life is never dull, in your dreams

April 22, 2011April 21, 20112 Comments

I left the Mission district with ages to spare (BART being a lot quicker than I thought, for some reason) and hung out by the Embarcadero for a while, watching the sunlight fade, and sipping an Anchor Steam beer on the outside terrace of the Americana hotel. Proper San Francisco beer for the end of the day. I sketched the Fery Building, glowing in the evening sun, and as the lights went on on the Bay Bridge I sat by the water’s edge and used the white gel pen to capture it.

On the Amtrak train coming home, I read the comics I’d bought and flicked through the day’s sketches. there was time for one more; so I looked at my reflection in the window and sketched that.

wir sind die meister, mein freund

April 1, 2011April 1, 20111 Comment

Weihenstephaner (literally ‘Holy Steve’) is one of my preferred Bavarian beers. About six years ago my wife and I visited Bavaria and drove around (well, my wife drove, while I spoke German and made old ladies giggle), and I loved all the local Bavarian beers. Every town we visited sold it own local beer, brewed locally, with very few big commercial beers available, for which I was very grateful. I remember I had one particularly nice beer in Schliersee, with one of the nicest roast duck meals I’ve ever had. One brewery we visited was on the outskirts of Munich, calling itself the oldest brewery in the world: Weihenstephaner. It’s at an abbey, and they have been brewing beer since the 8th century, though their brewery founding date is officially in the 11th century. On that day I tried a ‘Kristallweiss’ beer, and that’s what I had last night when I sketched this.

My reasons for wanting to visit the brewery back then were linguistic: I had recently written an essay for my Master’s (one of my courses was in Germanic Philology) based largely around the competing influence of both Anglo-Saxon and Gothic on Old High German, focusing on the words for holy, ‘heilig’ and ‘weih’, the latter being from the Gothic. If you’re interested, the Anglo-Saxon influence won the day for the most part (not surprising as the German patron saint, St.Boniface, was English), but I wanted to go somewhere which still used the Gothic word. I was a big Wulfila reader back then.

Anyway, a new shop opened in Davis recently, the ‘Davis Beer Shoppe’ (quite why it needs the ‘pe’ at the end of ‘shop’ is unclear) and I was pleased to see that they had my favourite Weihenstephaner beer. I still have some Hefe glasses from Bavaria (this one in fact was given to us by a talkative lady called Hildi, the now sadly passed friend of my wife’s German grandmother, in her home town of Ingolstadt. That day, I learnt a lot about the Bavarian language!).

While drinking this beer, I noticed something. The Hefe glass reminded me very much like the World Cup, which probably explains why Germans are so accustomed to lifting it. Interestingly enough, after a few of these, one tends to come over all Klinsmann and start falling over easily…

who ate all the pies?

March 2, 2011March 3, 20114 Comments

Even though I was utterly frozen on this pre-Christmas Thames-side sketching day, I had promised my son I’d draw him the bridge that goes up and down, and goddammit I was gonna draw it. Tower Bridge, as all Americans know, was built so that their taxis from Heathrow Airport could cross the river on the way to their hotels in South Kensington. On this day, there was lots of snow everywhere (it wasn’t that I didn’t fancy colouring in the grass, it really was that white). My poor micron pen by that point was ready to retire for the day, and was not cooperating in the chilly air.

The best way to warm up after a load of winter urban sketching is to go into a pub that does big hot chicken and mushroom pies. Oh yeah! And a nice beer from Yorkshire, a ‘Cropton Yorkshire Warrior’. The beer wasn’t warm, by the way. I’m always asked whether I like warm beer, being a Brit, but it’s a misconception. Lots of our beers and ales are indeed best served at room temperature, but people forget, it’s bloody cold in Britain, and we can’t afford heating any more, our rooms are freezing. The pie however was burn-yer-gob-off hot, and so British you could almost hear it humming Land of Hope and Glory.

this is your leffe

February 12, 20112 Comments

Back to sketching in the brown sketchbook, and this is Leffe blonde. It reminds me of living in Belgium, going to Brussels on the weekend. I do like a Belgian beer. I have many Belgian beer glasses which I got while in Belgium, and now have in the US. My favourite Belgian beers are 1. Charles Quint (Keizer Karel), 2. Fruit Defendu (Verboden Vrucht), 3. Kwak, 4. Leffe Blonde, 5. Westmalle Triple. You know, in case you happen to see me in the pub in Belgium (which admittedly isn’t likely, but if you do, it’ll be the Cuve a Biere in Charleroi).

here’s to the end of the world

October 28, 2010October 28, 20105 Comments

More brown paper bottle sketches. This is a nice beer I found recently, La Fin du Monde. It’s Canadian – Québecois in fact – and is a ‘triple’ beer. Triples are pretty potent, very tasty, but you gotta watch out. I used to drink Triple type beers when I lived in Belgium (Westmalle Triple to be precise) and ooh, you have fun nights with those. I really like the label on this bottle as well.

Santé!

still getting the sketches in

October 18, 2010October 18, 20101 Comment

Unusually on a Sketchcrawl, I stopped and had lunch. Most of the group ate at Cafe Mediterranee on D Street (far less crowded than the eateries around Central Park), and sketched, and talked about sketching. And then, after lunch, I realised that I had never drawn this building, and now was good time to tick that off my ‘to-draw’ list. Very interesting to see everyone’s different interpretations of it!

