a peek at the Peveril

August 16, 20161 Comment

“It is these little passages of secret history, which leave a tinge of romance in every bosom, scarce permitting us, even in the most busy or advanced period of life, to listen with total indifference to a tale of true love.”
That was from Sir Walter Scott’s classic novel, Peveril of the Peak, which up until visiting this pub in Manchester, I had of course never heard of. I thought Sir Walter Scotts were something you drank beer out of. It turns out that is kind of right. Peveril of the Peak was the colourful and yet old-fashioned pub was the nightly location of the Drink and Draw, set upon by scores of sketchers inside and out during the few days of Symposium. I sketched it outside (see above) alongside many other sketchers, several seated, others lined up across the street. Take a look at 13 other takes on the pub, collected by Suhita Shirodkar on the Urban Sketchers blog. I’ve seen many more online, each as outstanding as the next. I do love to sketch a pub, as you might have noticed if you have followed my blog at all. I think it’s the classic air of social interaction. I just can’t get that in a restaurant, and hardly ever in cafes either (most cafes I ever go into these days, people are just buried in their laptops). I sketched people as well; at an urban sketching symposium I am much more inclined to do that than at other times, and so I practiced as much as I could. Below, two of my long-time sketchblogging heroes, back from the early days of Flickr, before Urban Sketchers: Andrea Joseph and Jason Das. Now Jason I have known since meeting him in Portland in 2010, and he is an especially cool bloke and an inspirational artist; check out his site jasondas.com. Andrea Joseph I had never until now actually ever met in person – I have her zines and have followed her amazing drawings for years on her blog, so it was wicked to finally meet her in person. Here they are chatting away about music outside the Peveril…

Now I did sketch other people, not all on the same night. Here are a bunch of people who were actually non-sketchers (I know, I was surprised to meet non-sketchers as well, after hanging around five hundred people tooled-up with Micron pens and Leuchturms I had forgotten that other people could even be non-sketchers). I did chat with them and gave the statutory “would you mind if…?” before sketching, and I think they really liked them. For all they knew they were probably drawn about 50 times by others in the pub that evening.

Actually I think the bottom right lady was either a sketcher or with a sketcher; I forget now. California, I believe. The others were locals. On that evening in the Pev, as people would call it, two Portuguese sketchers Vicente Sardinha and Nelson Paciencia, hosted a special Drink and Draw in which they actually made very cool handouts, which gave tips on sketching in a pub (“Sketching while Sober” I think it was called). Then those that took part in the activity all gathered and did a show-and-tell, it was pretty nice. My personal tip for sketching in bars is this – if you draw the bar-staff, draw them busy!

This group of sketchers from around the world was sat in a little ante-room inside the Peveril. They are Tine Klein from Switzerland, Suma CM and (sorry, I forgot to write down your name!) from California, and Mark Leibowitz from New York; unseen is Daniel Nies from Germany, sat to my right, but that is his hat. I sketched them and chatted; I had met Mark in Barcelona in 2013, a lovely guy; I unfortunately missed his presentation on the final day due to getting lost in a sketch (that happens), but I hope to sketch with him again in NYC some day. Suma lives in san Jose so hopefully we’ll sketch together in SF some day; she did come along to the London sketchcrawl as well. After this, I moved into the main bar, and had barely an hour to try and sketch an interior panoramic – as you know, that ain’t long enough, but I dashed through it!

