wee small hours; well, these and the baby monitor.

A note on the broken ibanez guitar head: this was the guitar i bought when I first moved to the US. I looked after it so well, but one day it fell lamely from its stand onto the carpet and the head just came off. Not my happiest moment. Very difficult to repair (the guy in the shop couldn’t bare to look at the poor thing, it was like bringing in his grandma’s head or something), so the decapitated body sat gathering dust in the corner like the shards of narsil. When we moved out, I wasn’t sure what to do with it (you get attached to your instruments). My wife suggested I dispose of the body Pete Townshend style. And so I did. Have you ever done that? It felt pretty good. I kept the broken head as a souvenir (or a warning?), and there it is. The broken Ibanez.

sold down the river

September 23, 2008September 24, 20083 Comments

Under the toun of newe Troye,
Which tok of Brut his ferste joye,
In Temse whan it was flowende
As I be bote cam rowende
(John Gower, Confessio Amantis)

Another boat? Yes, this one was on the Thames last year, and so today I drew it into my small wh smith sketchbook. There’s the City in the background. I always seem to draw London in black and white these days; is it becoming like an old film to me already?

In this time of incredible financial turmoil, a picture of something actually staying afloat in the financial heart of the City.

bic to school

September 22, 20083 Comments

It’s that time of year again. Things start getting busy in the academic world. I invigilated (or ‘proctored’ as they say here) an exam today, during the air-conditioned silence of which I drew part of my bag (“draw what is in front of you”) in my rhodia notebook, in ball-point pen. I like drawing in biro, though I don’t do anything other than scribble endlessly and mindlessly in it (this accounts for at least 70% of all the drawing I do, mostly scowling faces and figures with lightsabres or football shirt designs, which you never see). Squared rhodia paper seems so appropriate (and I love it, it reminds me of France). Behind the bag, some of the extremely hard stats stuff, none of which I could make head nor tail of, but which I’m sure looked like elegant poetry to the trained eye.

buttons

September 19, 2008September 19, 20088 Comments

nice with tea

Last week I was lucky enough to receive a package in the mail containing Cadbury’s chocolate buttons, sent from England by the fenland artist Anita Davies (check out her artblog). I had commented on one of her drawings (of a cake covered in chocolate buttons, it looked perfect to have with tea) that I had been moaning to myself that I can’t get Cadbury’s Buttons here in the US, and so she offered to send me some in exchange for a drawn postcard.

Cadbury’s Buttons for a drawing, well how could I refuse, and so I draw the picture below and popped it in the mail. It’s a picture of the Silo, which I’ve drawn on many a lunchtime (but a place which completely fails to sell Cadbury’s Buttons). It went from one flat land (Davis) to another (the Fens). I soon received my choccies (various different size Buttons, plus two ‘Freddo’s which were dunked in tea and eaten almost as soon as I saw them). Cheers Anita! Much appreciated.

So, folks, I draw for buttons.

but not for zips

Tell you what, I do love Cadbury’s Tiffin too…

and when it’s cloudy we say nothing at all

September 11, 2008September 11, 20084 Comments

Yes; lunchtimes are getting a bit uninspired. Did this at the silo today during lunch. I’ve not drawn this week, until this. I just had to get the sketchbook out and draw the first thing I saw: in this case, a bench and two bins. Moving very soon to a new apartment in exactly the same complex, and moving means mind occupied. Especially since AT&T (named after the galactic empire’s battle-transport du choix) tell us that, even though we’re moving less than a hundred yards across the parking lot, same address, our internet speed will only be a third what it is now. That is, as they say here, bullshit man. I wonder if it will take a third as long to look at my website? I hope not.

At least the weather has gotten a little cooler. It’s so much nicer here when it’s not so hot. Really nice, I mean. I know you have had shitty rain in England almost all summer; sorry about that. We’ve not had rain since I don’t know when. Clouds? What are they? I forget.

Moving, though. I hate moving. Ever.

you do the math

September 6, 20084 Comments

I don’t like that expression, by the way. Plus being British I’d say ‘maths’ (though being a Londoner it sounds more like ‘maffs’). A lunchtime sketch; I’d never drawn the front of my work building before, so thought I should give it a go. since one of my other drawings will be adorning the front of the chemistry dept’s new handbook, maybe i’ll use this sketch for something one day too. Or not. There are then still things in Davis I’ve not drawn. It’s just usually too hot to draw them (he says with several full sketchbooks).

Mathematics…it must be popular in California, you always hear about all those math labs on the news, I think. At school, all I wanted was just to pass maths, no better. I quite hated the teacher of the top class, Blindty, an ancient creature who had been teaching there since before Pythagorus got into triangles, and he quite disliked me; well, me and almost everyone else. So I requested to move into the second class (and tried my best not to get moved back up), and as a result had a much much better teacher, Miss Barker, and I passed the GCSE no problem, and restored my self-esteem. I left maths behind at 16, but I’m still pretty good at the numbers game on Countdown. Perhaps I should try to become Vorderman’s replacement?