oscars at zeffirino’s

zeffirinos

I sketched at Zeffirino’s, a bar/restaurant at the Venetian in Las Vegas, while the Oscars were on TV. The King’s Speech did well, didn’t it? That was a good movie. I like Geoffrey Rush, ever since that movie Shine. Colin Firth was good too of course, but he’s more for the ladies (he’ll always be D’Arcy apparently). I have a British accent too – OSCAR PLEASE! Mike out of Neighbours was in it too, as Edward VI. I didn’t see many of the other films that were up for stuff, except for Toy Story 3, and was therefore utterly ignorant; good job the King’s Speech won, I’ve seen that. I’ve never been a big Oscars-watcher, though. It was always on in the middle of the night, when I lived in England; you’d get up and catch the end of it on GMTV, but it wasn’t exciting like Election Night or anything. At least in California it’s on at a more respectable hour of the day. Happy Hour!

that is you can’t you know tune in but it’s alright

little prague tonight

I went out last night to my local pub Little Prague (I’ve sketched there once or twice before) with fellow Davis sketcher Steve Wright, to draw a German band who were playing (I’ll scan that in later) and do some more bar drawing. I decided to do some more paint-splattering on the paper first, since that effect would look good on a theme such as this. I splattered fairly subtle tones, and this made it feel like I was drawing on craft paper rather than in the moleskine, which was a nice feeling. Steve drew into his regular moleskine, and produced some amazing work using both micron pen and watercolours, both of which I had never been able to use in the regular moley – but he made it work really well! Pleasure to sketch with him. I stuck to a sepia wash, still trying to draw bottles (I seem to have some problem with sketching bottles, hence my recent practising). This is a particularly interesting bar area to sketch though, and the bar staff were very friendly and checked up on our sketching progress from time to time.

That beer in the foreground is a Krusovice dark, a very nice beer. You can spot me in the background there.

power of vito

Second and final drawing of my short sketchcrawl yesterday, which was interspersed with getting hair cut, shopping for Christmas cards, and generally cycling round thinking, ‘oh I’ve drawn everything in Davis, I’m so uninspired’. So I stopped for lunch. A beer (New Belgium 2 Below, if you’re ordering), and a mountain of garlic fries.

uncle vito's

I made it a little over halfway through the mountain of garlic fries – I’m still suffering, next day – before going home. A big trough of garlic fries, it’s so unlike me. But I came in here – Uncle Vito’s, on the corner of E and 2nd – to draw the bar, so draw it I did. You can see me in the mirror there. There’s a bit of beermat philosophy that was going through my head as I made my way through the garlic fries surplus.

This place is fairly new, and occupies the space formerly tken by the Davis Driving School, and a little (cheap and not particularly good) chinese place called, I kid you not, Wok and Roll. They didn’t do garlic fries, but I can’t say they didn’t do stomachaches.

between a rock and a hard place

central bar, hard rock Las Vegas

The Central Bar at the Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas. Stopped there first on my overnight trip to Sin City. Not much sinning going on, but lots of beer and some great Bavarian food at the Hofbrauhaus afterwards, and excellent company too. My idea to come here first, but then I remembered I’m actually off guitars at the moment. This bar kinda looks like the inside of the TARDIS. That pink light turned yellow from time to time, and then blue, sometimes green as well, though that may have just been through the bottom of the beer bottle. Those people there, playing video blackjack or whatever it was, at the bar. This was the only sketch I did in Vegas, I wasn’t there for long enough. Came back 24 hours later, much the wiser.