hangin’ out your stockings on the wall

January 6, 2009January 5, 20094 Comments

Today (January 6) is the last day of Christmas, although really it ended ages ago, here in America. There is this amazing Christmas house just down the road from where we live that completely decks the halls with lights and music, but turns back into a regular suburban home come the striking of the New Year. Not us, our tree stays put until the twelfth night. Laziness, more than tradition, besides we like having that festive corner to look at. We spent most of this Christmas season in London, however, and ate and drank and were very merry. Mince pies and Quality Street. Oh, and posh tea at the Waldorf. It was my son’s first Christmas, and while he wasn’t quite as interested in unwrapping presents as we thought he’d be, he still had a great time, with his London family. And this is his first ever christmas stocking, which Santa (aka Father Christmas) filled with many of his favourite things (including toy ducks, and cheerios – hey they were on his list). Drew this in his journal.

don’t judge a book just by its cover

January 5, 20092 Comments

…unless you cover just another. Burnt Oak Library, at the junction of Watling Avenue, Gervase Road and Orange Hill Road. And now, to my surprise, it has been painted black, and had a monstrous carbuncle of a tiled entranceway attached inexplicably to the front.

Which architect thought that was a good idea? “Oh it’s only Burnt Oak, nobody cares, that library is old and unwashed anyway, they should be grateful anyone wants to build anything there,” they probably thought. No, that new addition looks contrived. I thought they were new public toilets at first (as if). Yes, the additional CCTV cameras have apparently helped disperse the gangs of dodgy kids (apparently they now go just over the street). Apparently you can pay your council tax there now. There are lovely glass reliefs inside, because obviously Barnet Council has nothing better to spend that council tax on.

This is home, this is where I’m from, up that road snaking away to the right, though I now live on the other side of the planet. I spent many a day in this library nosing through the language books. there used to be these three great maps in the doorway showing Burnt Oak at various stages in history, from sometime in the 1800s when it was all farmland, to some time in the early 1900s when it was all farmland, to the 1960s when it was the metroland of the 30s, the Watling estate sprawling over red and orange hills (those are the names, forget colourful imagery, unless it reminds you of the brick and roofs). It was always rough, as long as I knew it, and it’s rough still (those phone boxes have pretty much never ever had glass in them), but it’s changed, it’s not the same, even since I’ve been gone. Everything must change. But you don’t have to paint the library black and put a colourful runway on the front of it. Just a few extra books would have been nice, and more useful.

cool for cats

January 4, 2009January 4, 20093 Comments

While in rainless London I found myself in Gough Square (named after a former Spurs player), a tiny back-place off Fleet Street, former home to Doctor Johnson, the man who wrote the first Dictionary of the English Language, an excellent and hilarious book, if slightly disparaging with regards the eating habits of Scots. That statue, that was his cat, Hodge (named after another former Spurs player). I don’t know why he didn’t just get a real cat. Cheaper to feed I suppose, and it never crosses your path or pees behind the telly. LBC used to be based here. I used to listen to LBC, back when I used to stay up really late (he says, writing at 1am).

while we were getting high

December 23, 2008January 5, 20093 Comments

I’ve been back in London almost a week now, and done a fair bit of sketching; but not much scanning or getting online. I did post this picture on the urban sketchers site though – it’s the Gatehouse pub in Highgate, an area I used to live in, and one which I love. The Gatehouse is right on top of the hill, and while the wetaher has been really mild and bright since we arrived, it was a little nippy while I sat drawing this.

I hadn’t intended on going to Highgate that day. I was on my way in to the City to go to an exhibition (This Tiny World, by my cousin, and it was very good) but the tube stopped in Golders Green (typical; welcome back to London). So I detoured to Highgate and had a little mooch around my old stomping ground: Highgate Village, Waterlow Park, Hornsey Lane, Archway. I used to go to this pub sometimes, but I didn’t on this day – I finished the wash in the warmth of the nearby Angel Inn. I miss this part of the world a lot.

at my dear land of story books

December 13, 2008December 13, 20089 Comments

Some of my baby son’s toys and books and things. He particularly likes “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See?” The large toy at the top is the French one, but his current favourite toy is not pictured: a colourful guitar toy from the backyardigans, whoever they are (apparently they sing a song about the “movers of arabia”, whatever that is).

