a brief oregon story

August 12, 20262 Comments

Last October we took a few days away in Oregon, primarily to visit some universities. It had been a little while since I went to Oregon, and it was good to see something more than Portland or Medford, and our first stop was to the city of Corvallis, about an hour or so down from Portland. Corvallis is where the huge Oregon State University campus is located. We were given the guided tour, starting at their enormous football stadium, they are the ‘Beavers’. I was well impressed by the campus, I’m not dissing Davis or anything but it was pretty nice, very well kept. The sort of place I’d like to have been a student. Though I am glad I went to Queen Mary. They have those little delivery robots going all over campus. I had never seen one before! I thought I’d sketched one but I must not have. After we had done the tour the family explored a bit more, and I sketched this big grand building, which I believe is called Weatherford Hall. After looking around campus, we looked about town, finding two very interesting guitar shops. I say ‘very interesting’, it was really just interesting that they had two, always a good sign. Also bookshops. Plus a big river valley that made me start wondering about how often it floods here. Apparently, a moderate risk. I did draw a couple of fire hydrants, which are orange here, just like in Portland, but are a different shape from Portland. It would be a shame if the whole world was all the same.

I also sketched a movie theatre, the Whiteside (made me think of Norman Whiteside, Manchester United player from the mid-80s), which was opposite a big booskhop we spent some time in. They were advertising a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show that evening. My family had never seen it, and we didn’t go on this day, but I made them watch it when we got back to Davis. Not sure what they thought of it.

We stayed the night in Salem, the state capital, but I didn’t sketch anything there. We looked around Willamette University the next day, a nice and very old private liberal arts college (in fact it’s the oldest college in the Western US, founded in 1842, so it’s older than Association Football, Marxism, the Telephone, the country of Italy, and every single Hollywood movie ever made. That’s pretty old. Still compared to for example Oxford or Cambridge Universities, it’s a right Johnny-come-lately. Still, it is very very old in American terms. It was very small too, smaller than a lot of high schools here. It didn’t take long to look around, and so we looked about Salem, then headed up to Portland.

It had been a good while since I was in Portland; we stayed on Broadway, and I was saddened to see that Bailey’s Taproom, which I had visited last time I was here, was now a State Farm insurance shop. Voodoo’s Donuts and its long line were still there though, delicious. We had a little look around the Saturday Market, and then I walked along the river and sketched the Steel Bridge. You have to, if you’re in Portland as an urban sketcher. The very first time I was here was for the first ever Urban Sketching Symposium and we had a workshop down here, with Lapin, just drawing the bridge. I sat in between Lapin and Gerard Michel watching their very different styles and approaches, it was one of those formative moments of the whole Urban Sketching thing for me. I also think of Liz Steel when I see this bridge because we joked at the time that this bridge was named for her, and so I always think of her sketch of it when I see it. When I would visit Portland in subsequent years I’d often stay over by the Lloyd Center, and so if I was out downtown at night I would walk back over the Steel Bridge to get back to the hotel, this makes me think of that. I have walked a lot around Portland over the years. After sketching this though I took a walk through Old Town, towards the hotel, and drew a couple of hydrants.

Old Town seemed to be a lot more worn-down than the last time I was here, with many more shops and cafes closed down. I was looking for Floating World Comics, but that was no longer there on NW 4th Ave. I sketched the hydrant in front; I have drawn it before, when it was still painted orange (my old sketch looks pudgier, I think the hydrant lost weight in that time). The other hydrant I drew on NW 2nd (on the left) is very rusty looking, I love sketching that sort of hydrant.

It rained a lot in Portland; “it’s what we do, mate” as Ange Postecoglou would say. I don’t mind at all – more time to spend in Powell’s Books. We did spend a lot of time in there too, exploring everything they had. The rain did ease off so I could draw the shop itself, including the guitarist outside, and the fire hydrant across the street (below). We had been exploring Portland State University that day, but it was a Sunday and it was mostly closed, so we just walked around the campus and the neighbouring area. The leaves were all turning autumnal,

We had some more time that day so drove out to Multnomah Falls, the big double waterfall I had previously only seen in LEGO format (in a display at the airport). I didn’t sketch it, but we took a lot of photos. It was getting late, but our flight was not until quite late in the evening so we went for dinner at one of the McMenamin’s places, I have forgotten which one now. Then we returned the car, and went to the airport where we sat for ages in the lounge while our delayed flight got delayed even further. I was so tired but I managed a few sketches. I really don’t like airports much.

