the rest of my Saturday, from USC to DTLA

April 7, 2024April 7, 2024Leave a comment

After the day at the Natural History Museum, the sun was starting to think about setting. It was a nice evening in South Central LA, around Exposition Park, and some fans were starting to arrive for the LAFC game that evening. I’d thought about going, because former Spurs captain and club legend Hugo Lloris now plays for Los Angeles, and I wanted to see him in goal, but I knew I wanted to go back to the hotel and have dinner at the downtown indoor Market. But before I got on my Metro back, I decided to take a look around the USC campus right opposite. South Central LA is famous for all sorts of stuff in popular culture, not least the gang-type stuff, but its home to USC, the University of Southern California (sometimes referred to by other Californians as the ‘University of Spoiled Children’ because it’s a rich private school, that’s what I was told), and it’s a pretty nice campus. I didn’t wander too far, I had wanted to go over to the film school where George Lucas (among many others) had studied, but instead I stopped next to this lovely fountain and looked out at the Bovard Auditorium building. There were graduating students in deep red robes taking photos by the statue of Tommy the Trojan; the USC nickname is the ‘Trojans’ (like UC Davis are the Aggies, UCLA are the Bruins, UC Santa Cruz are the Banana Slugs…) and the college football team is famous. As well my guy George Lucas, USC’s other famous alumni include Neil Armstrong, John Wayne, Frank Gehry, and former F1 Champion Phil Hill, plus loads of other famous people I’ve never heard of. It was nice to sit and sketch on a quiet campus. I like to draw other university campuses when I can, since I spend my days drawing every bit of my own campus. I drew only one other thing there, which was the statue below found near the entrance, a little dog called ‘George Tirebiter’.

George Tirebiter was apparently a little shaggy dog who was a beloved mascon for the Trojans back in the 40s and 50s. He would come onto campus and chase cars, biting their tires, and became so popular that the students would take him to the Trojans games in a limousine (yes a limousine, at USC) and lead the marching band onto the field wearing little sweaters and hats, and once biting the UCLA mascot ‘Joe Bruin’ on the nose. The statue was created by Michael Davis and erected in 2006, and people were stopping to take their pics with shaggy boy George. For some reason, little googly eyes had been put on him.

I went back to my hotel for a quick rest, then headed over to the Grand Central Market for a bit to eat. I’d walked through there once before several years ago and thought it might be a good place to grab dinner and maybe draw a bit. It was so busy! A very popular place on a Saturday evening. I eventually settled on a little fired chicken counter called Lucky Bird, and had what may have been the spiciest chicken sandwich of my life, stuffed with jalapeños. It was delicious, but wow it was hot. I didn’t end up doing any sketching there, but had some amazing ice cream and then headed back to the hotel. I didn’t fancy sitting in my room (though it was a very nice room) so I popped over the to the pub across the street, an Irish pub called Dublins. It may have had an Irish theme and name, but it was very much an old school hip-hop night, with a DJ playing some really cool old stuff from the 80s and 90s, and an accompanying MC in a glittery shirt walking about the bar with his mic really livening the place up, it was great. There was a good atmosphere in there, the staff were friendly and the drinks were great. My hands though they got to keep on drawing so I relaxed with the music and sketched what was in front of me, the bar itself, though it would probably have been better to sketch the people and the pub as a whole, this is all I could manage to focus on. I did chat a little to other people and enjoyed the music, before heading back to the hotel (grabbing a burrito from a street van on the way, I do like late night street food in LA). Spurs were playing early next morning, but I was having a good Sunday lie-in next day, before heading to Riverside. All in all, a nice Saturday in downtown Los Angeles.