Click on the image to see it in more details.There is Arno Hartmann in the middle there, excellent architect from Germany who was at the Symposium teaching a workshop on 360 degree sketching, really nice to meet him. At the end of the bar, two fellows who were drinking and dancing along to the music on the jukebox – here I must say that I was singing along too, for the music was pretty wicked. I live in America now, I don’t hear the Small Faces, the Jam, the Pistols, Pulp, all those being played at the pub. This was like going back to the great Soho pubs back in the 90s, just all my faves being pumped out all night. I got conversing to the people sat around me; a couple attending the symposium from Austin, Texas (well one sketcher and her non-sketcher hubby, who also loved his music, but was more a fan of Death Metal than David Bowie), plus another couple who were up from Luton. There were local art students there telling us about Simone Ridyard’s books, and the beer was tasty (and a lot cheaper than London). And all around people still sketched away, every single night. On the Saturday evening we ended up there again. I gifted a man we sat next to a quick sketch of his building’s front door (he lived in an apartment opposite the pub), while I unashamedly wore my Captain America hoody with the hood up (just for photos though…), because much of Manchester was dressed up in costumes for that weekend was the city’s Comic Con. I saw an absolutely perfect Squirrel Girl earlier that day and really wish I had sketched her, but I was busy drawing a building. I was one of many Caps. Here I am below with Jason; dear oh dear. Months ago, I had pledged to Simone on the USk Manchester Facebook group page that if I somehow managed to get tickets and time off to attend, I would come dressed as Captain America. Well, I kept my word…

And on that silly note we conclude our trip to the Peveril of the Peak. Stay tuned for more Manchester sketches and stories…

de vere’s from left to right

August 13, 2016August 13, 20161 Comment

Actually, before we get back to Manchester, here is a sketch I did last weekend right here in Davis. Click on it for a closer view. This is De Vere’s Irish Pub on E Street, which eagle eyed observers will have noticed I have sketched before. I did some thinking about the old curvilinear perspective recently, and how I need to really get it into the sketches more. I do anyway, of course, but I haven’t been doing many where I get both the left and right vanishing point into the picture, so that’s what I did here. I needed to practice it again somewhere familiar, so it was back to the very middle of the bar, similar to the first time, back in 2011. I coloured the page first in a red and orange wash, for some reason, meaning I ended up with a peach coloured background. This took about two and a half hours, or three pints of Smithwicks. It was strange not to be sketching at a bar where every single other person was also sketching (like the Peveril of the Peak!). I had just been to see Suicide Squad, which was, well it was better than Batman v Superman, for sure. A terrible plotline with a lot of problems, but overall not an unwatchable movie, and both Will Smith as Deadshot and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn were good. Jay Leno as the Joker was very different from the other Jokers, not awful but the jury is out for many, though I am well impressed at how different Jay Leno looks from his cuddly talk show persona. I do like the post-movie pub-sketch, with all the sketching ideas bubbling around my head from Manchester sometimes you just need to unwind and get them out. The first few days back my sketching was a bit of a choke but with this and others since I have kicked back into gear, and now I’m heading towards my sketchbook show at UC Davis this Fall, “Conversations with the City”. Details to come soon!

you know they’re gonna go which way they wanna go

July 2, 20164 Comments

Last Friday, I really needed to go out and sketch away my frustrations with the day’s news by doing a complicated drawing of a bar, and having a few beers while I was at it. I’ve sketched all of Davis’s bars now I think (except ‘Our House’, I’ve never sketched there) and wasn’t sure which one I wanted to draw. I nearly went back to City Hall Tavern again, (they had kindly posted something about my sketches on their Instagram account the day before), but I hadn’t been to Sophia’s bar in quite a while (a year and a half at least) and I always like it in there, the people are nice, so that’s where I went. I go to the attached restaurant pretty regularly, Sophia’s Thai Kitchen. It’s my favourite food in Davis. I have sketched this bar a couple of times before, both while sat further back from the bar and focusing more on the colours and contrasts, but this time I wanted to tackle sketching those bottles. Sophia’s has Brother Thelonious on tap, which is probably my favourite beer in the US, though you can’t drink too much of it. The Giants were on the TV; the Giants are always on the TV when I bar-sketch. You can click on the image for a closer view. I drew this in the Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook (the one I started in Santa Barbara) with the brown-black uni-ball signo um-151 pen, and it took me, I don’t know how long. Three beers I think. I had a couple more for luck. I kept the colour to a minimum but did add a block of blue highlighter for that fish-tank thing. Also blue for the bartender’s hair, you know I can’t resist sketching blue hair. And so, another bar sketch. See my others…