And that was our brief trip to Oregon. Not sure when I’ll be back up that way again but it was good to see some new places.

Richmond, by the river

January 17, 2026January 16, 2026Leave a comment

We met up with my friend Simon who was back visiting from Dublin, and took the Overground train down to Richmond. I was there last in the previous winter with Simon exploring the old pus and riverside walks, and wanted to go back in the summertime with the family. Richmond is London, but I hardly ever go there, it’s quite far but always worth a visit. I drew the White Cross pub, above, which we never went into but I know if it from videos I’ve seen online, apparently when the river tides get a bit high it cuts off the exits, and they lend you wellington boots to wade through to higher ground. I’d probably just stay in the pub. There are a lot of ducks around here, not surprising really. We had a nice refreshing drink at the cafe on one of the boats floating on the Thames. It didn’t go anywhere, but it was nice to sit and catch up. I sketched Simon (below; I was worried I was making him look like Pep Guardiola or Enzo Maresca, but it looked more like him this time, I always struggle sketching him for some reason). I was starting my new small Stillman & Birn brown paper sketchbook which would be my ‘people sketching’ book for this trip, and indeed I would get a lot of use from it in Poland at the symposium, Simon was a good page 1 subject. Some ladies were watching me sketch and asked if I could draw them, I respectfully declined (as they weren’t all that respectful themselves).

I tried to draw Richmond Bridge while sat on the boat but only got as far as outlines, I ended up finishing the rest off later on. The bridge dates from the 18th century.

On the train back into central London I sketched a little more in that brown book, this time using some interesting Derwent ‘Inktense’ paints I had picked up, fun to test those out, I don’t think I’ve used them since. I drew my wife, and also drew Simon again looking very different this time. Outside, it started raining, and got very heavy by the time we reached central London. Nothing more English than a mid-August downpour.

let’s draw more trees

October 22, 2024October 21, 2024Leave a comment

My obsession with tree drawing led me to organize the first Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl of the 24-25 season, a gathering down in the UC Davis Arboretum on an unnecessarily hot morning in early October. I had been for a four mile run that morning, an unnecessarily long distance in preparation for the very unnecessary 10k I will run in the Turkey Trot this year. Speaking of which I need to get back into training for that, I had a vacation to Kauai in between and swapped running for fighting waves and sipping cocktails. The temperatures we had in Davis at the start of this month though were a bit stupid, well over a hundred degrees for several days on end, what sort of autumn do you call this. It has cooled off a little now and the weather is lovely, though the world at large fills me with dread, the election is coming. I really hope the thing I’m dreading doesn’t happen. I will bury myself in my sketchbook in the meantime. Anyway, we were there in the Arboretum, and I drew the bridge, the same bridge I drew on my first ever sketchcrawl in Davis back in December 2005. A very long time ago now, but it was the future at the time. I had to get out of the house, I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t know this town, I needed to start drawing again, and my wife spotted a posting for the worldwide sketchcrawl on DavisWiki or something, long before the world revolved around Facebook, and so out I went, shy as a coconut, started sketching at Mishka’s with some other shy people, the old Mishka’s a block away from where it is now, made it into the Arboretum, and kept going, I didn’t meet up at the end, I just kept drawing on campus, ended up at the library. You might say I kept going and never stopped. Anyway I always think of that day when I draw this bridge, a cold day, before I had even found a job, two months away from the end of my 20s, not even two months into my new life across the Atlantic. I still can’t draw the bloody bridge. Anyway, as you can see the creek has a little sluice in it (is that what they are called? I don’t know. Weirs, that’s it, not sluices.) which is part of the whole Arboretum waterway project I mentioned last time. Bit inconvenient for the ducks, they have to walk round. Good exercise I suppose. Don’t feed them bread. I stood beneath a huge overhanging tree limb while sketching, and leaned against it when I got tired, which after my four mile run was a lot.

I had rushed out of the house and not brought anything to drink with me, no water or anything. I thought about going back downtown to get something, but thought, I’ll be fine. I walked through the shady Redwood Grove looking for something to draw and came across the old tree stump lying on its side. The way the light was hitting it made it look multicoloured, though it was white as a bone. It reminded me of an old skull, maybe of a styracosaurus, and I had drawn a real styracosaurus skull in Los Angeles earlier this year, on my day-long dinosaur drawing adventure. I might need another one of those. I was getting thirsty by this point. I did have another sketch in me but needed to find a drink. None of the nearby buildings on campus were open on the weekends for me to see if they had vending machines, the shops were too far, and my own building with its well-stocked vending machine was a bit too far a walk. So by the time we were all done sketching and met up at the end to look at each others’ work (and there were some very nice sketches done) I was parched. I wasn’t even hungry, I just went straight to Newsbeat and bought two cold drinks, and drank them on the way home.