the scum and villainy cantina

April 3, 2024Leave a comment

I arrived in downtown Los Angeles after dark, checked into my very nice hotel and nearly decided not to head out to Hollywood because it was already past dinnertime. But how often am I down this way? Not very often. So I jumped on the Metro, which didn’t take that long. The LA Metro on a Friday evening is a fun place full of all sorts of characters, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was a hive of scum and villainy but it was interesting. It didn’t take long to get to Hollywood. I really like the aesthetic design of the station at Hollywood and Vine with its palm trees and movie cameras. The Oscars were happening that weekend, and further up the street they were preparing the Red Carpet. I eventually found the Scum and Villainy Cantina, one of my favourite places. I first came here in 2017, when it was just a pop-up place not expected to be permanent, and had a great evening with my friend from London (it was his birthday) and my brother-in-law. I came back a year later with my wife and son (who was then 10) for early drinks on the way back to our hotel in Burbank. So I was really pleased to see that these years later it was still going strong. It feels like the Mos Eisley Cantina, but has expanded its theme from simply Star Wars into a more general level of popular geekdom, with staff costumed in various guises such as the one guy dressed as Super Mario. I was particularly excited to see the one bartender dressed as Hunter from the Bad Batch, one of my favourite current cartoons. Some of the beertaps were lightsabres, and there was a comics-accurate Magneto helmet behind the bar. I ordered a deliciously messy “Charizard Chicken Sandwich” (I recognized Charizard from son’s Pokémon days) and a Blue Milk, of course. It was busy but not overly crowded, and I found a seat at a table with a good view of the bar, because of course I was going to sketch it. This is a very welcoming place that prides itself on being “Your Friendly Neighborhood Geek Bar”. The light was interesting; I was still getting used to my new progressive-lensed glasses so this was a test, but when it came to actually using my paints it was a bit of shot in the dark, as the blacklight changed most of my watercolours into something else, green being impossible to see. I know my palette pretty well though so I did my best, and when I looked at the sketch in proper light I was pleased with the accuracy of my colouring in. There was a lot of pink light though. I had another cocktail called Twin Sunrise, which I sketched below. I had a good evening, and the bar staff were pleased with my sketch, and the cantina reposted it on Instagram; someone commented that it looked like Snape and Voldemort were having a drink in front of me! It was just a couple on a date; I draw people pretty generically when I sketch bars (hiding features where I can – people isn’t my strong point!) (yes, despite the fact that I wrote a book about drawing people), but now I’m wishing that I had actually drawn people as sci-fi and fantasy characters, added in a Wookiee and a Gelfling or two. Maybe you can imagine the hairy figure on the left is Hagrid, crouched over. My eyesight was struggling as it was!

I nearly came back again the next evening, a fun place to hang out this was, but I was pretty tired after drawing dinosaurs all day (which was my Saturday plan) so I didn’t come back up to Hollywood, especially on the night before the Oscars when I’m sure the LA Metro would have been full of celebrities and stars. I can’t wait for my next visit back though, to try more things. I bought a pin; I wanted a t-shirt but I’ll get one of those online. If you want to see their website (check out their drinks menu!), it’s at: https://scumandvillainycantina.com/. If you’re in LA, check them out!

pause at the airport

April 2, 2024Leave a comment

I’ve been travel-busy lately, so let’s start posting some sketches. I was at Sacramento airport, waiting for a delayed Friday early evening flight down to Los Angeles, where I’d be spending the weekend before a work trip to Riverside. As I had a bit of time I sat and had a pint at the airport bar, sketching the view opposite which included a newsstand sponsored by Sactown Magazine (see my previous post about my own appearance in Sactown). At this point the new edition featuring my sketches wasn’t on sale, but it was there on the way back a few days later along with the screen displaying pages. I don’t like airports (have I mentioned? Like a million times), but I don’t mind SMF, I’ve been through here enough times and it’s small, so it feels so familiar. Eventually I was able to board. My plan for Los Angeles was to do the following: (1) visit the Scum and Villainy Cantina in Hollywood, great place; (2) spend all Saturday drawing dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum; and (3) eat breakfast at the Original Pantry. I did all of those things (though the breakfast was more at lunchtime; a well-deserved lie-in!) and there’s sketches aplenty to come. After that, I was going to the UC-AMP Conference in Riverside and staying at the historic Mission Inn Hotel, and there are lots of sketches from there. As it is, cheers from the airport.

