Tag: blue

i am not a number

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6, i don't remember my own cellphone number

6 of 30, or half a dozen of the other. Mankind’s relationship with the mobile has been well documented. Some people appear to have the phone attached permanently to their ear. How they can find so much to talk about is beyond me. Others have those little bluetooth headsets and walk about the street appearing as though they are talking to themselves, which is perfectly acceptable these days. I often think about donating some of those earpieces to the street crazies who do walk about mumbling (well, yelling) to invisible companions, so that people will not think they are mental. What people don’t talk about however is that since the advent of cellphones and other such gadgets is that we are losing our memories. Not forgetting stuff per se, rather just not needing to memorize stuff. We have the capacity to memorize incredible amounts of information, but if we don’t need to, then those parts of our brain don’t just start working on other things, like wallpapering the skull or writing operettas; they lay dormant. We have the internet instantly accessible so that we can look things up whenever we want, negating the need to actually learn and retain things. Are iphones banned from pub quizzes? I bet it’s hard to enforce. Not long ago, people would remember and recount whole stories, now we look up the words to Humpty Dumpty. Years before, and I’m talking in early to mid medieval times (before general literacy) memory played an incredibly important role in law and government – what was said and remembered was every bit as credible as what was written down (these days we feel we need constitutions and statute books and so on – we see things differently in the modern age, where the written word is king). What ultimately will be the cost of us not needing to use those parts of the brain which were previously used for memory?

One of the things behind this series is for me to remember where I am right now, and to remember who I am as well, because one day I might forget. Save the world while you can, folks.

the good mixer

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5, making mixtapes

#5 of 30. This series is a bit like a mixtape. What goes before and after what is of utter importance. Each mixtape I made was like a story, a soundtrack to my bus journey. I had to get it just right. I still have some of my favourite mixes, and they are perfect to this day. I still half expect some songs, when listening to them on CD or wherever, to cut off just at that point in the riff, just like they do on the tape. Getting the song to begin on the right part of the cassette too, that was a trick. Don’t start recording when it’s that little plastic strip before the tape starts. I used to record from old vinyl at first, big headphones on, the scratchy sound really coming through. From time to time it would be tape to tape, with one of those twin tape decks nobody has any more (I never owned albums on cassette, though – how uncool and against the point! – but I would often tape songs from mixtapes people gave me, oh such quality). Then of course my mixtapes were recorded from CD, sat around a little portable CD player, piles of CD cases around me, notebook in hand, calculating song run-times and moods. On a mixtape, I tended to listen to it all, not just skip through to the songs I knew (like on a mix-CD), so it would have to be done right. Even the decoration of the cassette itself, right down to the writing on the case, had to be just so. Sometimes I would make sure there were just as many songs on each side as would fit on those little lined covers, so you wouldn’t have to look inside the case for the last song. I was a perfectionist.

It seems incredible that the mixtape is now a nostalgia item.

eight arms to hold you

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4, scared of spiders

Number 4 in a series. I’ve never liked spiders. Back in junior school this was commonly known, and hilarious people would come up to me with enclosed hands pretending they had spiders to throw at me, claiming to be black widows (really common in north London schools), but their hands were empty, and I would flinch. Of course I’m fascinated by them. There are always the patronising comments, ‘oh leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone’ (I do leave them alone, but they go and build big webs around my back door), ‘they’re more scared of you etc’ (ditto), and those that say ‘oh you should do this or that to cure you of your fear’, but the thing is, fear is nature’s way of saying ‘stay away from the little multi-legged multi-eyed elusive poisonous bugger in the corner’, so I’m glad I have it. I have a toddler, I don’t need black widows crawling about. I do very well to deny their existence, but like Mad-Eye Moody I’m constantly vigilant. And that ‘spider killer’ spray doesn’t work, not at all. They just stand there laughing at me going, oh this smells nice, got any more? Rolled up newspaper on standby. That and a stiff drink (preferably a cup of tea).

i’m only happy when it rains

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3, hot weather not my thing

Part 3, of 30. I do actually wear my jumpers in the winter, and my scarves. No, I’ve never been a hot weather person. I do like it when it’s sunny, everything looks more lovely, and you get great shadows on paths and buildings which are too irresistable not to draw. But I don’t like actually being in the sun. I could never lie on the beach waiting for a sun-tan. I’m too pale and freckly, and my eyes too sensitive. When I was a kid, we would holiday in Spain; I would dash from shadow to shadow, and still somehow end up in agonising pain with skin the colour of a lobster.