When I was done (and I found that after going on and on about how wonderful the waterbrush is, I found myself missing my regular brushes – next time I won’t leave them behind!), I got back to practising my people sketching, quickly drawing Steve, Cynthia and Laura. Cynthia (who drove over from Napa; I met her at the USk Symposium in Portland) was talking about ‘ten thousand hours’ I think it was, she hadn’t just dropped her sketchbook…

While eating lunch I sketched on the menu, this was a quick drawing I did of Sandra Torguson, who is a fellow art-blogger from Sacramento. Check out her website, Sandra’s Mixed Bag.

As the Sketchcrawl drew to a close (that pun got old decades ago, by the way) we returned to Central Park, now quiet after the Farmer’s Market had departed, and I sketched the Smooth as silk day spa building (I’d been in there last week for an exhibit in the Davis Art About). I drew small. Very green.

After everyone had gone, I stopped off for a rest in Burgers’n’Brew, and was amazed to discover they had Kwak! My second favourite Belgian beer. After all this time, it’s now in Davis. I have one of those glasses at home, and so it was a nice treat at the end of the day. (Well, even nicer was watching the Giants win in the evening, having already had my beloved Tottenham win in the morning).

Worldwide Sketchcrawl 29

Let’s Draw Davis! Flickr group

bottle and glass

October 6, 2010October 5, 2010Leave a comment

October is here folks, and October means beer. Even though most Oktoberfests apparently take place in September (giving us Oktoberhangover) – I even drew this while it was still September – it’s culturally important to keep up that association (this is my excuse). One of my favourite beers is in fact the Märzen amber ale of my local micro-brewer, Sudwerk. This year they brought out a special Oktoberfect version, “Fest-Märzen”, and I must say it’s bloody lovely. Perhaps the best beer I’ve had over here. So in the spirit of drawing bottle and glass on brown paper (see the recent champagne bottle), here they are. That glass was empty by the time I finished drawing, let me tell you. We had a heatwave here last week, with weather in the 100s (really! at this time of year), and a nice cold beer was always going to help.

where streams of whiskey are flowing

August 30, 2010August 30, 201010 Comments

While I certainly prefer the beers over here on the American West Coast, the pubs just don’t quite match up to the ones we have back home. Sure there are some interesting bars here and there, but give me a London pub any day (but with Anchor Steam and Fat Tire on tap). This is the imaginitively named G Street pub in Davis. I can’t say I’m particularly a fan of this place (where the guy at the door comes and stamps your hand after scrutinising your ID, though you may be halfway through your first pint), I much prefer Little Prague further up the road. It does attempt to bring a little piece of north London verite to the mean streets of Davis however: the toilets are as bad if not worse than any you’d find in Camden or King’s Cross. Nonetheless, it’s a good place to come and do some drawing, bar staff are friendly and pour a good pint, and there is a lot to sketch. Plus they have pool tables.

I wanted to practise drawing people, sure, but also bottles – I always have a bit of an issue with them, I rush the shape and scotch the symmetry. In fact, I have the same issue with people. Guitars too, funny enough, hence my hesitation at drawing musicians. I remember years ago studying art at school how often (especially in cubist painting) I’d come across still-lives of bottles, guitars and female figures, as though they were all aesthetically connected, which I think in a way they are. Practise is the only way. I’m pleased with how I represented the bottles in the image below though, it says exactly what I wanted it to. Not that I’d drink any of the contents; the shots here a big and potent. I’m a beer man myself. That tap on the right there is Anchor Steam, the San Francisco beer, very nice too. Mine’s a pint, if you’re asking.

brown is the colour

July 27, 2010July 27, 2010Leave a comment

I got this small brown paper sketchbook from the campus bookstore for only 89 cents, and it’s a real find. It has a corrugated cardboard cover and is handbound with a piece of string. These past few days it has become my favourite thing (funny how that happens) and I’ve been scribbling in it whenever I can (starting with the sketches at the Railroad Museum). I tend to sketch more quickly in this book; a drawing will take about ten minutes. Here are some of the things I’ve drawn (all in uniball vision micro pen, for the fellow pen geeks out there).

This is Sudwerk Märzen, a local Davis beer I like. It’s an amber beer, and the Sudwerk brewpub was the first place we visited when we decided to move to Davis. Funny what we may have decided if I hadn’t liked the beer.

This is my son’s toy digger, or rather, one of them (a boy can never have too many construction trucks).

This is Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight and part-time firefighter. This is actually my toy. I love Star Wars.

A quick profile sketch of my wonderful wife. I really am trying to draw more faces on the spot and I think this turned out well.

Finally, a quick lunchtime sketch at the corner of A and 3rd streets, Davis. I’ll take this little sketchbook with me to Portland Urban Sketching Symposium I think. I’ve already packed my bag and chosen my materials, I just need a couple more pens (and maybe a new brush) and I am all set.

ein märzen aus alten zeiten

June 27, 2009June 28, 2009Leave a comment

Oh man it hot. I managed to cycle downtown last night, to read a few comics and take in the warm evening air, listening to live bands who were out playing tribute to Michael Jackson in their best non-Jacko sounding indie acoustic guitar. I cycled off and went to Sudwerk, the local German-style brewpub, whose locally-brewed beers are excellent. I would miss them a lot if I ever moved back to Britain, they don’t have anything that comes close back there. Pictured above, a nice big litre of the Märzen, my favourite one. Very refreshing!

Drawn in Itoya finepoint pen – I was trying something new – and watercolour.