playing with pure pink

February 6, 2024Leave a comment

After the downtown sketchcrawl, I wandered about the shops, and then popped into the Bull’n’Mouth (formerly De Vere’s) for a beer before heading home. I’d really wanted to get another sketch in, and I haven’t really used that ‘pure pink’ pen that much, so I sat by the beer taps and drew those in dark brown, using the pink for the background. It’s one of my uni-ball signo um-151 pens, I have loads of different colours, most of which I only use for the occasional few lines of another sketch. I really liked how the pink and dark brown worked together for the depth. This is always a good sketching subject, the shapes and different areas of light and shade. It didn’t take too long, and I cycled home before it was dark. I had done that big detailed panorama on 1str Street, and this, and a few people sketches, so that was a good day of drawing.

shipwrecked and pizza

December 27, 2023December 27, 20232 Comments

There is a new tiki bar in Davis. Well it’s been open a few months now, but we’ve not yet been. My wife is a big fan of tiki bars, we recently went to an interesting exhibition in Napa of all the classic tiki bars of northern California, and I got her a Skipper Bob tiki mug for Christmas; we saw that at the museum, from a famous old place in San Francisco that’s no longer there. This new place in Davis is called ‘Shipwrecked’ and is pirate themed, so it’s right up my alley. In the window display there are even big Lego pirates, again its like they’re aiming it at me specifically. If one of the pirates wears a Tottenham shirt I’ll know for sure. But alas we’ve not had a chance to go there yet. Still, just before Christmas I was down at G Street and I decided I needed to sketch the bar from the outside, so I could sketch those Lego pirates. I really wanted to make sure I got the whole scene. This is in the old location of Woodstock’s Pizza; Woodstocks’ (which I’ve drawn before) has not moved far, it’s now at the end of the block on G Street, in the former location of that Thai place, KetMoRee. Shipwrecked is actually in one half of the old Woodstock’s, and as you might be able to tell the other half is still empty, and still has half of the old sign above it. Now I know you’re thinking, “oh right, that’s the real reason you sketched it, because it says ‘Cocks Pizza’, very funny, what are you twelve”, but as I’ve said many times, my job as an urban sketcher is to record places as they change, and compare the changes over many years, because in a few months it may look different again. Sketch the place you live, watch it evolve over time, document your town’s progress. It’s got absolutely nothing at all with the fact it says ‘Cocks Pizza’ above it, that’s just a coincidence. Funny thing though, ‘Woodstock’s’ doesn’t actually have two ‘C’s in it. The font of that first ‘C’ is different to the other letters. Someone actually made the effort of finding another ‘C’, going up there and placing it in front the the word ‘ocks’. And to that I must say, I’ve never been prouder of Davis. I’m being serious there, that is first class. It’s the human ingenuity at work, if that had been left as ‘Ocks Pizza’ people would have maybe sniggered, haha it’d be funny if that said ‘Cocks Pizza’ but not done anything about it, other than take a picture and draw a C on before posting to Facegram or whatever and pretending someone else did it. On campus there is this food place called ‘Cooks’ and I sometimes wish someone would do the right thing and turn that into ‘Cocks’, but you can’t can you, we live in a respectable society, intelligent responsible grown-ups don’t think of such things. But here, someone had to go and find the ‘C’ in a shop or online, get up on a ladder, install it correctly and safely. I’m all for it. So being the good urban sketcher, recorder of the changing town, I had to document it, not because I have a childish sense of humour. But maybe, maybe Cocks Pizza is a real place and this will be opening up in that empty store? I mean in Sacramento there is a place called ‘Willies Burgers’, after all, and we’ve all heard of ‘Dick’s Sporting Goods’. I’ve even been to Nob Hill in San Francisco. There is a ‘Big Dicks Pizzeria’ in Nevada too, but that’s about as far as my Googling of places with ‘dicks’, ‘cocks and ‘willies’ went. Anyway as the last two-page spread of this sketchbook I thought this was a good scene to draw, and I’m really looking forward to going to the tiki bar and seeing all the fun pirate stuff. I’m glad the old Woodstock’s building wasn’t demolished though, as I’m not sure what they would erect in its place.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, folks.