It was busy downtown, really busy. Newsbeat had a lot of customers, and there were a lot of folk walking about. It’s a good sign for downtown Davis that. The building owners just need to stop putting business rents up to unsustainable levels as that is bad for small local shops, shops the community needs. We really don’t need another boba tea or fro yo shop. Anyway, there were a lot of people about, and it was hot, and I wasn’t hungry so skipped eating lunch and went home. On the way back I noticed this tree on E Street, in the Old North area, and just had to draw it. I only drew a bit of a it though, and finished it off at home because I was feeling hot. It’s lovely isn’t it, it looks like some wise old monster that might control your mind if you aren’t careful. Well not mine. I went home and took a nap, and dreamed about styracosauruses, probably.

Chicago high and low

May 4, 2023Leave a comment

I know what you’re thinking. This isn’t finished. And you’re right, this was all I could sketch at the time. I might have finished it later, but I didn’t. It’s the sort of view I might do a drawing of, on a bigger piece of paper, to test my drawing patience, but this one was drawn pretty quickly from the 94th floor of the John Hancock Building (sorry, it’s not called that any more), which might not be the tallest of Chicago’s big skyscrapers, but it was still pretty damn high up. The view made my knees go all trembly. That slightly wobbly line, that be the horizon, that be the eye level. So you can see that the two taller buildings in this view are the Sears Tower (sorry, the Willis Tower) and the Trump tower (yep, still called that). Our hotel room on the 16th floor was low down and quaintly street level by comparison. It was down there somewhere, we could see it. On the same observation deck there was this ‘ride’ where the windows would move outward from the building so that you appear to be hanging suspended over the city. Needless to say, I didn’t do that. The view didn’t look quite real. Buildings that had towered so far above us at street level as to be hard to grasp, were now some way below us. It was a bit like when I’d play Spider-Man on the PS4, except nothing like it. That is a great game by the way, as is the Miles Morales follow-up. When I’d sketched just about enough, we got the elevator down.

We did spend some time up at Lincoln Park, going to the Zoo, eating the most incredible corn dogs, wandering about a bit looking for a record store my guide book had told me was amazing (only to discover it had closed a while ago; well of course it had, a record store, in 2023? Why it’s next to the penny farthing store, just past the monocle repair shop). So we got the ‘L’ (the Elevated train) back downtown, feeling very much like we were in the Chicago from the films. One of our favourite films set in Chicago is High Fidelity, the one with John Cusack from about 2000. For me and my wife, that film may well be responsible for our whole relationship (to paraphrase the film). Well sort of; we both talked about it a lot when we first met, so I lent her the Nick Hornby book (set in north London of course) which was one of my favourites, and then we started going out. So it kinda is, actually. We were therefore excited to see sights we had seen in the film, such as the Kinzie Street Bridge, sketched above. It was about a 15 minute walk or so from our hotel, and I remember it in the film when Cusack’s character Rob was giving some monologue to the camera, although I think there were fewer big glassy buildings behind it then. When my wife and son went back to the hotel, I stayed to draw the bridge. I was listening to a fascinating Chicago history podcast, several episodes about how things in Chicago have often changed their names, and despite said things only being named something for a relatively short time, locals would refuse to call it by its new name for many decades longer than it had the original name. A bit like people who keep saying ‘Baby Yoda’ instead of ‘Grogu’. I did learn a lot about Chicago’s history and places though, and wished I had a lot more time to explore, but I would probably get tired, and like that record store, the places I’d be looking for might already be gone. Story of my life. Still I was very happy to have some mild weather for a moment to spend time drawing a bridge.

These next few are from the afternoon of the next day. I have some others from the morning of the next day, but those involve dinosaurs and I’ll post those next time. We found the big Chicago Theater with its bright red sign, and I stuck around to sketch it. Eventually it started raining, so I stood under some shelter and sketched Chicago people in my little book, using a brush pen. As I sketdched, one lad came up to me and asked if I had a disability. I laughed, strange question, no I just like to draw in the street. It turns out he was asking about the way I hold my pen. Ah. No, always done that, but thanks for asking, I guess. I mostly drew people coming out of the Metra station (yes that’s ‘Metra’, not ‘Metro’, that’s basically the Subway).