elsie’s

May 26, 20163 Comments

On the last night in Santa Barbara I went to look for a bar that I had heard about called Elsie’s. It looked like the sort of place I could sketch, and I wasn’t wrong – license plates all over the walls, a bike covered in lights above a pool table (alright I couldn’t sketch that, too difficult), good music, chilled out atmosphere, my sort of place. They even serve breakfast cereal, and Pop Tarts. Pop Tarts! And beer! It’s like I made this place up. All they need now is Ramen Noodles. I’m classy I know. Hey, earlier in the evening I ate pan-seared duck breast over a hibiscus flower reduction so don’t tell me I’m no foodie. I tried some interesting beer here too, something by Rincon Brewery, and “Beerito” by Oskar Blues (yes “Beerito”, as I say, I’m totally classy). This place was so much fun to sketch.

the james joyce in santa barbara

May 22, 2016May 22, 20166 Comments

This is the James Joyce pub in Santa Barbara. After my 11 hour train journey, I had dinner at an Indian restaurant (unfortunately it was a little bit bland) and went to a pub on State Street called the James Joyce. As you may or may not know, I like pub sketching – you can practice both perspective and low-light sketching, while having a beer and chatting with locals. This seemed to be a popular pub, and on this night it was karaoke night. There were several regulars belting out their usual numbers, some with more agreeable voices than others, and so I added my own not-exactly-agreeable voice to the mix and sang a few songs. I won’t tell you which songs, but I assure you I did not replace the lyrics of any with Yellow Submarine. Well maybe one. I did convince one older fellow to sing the actual Yellow Submarine though. Nobody left the room while I was singing which was a bonus (that has happened before) (in Antwerp) (those Antwerpers didn’t feel bad about telling me they didn’t like my singing either) (but they did give me sandwiches afterwards) (this is a long tangent so perhaps I had better get back to the Santa Barbara story). I did sketch some of the singers, of course, and here they are. I have no idea what the song about the rooster was (something about a rooster who isn’t going to die, obviously an immortal rooster), it was very serious.

Once this fun evening was over I walked back to the hotel. It was a long walk, and on the way back I couldn’t help but sketch a fire hydrant. This one, for some reason, had a small shoe rested on top of it. I had noticed this earlier in the day and thought it odd. I was surprised to find it still there. A couple of days later the shoe was sitting a few feet away from the hydrant. I assume it was waiting for its twin to come back, waiting for years like Rey on Jakku.

Well, here is my latest hydrant sketch. More Santa Barbara sketches to follow. There are some pretty places there.

in the bars of old new york

March 21, 2016March 21, 20163 Comments

New York was cold. Very, very cold. Like “are you kidding me” cold. It was so cold that doing anything other than go inside somewhere warm was a ridiculous prospect. Not to say that I didn’t, and you will see an actual sketch I did outside in the next post. We also walked through Central Park which was beautiful, if somewhat frosty agony afterwards. The sort of cold where you go home and open the fridge to warm up. Fortunately New York has a proliferation of bars, and here are a couple more sketches of some. the one above was McSorley’s Old Ale house, another ‘oldest’ New York drinking establishment, established in 1854. Ah, ’54, what a year. That was the year old Fernando Wood became the mayor, a big player in the Tammany Hall political organization. New York had seen a big influx of Irish immigrants in the decade prior, escaping the Potato Famine. McSorley’s is old and feels it, but bustling and full of life for an old geezer. Sawdust is all over the floor, and the beer comes in pairs and is good – you can get two kinds, light or dark. Don’t fanny around. Despite being as cold as one of the moons of Jupiter outside, it was packed with people, a busy Valentine’s Day crowd. We stood at the bar until a table opened up, then warmed up with soup and a bit of sketching. Oh and lots of silly voices. Have you seen ‘The Trip’ with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon? Very much like that, doing the Michael Caine / James Bond voices, but greatly expanded in repertoire. Imagine Caine as Han Solo saying “Don’t Get Cocky!” and you get the idea. It was most enjoyable fun, though maybe less so if you were sat next to us. I sketched this far, and then we moved on.