old sac at christmas

December 23, 2023September 26, 2024Leave a comment

Still in Old Sacramento last Saturday, I went and stood by the big Christmas Tree on Front Street, where people were gathering for photos, and there were different singers nearby filling the street with a range of sounds. I’m often reminded that I don’t always appreciate the qualities of street performers, this was one of those moments. It was a busy Saturday in the festive season, there were the classic cars riding around, people handing out flyers, musicians, all sorts of people out and about. Then there’s me, standing there with my sketchbook trying to draw it all, soaking it all in like one of those people that goes out and watches the world go by. I suppose I do. I leaned against a barrel, but my legs were like, mate can we go and sit down now?

So I decided to go and find a pub and sit down with a beer. Then I saw this old cart and decided to stand a bit longer, and draw that. I also popped into a shop full of every possible type of novelty sock known to man. I love a novelty sock, but even I was overwhelmed. There are all types of cheesy shops down here in old Sac, and I’m all for it. These days, just having physical shops of any description with interesting things in them is a bonus. One of the reasons I decided against going to San Francisco is because the Lego store downtown has closed, and I always loved going there. I don’t want to have be driven out to some far-flung mall to visit the Lego store. It was accessible and on the way back to the Amtrak bus, so I’d always go in and look around at all the stuff I didn’t need. Now we just shop online, and I’m a big offender, it’s so easy. That said I always make a point to spend quite a bit of money in the downtown shops in Davis at Christmas time, we still have some lovely little independent shops.

I headed to Fanny Ann’s Saloon. I don’t remember the last time I came in here, maybe a decade ago? I know that I last sketched inside here in December 2009, if you can believe it. It’s got a lot of old stuff to draw, yet I’ve not sketched it since. I sat at the bar and got a beer, and started to add a bit more detail to the cart sketch, before realizing that my inside up-close eyesight is getting worse (I went to the optometrist this week and have ordered some very expensive glasses to help with that). So I thought, let’s just sketch the bar anyway, and see what comes out. I was being picked up my wife to head back to Davis soon so I had a short amount of time to observe a large amount of detail, in quite a busy bar area, and I think I did alright. If I had sat further back and had another hour or so (and a couple more beers) I might have done a more detailed and colourful wider scene. The bar staff were friendly. My legs were happy to be seated for a bit, and sketching with a beer definitely helped me unwind. More than that, I am nearly done with the current sketchbook, which I had been hoping to complete by Christmas. I needed a day out drawing, I got one, and I was able to be home in good time for a curry.

i turned my face away, and dreamed about you

December 16, 2023Leave a comment

After a busy week, and after we’d just had our annual Holiday Party at work (my belly filled up with hot chocolate), I popped downtown to have a festive pint in honour of the dearly departed Shane MacGowan, as it was his funeral that day in Dublin. I never drink Guinness, but I felt I should have some Guinness to mark his memory (MacGowan being famously fussy about what he drank), and I don’t like whisky. I went to the Bull’n’Mouth, the bar that was formerly De Vere’s Irish Pub. It’s not Irish any more, but the bar itself is, having been brought over from Ireland in 2011. I found that spot I like in the corner and wrote out some Christmas cards to friends in England before sketching the bar. There were quite a few people out that night; one of my work colleagues who’d been at the party was performing a brief gig with his band and his red Rickenbacker in the plaza across the street, I had just missed it. One of the professors from work, who’d also just been at the party, was having dinner in Bull’n’Mouth with his family and a group of students from his summer course in Cork, it was nice to bump into them. My wife and son were out at an orchestra concert at the High School, so I had a couple of slow beers and got on with the sketch. I overheard a man nearby at the bar ask a woman how to spell “fascist” which was an interesting chat-up line, I probably heard out of context. I was thinking of Shane MacGowan’s funeral, and caught some of it on YouTube. Singing and dancing and music and a priest holding up a box of Barry’s Tea, that’s a great funeral. I loved Shane MacGowan. When a famous person dies and they’ve meant a lot to you, even if only at certain times in your life, it can definitely touch you, and with MacGowan it was that whole thing of being London Irish in the late 80s, all the music and people and that was like our voice right there. And not just London Irish of course, the Pogues weren’t just from London, but all over Britain where Irish people had come and settled. It wasn’t always that great in the 80s for Irish communities in England, but voices like Shane MacGowan’s definitely made it ok to be who we were, at least that’s how I felt when I was a 13 year old listening to this hundred-mile-an-hour band with folk instruments and a drunken frontman from London with missing teeth and a Tipperary-twisted singing voice singing songs about my London, Soho and White City and being down by the Thames. So I have definitely been feeling sad about his death, and he was unapologetic about who he was, and his huge flaws, and I always admired that. His funeral showed how much he was really loved, and the impact he had. Would that any of us get a send-off like that. Slainte, Shane!