I also drew this fire hydrant, a few blocks away beneath the L. Standing under the ironwork of the L, with the train rumbling above me and the traffic rushing by beneath, I really felt like I was in Chicago like you’d imagine it. Not far from here there are those busy roads that are just underground, beneath the other roads, that make me think of the Fugitive, which we had watched not long before our trip.

Before heading home, and to get out of the rain for a bit, I found a very cool pub with a bit of a Belgian beer theme. Monk’s Pub was the perfect stopping off point, and good to sketch. I had one pint, and drew fast. I listened to a couple of older lads next to me talking with some passion about baseball. Monk’s was warm and welcoming, but I had to get back to the hotel to rest before dinner, so I waited for the rain to ease off and walked back.

un p’tit peu plus de Paris

January 21, 2023January 18, 20231 Comment

Here’s the final batch of Paris sketches from last July’s visit. We really covered a lot of ground, but there’s a lot left to explore in future years. The thing about travel, I want to go everywhere. Well, maybe not everywhere, I don’t really fancy places like Swindon, or Fallujah, or Minsk. I’m sure they have their charms, but they are a bit further down the wish list. I feel like you could explore Paris forever with a sketchbook. The above panorama was another morning walk across the Seine, pre-breakfast, I had a bit of time. I did most of the linework there and then, but had to add in that truck and a lot of the windows later, as well as colour it in. My tummy was rumbling, you know. This is the Pont au Change, looking across to the Île de la Cité and the impressive Palais de Justice and Conciergerie. This is the heart of historic Paris right here. Right next to where I sketched was a stone marker that said on the 19th August 1944, Jem Harrix, ‘Gardien de la Paix’, died for the liberation of Paris. Harrix was a fighter in the Resistance, although I couldn’t find out much more than that. I walked off to get the usual selection of morning pastries, and got ready for our day of sightseeing.

There was one day where we visited the Musée D’Orsay. My wife had been telling me about the Musée D’Orsay for years, she loved that place when she first visited it back in the late 90s. It really is one of the most impressive art museums in the world. Built into the building of a train station, which features giant clock faces that you can look out of to heart-stopping views across Paris. I loved seeing all the paintings by your Renoirs and your Monets, and enjoyed all the sculptures by your Rodins and your Degas, but it was the architecture of the space itself that inspired me the most. I would love to go back; you can never spend too much time in a museum though, because museum fatigue is a real thing.

While taking a sitting down break, I sketched some of the sculptures quickly. It looked like a couple of them were almost doing a ‘Brucie’, that is, the Bruce Forsyth pose. More on the Brucie in another post perhaps, but it’s become one of those traditions now that when I go somewhere, I get a picture of me doing a ‘Brucie’. I got quite a few Brucies on this trip. I even got a Brucie at the Louvre in front of one of those massive paintings by David, though it was too crowded for a Brucie in front of the Mona Lisa. I got a Brucie at the Eiffel Tower, a Brucie at the Mont St Michel, a Brucie by the Seine, a Brucie in front of Van Gogh. You can only do one at each place, you don’t get nothing for a pair, not in this game. Anyway, I thought Rodin’s ‘Penseur’ had a touch of the Forsyth about him. This sculpture is from 1881! That’s a year older than Tottenham Hotspur. Rodin probably won more trophies too, yeah yeah.

After leaving the museum we went down to the seine and grabbed some lunch by the river, some Breton food. We didn’t stay too long in our seat though, as were were harassed by loads of wasps. Big horrible wasps too that wouldn’t take buzz-off for an answer, and made me spill my drink. I was going to ask to see the wasps’ manager and complain about their behaviour, but it turns out wasps don’t care about your stupid lunchtime and just want to get all over everything you are trying to eat and threaten you with their stingers. They know you’ll give up, and they were right. So we gave up, and walked through the city towards the Eiffel Tower. I’m not sure why we didn’t get the bus, but we thought the walk would do us good. it was a nice walk, but our feet didn’t half need a rest by the time we reached the Champ de Mars. We took a good long rest there and enjoyed the view and the pleasant wasp-free weather, and sketched the scene below. We walked closer to the Tower, recreated a photo we took of our son ten years before, and crossed the Seine to walk up the Trocadero (where I managed to sneak in a quick Brucie). We didn’t go up the Tower this time. I’ve been to the top before. What is interesting is that nowadays it is not possible to just walk beneath the Eiffel Tower, you are rerouted around it, which is disappointing. I do love the Eiffel Tower though, as far as iconic buildings go, this is up there in the top three.