This next bar, visited the evening before after a lovely Italian meal in Greenwich Village, was on Bleecker Street and was called “1849”. Ah, ’49, what a year. Back in California, the Gold Rush had exploded, and people packed up and dashed across the country to make a few quick bucks in the sunshine. Back in New York there was a cholera epidemic, and a huge riot in Astor Place between people who thought one famous actor was better than another famous actor. they hadn’t even heard of Michael Caine at that point, if they had history may have looked very different. This bar wasn’t around in 1849 of course, in fact it is just a themed bar-restaurant that takes its inspiration from the Old West. I don’t know if they had potatoes with sunglasses on in the Old West but I’m pretty sure that was what was sitting behind the bottles behind the bar (people probably said the same about me to be fair). Lots of red light. Not a hugely warm place if I’m honest, nowhere near the character McSorley’s has, but the beer was nice.

pete’s tavern

March 19, 2016March 19, 20162 Comments

Thank you New York City, thank you. They named a bar after me! Pete’s Tavern, on East 18th Street. Ok fine, it’s not named after ‘me’, but without a doubt, you know this was the first bar I was going to hit in New York. Pete’s was established in 1984, sorry I mean 1864 (it is hard to read the writing backwards on the window) and is the oldest continually operating bar in New York City. I visited another oldest bar in New York City a couple of days later and I daresay there are more, but I loved it here. I actually came once before, in 2008, but I didn’t have time to sketch it then. This was my 40th birthday trip though and dammit I was sketching Pete’s. Now before i go on I must point out my favourite bar sketcher / pub artist in the world is Stephen Gardner, who has inspired me to sit in pubs with a sketchbook for several years now. He lives in New York and has done some amazing paintings and sketches of Pete’s Tavern over the years – check them out in this Facebook album. The. Master. Sadly he was out of town that weekend (as were a lot of people, long weekend and all) but I still sketched Pete’s while enjoying a few celebratory beers with my chums from London. Quite a few in fact, a fair few. A good old few. Fun times.

And we chatted with locals and other bar patrons. The bartender was celebrating his birthday too, though he is considerably younger than me (29 I think he said) and was a lovely bloke from Ireland. I sketched him quickly in pencil. I also sketched another nice fellow I was chatting with, a trumpeter in the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra called Philip, he was in town from Oakland (he was telling me his grandparents lived in Woodland, nearby Davis!), and his other job is actually an inventor of toys and games, especially mazes and labyrinths! Which was pretty much my dream job as a kid. And as an adult.

Yeah, Pete’s was fun. We came back on the last day before I flew back for a farewell pint, and on that day the snow piled down outside the windows. I may need to come back and sketch here again.

post-deadpool choco-taco

March 10, 20165 Comments

“Sudwerk Choco-Taco” is an actual beer that I actually had. It’s quite dark, darker than I usually like, but it was really nice, I would have it again. I like trying the different craft beers that we have out here, and in fact I’ve started recording the ones I have tried by using that ‘Untappd’ app on my iPod. Admittedly there are times when it can be hard to remember, so I make a point of writing them down, or in this case, drawing a picture of it. And of course, why draw the glass when you can draw the rest of the bar as well? This is another bar sketch of De Vere’s (I do one from time to time, last time was January 2015). I’ve been very busy lately, and so one Saturday night I went and watched Deadpool. By the way, Deadpool is awesome. Don’t take your kids!!!! It will make you laugh. After watching Deadpool, I popped by the Avid Reader to buy Star Wars Top Trumps cards, and then into De Vere’s to read Deadpool comics and do some bar-sketching. The bar-sketching thing sometimes comes down to me needing to sit somewhere and draw a complicated but structured scene. I used a brown-black uni-ball signo um-151 (“say my name!” I hear this pen yelling to me, “say my whole name!”) and also a light grey Tombow marker to mix it up a bit. There’s also some Pigma Graphic pen in there for the thick lines. I had a couple of other beers, a Smithwicks red, which was very nice, and the Aggie Dry Hop lager by Sudwerk, which is alright.