See, the irony is now that I live in California I don’t actually have to worry about it. In England, you always felt guilty if it was sunny, felt like you had to go outside because tomorrow it might rain, and it might not be sunny again – this one day might just be our summer. Here, if it’s sunny in May it’ll be sunny until November. You can stay inside and out of the heat (very wise), and enjoy the sunshine in your own way (I watch it on the internet, personally). When I lived in Aix, in the South of France, you could always tell where the English lived because their window-shutters would be open. The Provencals on the other hand, they knew to keep them closed, lest the sun get in and turn their apartment into an oven. I made that mistake, and learnt fast. I recall spending several nights sleeping out on the balcony (and fending off pigeons) because it was too hot inside.

The other irony is that nowadays I feel guilty when it rains. I feel like I should be outside getting drenched, like in the old days. Things really are messed up.

not my cup of tea

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2, i don't drink coffee

Part two of the series, as-yet-unnamed. A name will come (answers on a postcard). So, coffee: I don’t drink the stuff. Can’t stand it. Funny enough I like eating chocolate covered coffee beans (many years ago I worked at Thornton’s Chocolates, in a Galaxy far far away). The whole coffee shop thing, that whole culture, the whole ritual of the big coffee cup in the morning, the smell of it wafting across the office block from cubicle to cubicle, the whole ‘don’t talk to me till I’ve had my coffee’ joke boring people like to have on little signs at their desk, the whole roasted java or colombian blend or rain forest bark weed or whatever they call it, all of that just passed me by. I’m not in the club. I was I’m sure comprehensively and definitively put off by those awful Gold Blend adverts in the late 80s, the ones with that guy out of Buffy (who was later the Prime Minister on Little Britain). Well that and the taste. I am a cuppa tea guy. You can trust a cuppa tea (when I make it, anyhow). Don’t give me infusions and green tea and peach tea and rain forest bark weed tea, just regular PG tips style, ‘ave it, don’t mess about. English greasy spoon cafe. Barry’s Irish tea too, the best teabags. 

Funny enough though, I used to work at a coffee shop. At an Asda supermarket, even longer ago. Maybe that story will be a later entry in this series.

but it’s still mightier than the sword

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1, hold pen funny

I started a new series. It’s like the Save the World project, even in the same type of book, but semi-autobiographical. That doesn’t mean part-fiction, it means it’s not going to be the whole story, just some, y’know, miscellaneous details. Semi-attached. Remember those ’25 things about me’ memes that were flying about bloggiverse and facebookville a couple of months ago? Gave me an idea for a new sketchbook-long series. It might be entirely in cobalt copic, until I change my mind after three drawings and use olive green. Expect to see more little things from around the flat. I hope I didn’t draw them all last time round…

Anyway, yes, I hold my pen funny.

in the city of blinding lights

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vesuvio & city lights

This is the one I began sat in North Beach outside City Lights, but abandoned after drawing the outline when it started to rain. I did most of it at home with a photo and plenty of time (and a roof over my head). It is one of the best spots in the city; indeed, one of those really cool spots in the whole world. City Lights is an important San Francisco bookshop, most commonly associated with the Beat poets (presumably they were called that because they were tired the whole time?), and a bastion of progressive politics.  Right next door, just across Jack Kerouac alley, is Vesuvio: a colourful brewpub that also trades on its historical Beat clientele.

I went there after visiting Specs, an old old place packed with junk and people just across Columbus from here. Very nice atmosphere, and they do a lovely Anchor Steam.