We visited the Louvre too, but not on the same day as the Musee d’Orsay. My wife was surprised when I told her that I’d never been to the Louvre, in fact I’d never really been to any of the big Museums in Paris. In fact, none of the small ones either. I’ve not been to Paris that many times, and I usually wander about enjoying the streets. The Louvre was absolutely massive though. It’s big from the outside, but inside it feels even more gigantic. We did see the Mona Lisa of course, in that jam-packed little space (no Brucie; no room). I get it, it’s famous, but it’s not all that. You just have to say that you saw it and be done with it. It didn’t exactly have any impact on me such as when I saw Guernica in Madrid. Still, you got to see the famous thing, and anything by Leonardo da Vinci is worth taking a look at.

After the Louvre, we rested those tired feet by going up to Montmartre and walking around that hilly neighbourhood, getting out at Abbesses Metro station and climbing a ridiculous spiral staircase that went on forever, I thought we’d end up on the Moon or somewhere. Despite being packed with people, I really like Montmartre and had a nice afternoon there in 2019 (see: https://petescully.com/2020/02/02/une-journee-breve-a-paris/). We took the Funicular up to Sacre Coeur, enjoyed the views, despaired at the stupid amount of those little padlocks on all the fences. Seriously everyone, stop doing that. Padlock peddlers walk around selling those little “love-locks” at silly prices. But honestly, are you going to come back in years to come with your spouse and look for your little padlock with your initials on them on that fence with thousands of others and go, yay, we were here before, wow. No, don’t be silly. There was that one bridge over the Seine, the Pont des Arts, where so many of these things had been placed by silly lovers, throwing their keys into the river like idiots, that the city actually tried to stop it, because there were so many that the bridge started suffer damage under the weight. So people, please give up the love-lock thing. Love is all you need, not a bloody padlock on a bridge or fence in some city miles away. Anyway. We went inside Sacre Coeur, I had never been in there before, and it’s really nice. From inside, we did notice that the building is distinctly, um, booby-shaped. We wlaked about the streets and squares, found a very cool shop called ‘Merde’ run by an artist selling his artwork along with lots of things that say ‘Merde’ on it; we got some stickers and stuff. I did a very quick outline sketch of the view of Le Consulat restaurant, but we were ready to go home, so I took a picture and did most of it later on. The Metro ride home was long and sleepy. We were flying back to America the next day, which was an eventful journey in itself. We loved our time in Paris, and I can’t wait to come back again.

Bonjour Bayeux

January 15, 20237 Comments

We spent a few nights staying in the little city of Bayeux, a good base to explore Normandy. There are a lot of places in Normandy we didn’t get to that we’d like to have seen – Rouen, Honfleur, Giverny, I mean it’s a big place – but for what we were going to see Bayeux was perfect, especially being so very close to the D-Day Beaches. For me though Bayeux was the place for the thing I’ve wanted to see forever, the Bayeux Tapestry. It did not disappoint! It has its own museum, and while we went when it was early and not yet too crowded, the line has to keep moving along it. It’s long – about 70 metres – and while I’ve learned about it for many years there’s nothing like the experience of seeing it all in one go, and constantly moving along, with the commentary in the headphones explaining it, made it feel like watching a long comic strip, a cartoon about the Norman Invasion of England. And it was funny, too. There were a lot of willies. The inventiveness and use of colours is incredible, and the sense of movement you get in the horses and the battle scenes is something a few modern movie directors could learn from. The Bayeux Tapestry was made sometime in the 1070s with the Conquest still fresh, is of course, neither a tapestry (it’s an embroidery) nor from Bayeux (Made In England, by Nuns in Barking and Canterbury, likely under the instruction of Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent) but so what, as Macca would say, it’s the bloody Bayeux Tapestry, it sold, shut up. It wasn’t about Peace and Love though. A brilliant piece of Norman propaganda, perhaps, but as I said to my wife, for me this is like going to see the US Declaration if Independence or something (but in reverse, I guess), 1066 being such a crucial moment in British history and in the history of the English language. If it wasn’t for William the Bastard getting all Conqueror on our medieval asses, we’d probably be speaking a language much closer to Dutch and German than the way it looks today. Either way, the gist of the story is that the Normans totally stitched up the Anglo-Saxons.