I was also celebrating, from 5000 miles away, my older brother’s birthday; he turned 50 on that day. This is a year for milestone birthdays. Wish I could have been there celebrating with him – happy birthday Perks!

I have some more bar sketches yet to post, ones from New York City. In the meantime if you’d like to see some more, this Flickr set “Pubs, Cafes etc” has loads of mine, from pubs around the world.

blue blue electric blue, that’s the colour of my room

January 11, 2016January 11, 20168 Comments

This is the Blue Posts pub in Soho. No, not that one, that’s on Berwick Street. No, not that other one, that’s down on Rupert Street. This is the one near Carnaby Street, on the corner of Kingly Street and Ganton Street. I sketched it a couple of days before Christmas, as the sky got dark early, and people rushed around getting last-minute Christmas presents. “Where is Hamleys?” they would ask me. I would tell them, and they would just run in the opposite direction without looking back. Here’s a pro tip – don’t go to Hamleys on a Saturday afternoon before Christmas and be on the top floor when all the escalators break down. Yes, we did that. Well on this particular Wednesday I had an afternoon to spend sketching (and shopping), so I came up to the craziness of the Regents Street end of Soho and found the Blue Posts pub. This particualr Blue Posts pub anyway. I’ve sketched the one on Berwick Street, and the one on Rupert Street is on my must-sketch list, but this is a nice pub, and I’d had the pleasure of coming in here the Saturday evening prior. That night I had been out with a few friends at a pub on Beak Street called the Old Coffee House, which I did not sketch. Two of them had not yet seen The Force Awakens, while me and my other friend Roshan had been to see it the day before. When you see The Force Awakens, you want to talk about it, but we couldn’t, for the whole evening. Oh we had a great time talking about comics, but the Star-Wars-talk was just busting to come out. So when the other two had left, Roshan and I went to the Blue Posts, as it was open later, to finally talk theories and spoilers. It was packed, so we stood by the bar, where we met a man who was in a similar predicament. However he had promised to keep his mouth zipped, because unfortunately the barman at the Blue Posts, a lovely chap, had not seen it, and any Force-based chat was again off-limits. Dammit! Respecting the fact that the universe was still inhabited by people who did not know that [SPOILERS EDITED OUT!] and that [SPOILERS!] is in fact [SPOILERS!] who [SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!], we kept quiet and talked comics (we had no problem spoiling those). So when I came back to sketch the pub a few days later, I popped in to see if the barman had seen Force Awakens yet, but alas I couldn’t find him. Now it is January, there really is no excuse, so next time I go back it will be in the full Kylo Ren costume, exclaiming loudly that [SPOIIIILLLLLERRRRSSSSSS-LALALA-NOTLISTENINGGGGG]. I won’t discuss the film here, not right now anyway, except to say that it was awesome, amazing, beautiful, and that I am totally on Team Rey, but that I do miss George Lucas’s storytelling. Anyway, the Blue Posts. I think I have mentioned before the fact that in centuries past Soho was a hunting ground? Well, it was, before all the buildings, before all the clubs and bars and strip joins and hang on they are hunting grounds too, of a sort. Well, those royal hunting grounds were bordered with blue posts, which is (we think) why several pubs take their names from them. There is another Blue Posts pub in Mayfair, not too far from here. You can make out the bright pink lights strung above Ganton Street on the right, as well as the large metal banner marking the entrance to the Carnaby Street shopping zone, which I photographed below I would love to sketch a panorama of Carnaby Street some day, but only if that day is actually about twenty or thirty years ago, when it was still interesting. It doesn’t even have Soccerscene any more, the once great football shirt shop that I spent too many hours in in my youth, where I fell in love with the Sampdoria shirt, the Fluminense shirt, the 1991 CIS shirt (the red one with the little squares and lines on it), and all the metal badges. Back then the shops were all punk t-shirts and Bowie and leather and loud music. These days it’s all Muji and Puma and mobile phone shops. But it does have beautiful Christmas lights.