Drew this in copic multilner 0.3 and 0.1, cobalt blue. And I nearly did the whole thing. But I decided not to complete it. I heard somewhere that leaving something at 75% is often better than going for 100%. With this drawing, I felt that to continue would make it look overdone, and I think I’ve made the right choice. This is also my illustration friday submission for this week (been a while), theme of ‘subtract’, because this is columbus avenue with part of it taken away.

and the band begins to play

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More sketches from San Francisco. I trotted into Washington Square, at the heart of North Beach, where nearby there were many bars and cafes, and all around me there were green-t-shirted revellers galloping (for want of a better word) from pub to pub in honour of St. Patrick’s Day. I sat and drew the church of Saints Peter and Paul. 

washington square

I saw an unpleasant sight. One of the gallopers in green, a rather plump lady, had some embarassing sweatmarks on her shirt. Not just coming from under the armpits, but around the whole bra area. A hoop of dark sweat around a lurid green t-shirt. It was a pretty cold day, I might add. I recomposed, and walked down a street where some interesting jazz or whatever (cool old men with trumpets and a big double bass, and an oboe and stuff) wafted out of an old looking pub, the Savoy Tivoli. savoy tivoli jazz bandIt was pretty cool, so I went in and got a drink and attempted to capture the scene, failing spectacularly; however, I was trying different pens and a different style, and I don’t normally draw musicians, so funny enough I quite like the results, unmannered though they are. 

There weren’t as many St.Patrick’s drinkers in there, but plenty more everywhere else. America really goes mad for it, more so even than in Irish north London which is my background. It’s ironic; years ago, St.Patrick’s day was the one day in Ireland when pubs were closed (presumably, people go out drinking because they think that’s all the Irish do or something). It’s funny how in America, people get very sensitive on tv and in advertising with the word ‘Christmas’, or even ‘Easter’, yet nobody bats an eyelid at exclamations celebrating the religious day of a famous saint. And all this ‘luck of the Irish’ stuff you see everywhere? I don’t get it, over the years the Irish have been one of the unluckiest peoples in history (living next to the English didn’t help much); possibly all of the four-leaf clovers plastered everywhere means that people don’t realise it’s the three-leafed shamrock that symbolises Ireland. And another irony: St.Patrick’s colour was actually blue.

I did my bit though; got myself a nice big green margarita, shortly after sketching my last urban scene of the day, a cable-car waiting on California St. Back to my typical old way of sketching. More to come.

a cable car on california

look at the size of that thing

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When does a high-rise become a skyscraper? Perhaps it’s just a matter of perception. Highrises make you think of those glum 1960s housing estates, Le Corbusier nightmares in concrete, gangs of feral kids and graffiti, whereas skyscrapers make you think of shining cityscapes, New York, the pre-Depression thirties, old money.

cobalt charleroi

This is La Vigie, Charleroi’s skyscraper/high-rise (filled with UT students, not feral but music is sometimes played loud). I lived on floor 13 years ago. Apparently there is an official definition given by the Emporis Standards Committee that a high-rise must be over twelve storeys high (La Vigie checks in at fifteen). The same Wikipedia article that gave me that useless tidbit of information tells me that skyscrapers carry a connotation of pride, of achievement. Les Vigistes would often go on about being proud (oh, anyone can be proud, it’s easy), and I daresay they sometimes acheive things (making it through nine months without a hot shower is an amazing achievement). So what if it’s not a skyscraper? It’s still the tallest building in the city, and has stunning views over the old slag-heaps and factories, when the cokey fog clears. A skyscraper is just a big substitute phallus anyway.

Drew this in cobalt blue copic, with a grey wash. The blue looks bluer than it does on the page, and it makes the grey look silver. That’s the scanner for you.

all’s well that ends well

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If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
(William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Nights Dream, V-I)

end-of-moley-3

The back cover of the watercolour moleskine number 3, drawn in cobalt copic. I’ve enjoyed this sketchbook in particular; it has covered a lot of ground. You can see all of the pictures in this particular moley right here. I hope I learn as much in my next ‘moley’, which is waiting patiently to be started.

Speaking of moleskines, I got a very nice mention on the ‘moleskinerie’ site the other day. An honour!