bull’n’mouth

October 16, 2023October 16, 2023Leave a comment

I went downtown on Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago; I had a big drawing to do on short notice, and had to scout out a few locations to preliminary sketch for it. Of course this was the day we finally decided to have some rain, after another seemingly endless hot spell, finally some cooling down. So while it was raining, I decided to pop into the Bull & Mouth, the pub which is formerly the location of De Vere’s Irish pub on E street. I had not been into Bull & Mouth (it might be ‘Bull’n’Mouth’, I’m not sure) since it’s opening; De Vere’s originally closed at the start of the pandemic, as so many places did, before a fresh paint job outside in the summer of 2021 followed by a slow reopening later that year; I went back in once then for dinner with my wife, and that turned out to be the last time because it closed down again shortly thereafter, this time for good. The spot has been closed ever since, until this summer when the new Bull & Mouth took over the space. I had not been in yet, so I took this opportunity to finally check it out. I was pleased to see that it still looked a lot like De Vere’s, but with a few added TV screens (thankfully not overbearing), a lot of different wall decorations, long displays of beer cans above our heads, and the wording on the long black strip above the bar now referencing something about bulls rather than what it said before. The fantastic old wooden bar was brought over from Ireland when De Vere’s first opened in 2011, I remember going in there that first week and drawing a panorama while in the middle of the busy place. On this rainy Saturday afternoon, it was not too busy but there were a few people at the bar and I took a seat and ordered a beer. The guy behind the bar recognized me, “it’s been a while!”, it certainly had, about four years since I’d been in there for a beer and a sketch (dinner with my wife in 2021 not included). It didn’t feel that different from De Vere’s. I don’t know what it’s like in the evenings (I don’t go out much in the evenings any more). I had to do a sketch of course; first I worked on my prep sketches a little for the other big drawing, I was still working out the composition of that one as it was of three Davis locations all in one (I’ll post that soon), and then decided to play with the Lamy Safari fountain pen, I had not used it for a bar interior like this. It worked well, moving quickly across the page, and I added a bit of a wash too, though it took the ink a little longer to dry I think in the slightly damper air of that rainy day. I had a couple of very nice beers, and then once the rain had stopped I went across the street for a milkshake (diet be damned) and walked home (there’s my exercise). The last day of September.