Well, it’s now 2016, January 10th, and I’m writing an hour or so since I learned that David Bowie, that cosmic super-being, has died aged 69. I’m stunned. He was a hero of mine since I was a kid, there’s never been a part of my life when I didn’t hear his music, and now he’s gone. I just want to say rest in peace, Mr. Bowie. Give our regards to the cosmos.

the drinking spots of north beach

December 11, 20152 Comments

Last year at around this time I Amtrakked it down to San Francisco to sketch North Beach, and as I mentioned in my last post that’s what I did again a couple of weeks ago. Now last year I spent some time sketching the bars and cafes of the area, so that’s exactly what I did again this time. Above is Mr. Bing’s, a little cocktail dive that I’ve always wanted to go and have a drink in but have never plucked up the courage. Well, I’m not here very often. I have always wanted to sketch it though, so it was the first thing I sketched that day, while eating an early-lunch panini at the cafe across the street. North Beach has those little green white and red bands on the lamp-posts to signify that this is the Italian neighbourhood, but just on that corner there you can catch a glimpse of a Chinese-themed lamp-post, as that is the border with Chinatown.

This is Caffe Trieste, a little further uphill and around the corner from here. Caffe Trieste is an old San Francisco favourite, in business since the 1950s and popular with the artists, musicians and poets of the area. As a passing Big-Bus tour-guide (not on the bus with walking with a group) mentioned, this was a regular haunt for the famous Beat poets, such as Kerouac, Ginsberg, all the Beat poets. The tour guide (who I sketchd quickly, right) felt obliged to read some Beat poetry outside, I couldn’t understand what it was about though. It’s not just the Beat poets who sipped espresso here, apparently Francis Ford Coppola wrote much of the screenplay of The Godfather here. I never went into the Caffe (I don’t drink coffee, nor write poetry) but I would love to sketch the interior some day, soak in the beat-lit atmos. Did you know, Caffe Trieste was probably the first Espresso house on the West Coast? Its founder, Giovanni Giotta (Papa Gianni) came from Istria (near the city of Trieste; I’ve been there, nice place) in the 50s bringing a little piece of home with him.

I was feeling pretty Beat myself after all this sketching (do you see what I did there? Did you see that? Read it again) so as the Sun was quickly dashing westwards I chose to do my next sketch from the comfort of a pub table. One of my favourite haunts in the City is just around the corner from here, Specs, an interesting North Beach bar with walls and ceilings full of memorabilia and stuff to look at. I do love this place. Last time I was here I sketched a panorama of the busy bar area and was one of several artists dotted around the pub, unconnected but just doing what we do. I sketched over a couple of pints, listening to conversation, people watching, dreaming of anything. That might have been a Beat poet in front of me, perhaps a young Beat poet, I wasn’t sure. A young lady shared a laugh with a silver-haired man at the bar (I sketched them too, below), while a group of British fellows unseen to the left enjoyed a weekend pint while reminiscing about San Francisco in decades gone by. Or they might have been talking about something else, rugby or something, but I hear what my ears choose to hear. I like Specs. Years ago I came here with my friend from England and played chess and got drunk and laughed and did impressions of Brick Top. I like Specs.

I have another post of sketches from that day – stay tuned. So, do you remember when I posted my North Beach sketches last year, over two posts? One of the posts (“Leave the Pen, Take the Cannoli“) got a ridiculous number of comments, 223, possibly my record. The second post (“A Bright Centre to the Universe“) got a very respectable 11 comments, which is pretty good, but clearly not quite as good as the first. I actually prefer the drawings in the second, but according to everyone else the first post is more than 20 times better, but that’s fine. Anyway on that note I will leave you with the chronologically-out-of-place first sketch of the day, which I did on the Amtrak at around 9 in the morning. The train from Davis was crossing the Delta, with the golden brown landscape dashing by in the chilly morning sunlight. It was even colder when I got back to Davis, cycling my bike home in the near-freezing dark. It’s a long day out, sketching in the City.