Drew this in his journal. And this is my entry for Illustration Friday this week, theme “Rambunctious“. I had to ask my wife what that meant, as I think it’s more common a word over here than where I’m from. Full of energy. Babies who are on the verge of walking are certainly that, we are finding.

and the dead tree gives no shelter

December 11, 2008December 11, 20083 Comments

We’ve been here before, once or twice. The Silo, UC Davis. A cold December day, in fact turned too hot by the bright winter sunshine, my shade being muscled out until my ears were hot and red. The sunlight was too warm. It was uncomfortable. I even knocked my water pot into my paint set; I didn’t like that much. I thought of all the urban sketchers out there freezing their fingertips off in colder and wetter climes, and there’s me complaining about the heat. Hey, I’m British, that is what we do.

I posted this on Urban Sketchers, so I did. Incidentally this is post number 150 since I started this blog in April. that’s 750 since April 05, including my old blog. I’m still managing an average of 50 posts every three months. Statto.

take me to the bridge

December 10, 2008December 9, 20082 Comments

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what this bridge is called. I nearly did this in black and white, but decided on colour at the last minute. I like how it turned out. Another drawing done as un cadeau.

ladies and gentlemen

December 8, 2008December 9, 20081 Comment

Remember when I drew this scene while sitting in Alamo Square back in July? No? Well I did (here it is to prove it). And here is the same scene again, drawn this week, but in sepia wash. The ‘painted ladies’.

Drawn on a 5×7 canson watercolour postcard with a copic 0.1 pen and cotman watercolours. And a whole lotta love.

à la maison

December 7, 2008December 7, 20083 Comments

Another one in copic and sepia…this is my mother-in-law’s house in Santa Rosa. It’s in the historic Luther Burbank district. He invented lots of plants.

As you can see, I’m still doing the whole tree in front of the frame thing. It’s becoming my thing.

there might be a parallel universe

December 5, 2008December 5, 200810 Comments

Ok. Thing is, I wanted to draw the new apartment in a kind of tryptich (or is it triptych?), and so I did, in three sepia blocks, each of which I’m showing separately here, along with the whole thing, and for bad measure, a photo of me holding the book (while watching ‘spaced’).

And this is also my entry for Illustration Friday this week (theme: ‘similar’). Our new apartment is very similar to our last one – it’s on the same complex, has all the same fixtures and fitting, but for one big thing – everything is reversed. It’s like walking into a mirror, but I like it inside this mirror, I much prefer it. even if there are more bugs (such as a centipede crawling up through the plughole – do I not like that!)

I was inspired because this week I got back my sketchbook from August’s Art House Co-Op Sketchbook Project, the theme of which was “How to Save The World”. My little book, which you can browse here, was filled with drawings of our own little world, the apartment where we spent all our time. I was saving the place I lived in, in the sense of recording it, so that in years to come I might look at it and say, yes I lived there, I remember that. Now we’ve moved I can do that already. And I can compare drawings of the new apartment to the old. The kitchen (above) is the other way round from how it is in this picture, for example. Even the hot and cold taps are reversed, not that you can tell, but I still get it wrong.

The first frame shows the baby monitor. Baby was sleeping soundly. That is, not making much of a sound. The second frame shows Mr Salt, the saltpot, and his lover Mrs Pepperpot. Mr Salt has very big trousers. He is either grossly deformed or carries a lot in is pockets (perhaps he too is an urban sketcher?). I think Mr. Salt is Dutch, but he comes from England. He is also into the lost practise of trepanning. You can also see the Christmas Tree, put up last weekend, hopefully out of the reach of little mischievous hands (I don’t mean those of Mr Salt, whose hands are stuck to his trousers). The final frame, looking over at the CD tower and the music players and the calendar of new york city, has a bottle of the local Sudwerk beer in it. This is purely decorative. I was actually drinking a cup of tea, but thought a beer bottle would look better. I pulled it from the recycling. I like Sudwerk, the Märzen variety, it’s a nice German style amber beer brewed just down the road from bei uns. One of the things I really like about living out here in the American West are the micro-brews – not as big a thing on the East coast. Back in London, we have the pubs alright, but I way prefer the beers out here. You can see also a Micron Pigma pen on the table; you can’t get those in England either (or at least, I couldn’t). Incidentally, I drew this in a copic multiliner 0.1.