the search for the last anchor steam

August 29, 2023August 29, 20231 Comment

I was disappointed and sad when I heard that Anchor Steam was stopping production. I didn’t even try to come up with amusing things to say like, well they ran out of steam, or calling their owners a bunch of anchors. It’s not like I drink that much of it. I don’t drink much beer at all these days, except if I’m out on a day like this in the city, and I like to stop off at one of the old historic North Beach bars for a refreshing pint or two, maybe three, and sketch the old place. In San Francisco, that beer would almost always be Anchor Steam, so I have some to associate the taste of that beer with those happy moments after a good day’s sketching and exploring this most fascinating of cities. I was in search of that last Anchor Steam, so I headed over to what is possibly the city’s oldest bar, The Saloon. I’ve never actually had a beer in there before, though I have drawn the exterior. It always looked busy with an older more seasoned crowd, much more of the wild west about it than other local bars; I quite liked the mystery of it, but I wasn’t sure if I would fit in. I’ve seen too many cowboy films. Today would be the day though, so I went in, it looked how I expected it to, a place I knew I would have to sketch. It’s cash only, and I went to the bar and asked for an Anchor Steam, in my meekest British voice. I half expected the bar to suddenly hush, for a few folks to get their hats on and scurry outside, while the barman said “we ain’t got no Anchor Steam in here! Here we drink hard liquor! What’s it gawn’ be boy?” Again I have seen way too many westerns, or rather TV shows pretending to be like Westerns. However that didn’t happen, obviously. Instead, the barman said they were out of Anchor Steam, except the Anchor Steam Porter (I didn’t fancy that). So I settled for an 805, and sat over at the back to get a sketchable view of the bar. Nearby they were setting up for some live music, which they have regularly in here. I wasn’t in there long enough to find out what the music was like, I saw the female singer getting ready and talking with the locals it looked like she knew everyone in there, and of course I imagined it would have a very country and western sound; if they had sold Anchor Steam, I might have stuck around to find out. As it is, I did a quick but pretty detailed drawing of the bar, and headed back out to continue my search. I was starting to worry that there would be no final Anchor Steam for me. I did a very quick sketch of the outside which I filled in later, and headed down Columbus.

The place I wanted to go, Specs, was closed, opening at 4pm. So I went down to do a quick drawing of the Sentinel Building (also known as Columbus Tower, though I’ve never actually heard it called that). I really like this building, and of course when I was up in Coit Tower I had seen it looking so tiny. This is where Francis Ford Coppola’s company American Zoetrope is based, and the cafe on the first floor under those red awnings is called Cafe Zoetrope. Incidentally, my son finally watched The Godfather this past weekend, first time he’s ever seen that film, one of my favourites ever. As I sketched, a man (who I think had found the Anchor Steam, and drunk many of them) came up and noticed I was sketching, and started to show me his sketchbook and sketching gear, all Micron pens and stuff. He was with soem other friends and they were going to all these Grateful Dead events, as were a lot of people in the city, as I’d seen way more Grateful Dead t-shirts than ever before. Anyway he told me that he sketched but his friends did not, and they were very good being patient with him while he sketched at the parties and concerts, and I was like, I hear ya mate, those are good friends. Always nice to meet one of your own out there, a fellow sketcher who just can’t really stop sketching. We shook hands, and he went off to some other Grateful dead party. I finished up this sketch fast, as it was now 4pm and Specs was going to open.

Specs was still closed, so I jay-walked across Columbus to the other old favourite, Vesuvio’s. I don’t like Vesuvio’s as much as Specs (it usually feels that bit more crowded), but I still really like Vesuvio’s. And there it was, that distinctive beer-handle with the traditional logo (not the uglier yellow and blue one they brought in a few years ago): Anchor Steam. It was a bit like finding the Holy Grail, but admittedly not that hard to find. My legs were tired, my hands all done with street sketching, my eyes too weary to be looking at all those details, now it was time to settle down for a nice cold beer.

I sat in this odd wicker basket chair, like I was inside half a birdcage, and drew my pint (above) while texting with my sister in London, and also my friend James who remembered Anchor Steam from when he and his wife were married here eight years ago. After hearing the news about the beer’s sudden demise, he did manage to find a few bottles in a shop in Soho. So what happened to Anchor Steam? The Anchor brewery dates back to 1896 when Anchor Steam was first produced (they call themselves ‘America’s first craft brewery’), but the ‘steam beer’ they brewed may go back to the Gold Rush days. This is the taste of this city, like brewing the fog, as San Francisco as clam chowder and cable cars. In 2017 they were bought out by Japanese corporate giants Sapporo, and in July 2023 they announced that they would stop producing Anchor Steam beer. My hopes that there would be some sort of turnaround on that decision have been dashed, as the brewery has now closed, although apparently the workers were hoping that they could turn it into a more independent co-op. A sad day for the city, a decision made thousands of miles away by people looking at the bottom line, rather than the bottom of the glass (that analogy does not work). So I toasted the death of one of my favourite beers.

I had a long while before my Amtrak back to Davis, so I toasted it a couple more times in Vesuvio, relocating up to the bar. There was a young couple sat there who had not only not heard the earthquake newsflash that Anchor Steam’s business was going up in smoke, they had never in fact had Anchor Steam at all. They were young, this was probably just an old man’s drink. So they ordered one, which they shared, drinking it from a straw for some fuckin’ reason. A straw? This is no way to treat the last few drops of Anchor Steam. This is literally San Francisco history in this glass, and then it was gone. I sketched a little more as I savoured the last Anchor Steam I will ever drink*, and then started out on the long trip back to Davis.

*It wasn’t actually the last; I was back in the city a couple of weeks later with my family, and had a quick Anchor Steam at the hotel bar before our dinner at the Fog City Diner, but I’m sure that’s probably the last one now. Unless I see it in a shop, or go back to San Francisco again soon, which I might. A couple of days ago the SF Standard did post a list of eight bars where you can still get Anchor Steam; Vesuvio’s was not on that list, nor was Specs. The Anchor ship may finally have sailed. Cheers, and bon voyage.

Berkeley time

May 26, 2023Leave a comment

In mid-April, I went to a conference in Berkeley, the UC-AMP conference (standing for University of California Administrative Managerial Professionals, me being a manager type these days). It was actually one of the better conferences I’d ever been to and I sketched a lot; I’ll stick the conference sketches in the next post. I did take the chance to sketch a bit more of Berkeley though, a palce I’ve drawn a lot over the years, but don’t go to as often these days. I was also starting a new sketchbook, one I’d never actually used before, a Fabriano watercolour book. Same general size and format as my other sketchbooks (that roughly 5.5×8″ size in landscape, slightly bigger than my watercolor Moleskines, smaller than the Stillman & Birn Alpha, but about the size of the Seawhite of Brighton books I used to use). The paper was a bit coarser, a bit thicker, and this would be an experiment. Basically, I was having a bit of trouble getting hold of the usual watercolour Moley, noweher seemed to have it in stock, and so on a whim I tried this. It was ok, I didn’t really love it, the pen had to work a little harder, but the paints too did not always act in the same way as in the Moley, in a way I can’t really describe but never mattered when using similar Fabriano watercolour paper at home, but out on the streets seemed to be a bit different. Paper matters, and I’m fussy. (I’ve actually finished the sketchbook now; while still not my favourite, I got used to it and got around it by washing the pages with a light sheen of watercolour paint ahead of time, making it much easier to work on, a preparation I never had to do on the nice Moleskine pages). So, I stood outside the Berkeley Games shop on Durant, just off Telegraph, and drew the colourful scene ahead of me. That games shop is massive. I have a friend in London who has in recent years become a massive serious board games fan, and would love this place. The weather was warm, cooler than Davis of course, with a lot of characters about the streets. I’m less into Berkeley than I used to be, as a place, largely because of some of the people that roam about making you feel uncomfortable. Shortly after leaving the BART station I was yelled at by a random wild-eyed guy who started following me, asking if I work for the university, and telling me in a shower of expletives that they have been following him and monitoring him and what he would do to those people and their families and their children, which wasn’t very nice in the middle of the day. Another guy sat on Shattuck started yelling at me recently when I was with my family because I was wearing an Adidas hat and he didn’t like Adidas, and that because I wore Adidas I was a Nazi, and then kept yelling “That guy’s a Nazi!” at me as I tried to cross the road, doing my best to ignore the weirdo. Try that in Burnt Oak, mate. People out there getting aggressive and bizarre, you have to ignore, but it doesn’t make it feel like a nice place to go. Still, Berkeley is Berkeley. I finished up and went back to the hotel where the conference was taking place, to attend the reception.

After reception food and chat, and a little wine, I was a bit full to eat dinner but still decided to head out to find a historic bar called Tupper and Reed. The evening activities for the conference the next day would be either (a) attend a baseball game, which I did, or (b) go on a bar crawl of Berkeley, that classic Monday evening activity. One of the places they would go though was Tupper and Reed, an old wooden bar on Shattuck that’s about a century old. Described in the conference materials as being like something out of Harry Potter, all brick and wood and presumably wizards and dark magic, “and they even have a beautiful retro record player sitting at the far end of the bar!” (just like Harry Potter, eh). It was built in 1925 and is quite nice, has a lovely old fireplace, though I have to be honest, it felt a little clean. Nice enough. People seemed cool, it wasn’t too crowded and the staff and patrons were friendly. There were some people playing pool, and the music was right up my cup of tea, 90s and 80s stuff that would probably have been on my Walkman back then. This is though primarily a cocktail bar, and so they had some very fancy cocktails. I decided to try one called a ‘Flying V’, because of the guitar themed name, and I think it was nice, but I could not drink very much of it. I mostly drank the bottle of tap water I got to go with it, bit too strong for my liking. Still I got a decent sketch out of the evening, and went off to bed. My hotel was very close by, and I was up on the 16th floor.

And what a view that was! You could see the Golden Gate Bridge from my bed. I woke up early before the conference, and did a drawing of the view. I went back to add a bit more at various points but I had to get this view down. I love a high-up view. Remember that one I did in San Francisco a couple of years ago, from the Hilton Financial District? In enjoyed that. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, putting these scenes together. I decided against putting all the windows in that building opposite, just a suggestion, you can imagine the rest. I did have a conference to get to though, which thankfully was only thirteen floors below in a fast elevator. It was so nice having everything take place in the same hotel. The previous UC Berkeley hosted conference I went to, in 2017, was a bit more spread out about the campus, which was a bit more tiring. I also did not stay overnight, but took the early train down and back again in the evenings, so it was pretty tiring. This was better.

That said, after the workshops and talks were all done, I did go out and explore campus a bit more, because there is always something to sketch. There was a walking tour of campus for many of the participants, but I decided not to do that, and stood outside the magnificent Wellman Hall with my awkward sketchbook. At one point the tour group passed me by. It was a little breezy, and the pages kept flipping up because I only had one elastic band with me to hold them down. The shade of the tree I was under also kept moving, deliberately I assume, in an effort to annoy me. Plus this paper just wasn’t quite right, was it. I hope nobody on the tour heard me swearing at the universe. In the end i took a photo of my sketch and posted it on my Instagram, and remembered to include the conference hashtag because they’d said to do so. Well I’m glad I did; this unexpectedly won the conference’s picture competition!! They announced that on the last day, to my surprise. Apparently I win free registration to next year’s conference, in Riverside, and I was already looking forward to going to that so that was a nice prize. But yes, I did kind of fight with myself to draw this one, and I was pleased to go and sit down for a bit in the shade afterwards.

On the last day, after the last speeches and talks, I took a last stroll up Telegraph, firstly to find that place that does the Belgian waffles my son really likes (I had to send him a picture of one and of course eat one myself), and do another sketch, this time of Amoeba Music on Telegraph. I remember the first time I went to Amoeba, it was the one on Haight, back in 2002. I first came to this one in 2005, right after we moved to the US, when we were checking out Berkeley as a potential place to live. My wife was interviewing at UC Berkeley (if memory serves she got the job, but had in the meantime accepted a position in Davis, and so that’s where our lives ended up, the rest is sketchbook history). I loved a record store, and if I recall correctly I bought a Paul Weller CD here. I chatted with a nice guy for a bit while I sketched who works for the Telegraph business association (we talked a lot about Lego), and it reminded me that this is a thriving little community here, that people are rightly proud of. I’m glad to see Amoeba still doing well too, though I didn’t have time to go in and look around this time.

I did pop into a little art shop that I had been into before though. And what did I get in there? A new watercolour Moleskine sketchbook. Having been a bit back ordered online, and not in any of my local shops, they had one here, and for a good price too (ten bucks cheaper than listed on the Moleskine site). But of course because I have a policy of not starting a new ‘primary’ sketchbook until I have finished the current one, I did not abandon the Fabriano one, and used it all the way through my recent London trip (the sketches of which I’ll probably post in about 2028, I did so many), and just started the new book last week, at the Victoria and Albert Museum of all places. So it all worked out.