The Bayeux Tapestry used to be kept in the cathedral but isn’t any more. The Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux (above) is pretty massive and as in many French towns you can orient yourself by looking up and seeing where the spire is, and it’s visible for miles around. While we didn’t get a chance to go inside, I did sketch it on one of my morning walks, though it started to rain so I finished it off inside. It was consecrated in 1077 with William the Conqueror there, so it fits into the timeline of the Tapestry. It was supposed to be here that William got his promise from Harold that he would support him to be King after Edward the Confessor died, starting that whole thing. The little courtyard in front of the cathedral’s main entrance is very pretty, I stood at the rear a little way down the hill where the view was pretty magnificent. Even when looking at this, I keep thinking, I must go and get a pain aux amandes for breakfast.

The narrow street we stayed on, Rue Saint-Patrice, was full of little shops (many closed on both Sunday and Monday, when we were there) and many very old looking buildings. I don’t recall what this building was called, on the corner of Rue Franche, but I drew it on my evening walk after we had eaten dinner and had a busy day touristing somewhere else. There are flags lining the streets in Bayeux. I love a timber-frame building, it’s like a puzzle when drawing to make sure you get all the bits in the right place, but a little personality goes a long way and you don’t want too many straight lines. The weather was nice, the sky had dappled clouds and of course the sun set so much later, so after this I went further into town and drew another scene, below. This pretty postcard view is across the little river Aure, that trickles through Bayeux with the Cathedral in the background. Every evening we would take a walk down this way, and around the corner we ate some nice Norman food at a restaurant, though on one evening I walked up to a little store about a mile up the road (the supermarket in the centre-ville being already closed) to buy some dinner supplies, and was brought back to living in France years ago, standing in line in a small shop for about 20 minutes and then carrying heavy bags up and down streets and up a narrow staircase, it was like going back 20 years. I really liked Bayeux, and my family loved it, we had no ‘Bayeux remorse’. Bit quiet, but a good base to explore.

And of course, I drew a hydrant! More Normandy sketches to come…

chasing clouds on the banks of the thames

August 16, 2022August 15, 2022Leave a comment

On the first day of June, which is always a good day in the calendar, I took the tube down to Battersea to meet up with friend Simon, who was flying over from Dublin that morning for a few days. I say I took the tube down, well this being classic London, I left in good time only to find the Northern Line was down, so I had to get a bus to Queensbury to jump on the Jubilee Line. Can’t escape the Jubilee. Incidentally that Jubilee Line was named for the Queen’s 25th (Silver) Jubilee, which is why it is coloured in grey. This year it was the 70th (Platinum) Jubilee, and they named the new Crossrail after her, the Elizabeth Line (that was actually her mum’s name, Elizabeth Lines-Bowen) (I think they missed a trick by not renaming Crossrail as “we-are-not-amused-rail”, ok maybe not). Anyway silly jokes aside, I was hoping to see the new London underground station on the Northern Line, Battersea Power Station Station. That is actually its name. It is the tube station for Battersea Power Station, so therefore it is Battersea Power Station Station. However, once me and Simon met up, at Vauxhall Bridge, we never found it, as we were catching up on three years of silly jokes. It was a fun day out we had along the river, and then up into Chelsea, and the clouds were incredible. He’s a pro photographer and got some great shots – follow him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/naderissimo/ – and I started some sketches, very much in the ‘finish these later’ category. I had not drawn Battersea Power Station before, I do want to draw it from the other side of the river sometime, but it has all been redeveloped in recent years and is all a bit fancy now. I notice that the Urban Sketchers London had a sketching event down there recently, part of the ten year anniversary, as many Battersea Power Station sketches kept popping up on my feed, making me want to go back down that way. I haven’t really explored there before, so it was an eye opener.

We walked down through Battersea Park, where I have not been for many years, until we took a rest by the Albert Bridge (above). I drew this bridge as an illustration for a book years ago, the “London Walks, London Stories” book in about 2008 or 2009, so I was keep to draw it in person. Not super easy, so I drew the main bits, the main outlines, and drew in the rest of the details later. We were busy chatting. Albert Bridge is named after Queen Victoria’s dead husband Prince Albert (I mean they are all dead now aren’t they, the Victorians), and is one of the best and most charming bridges in London. Lots of things are named after Prince Albert, you’ve got the Albert Embankment, the Albert Hall, the Albert Bridge, the Albert Memorial, Albert Square, and of course the Prince Albert, which I won’t elaborate on further. We crossed Albert Bridge and wandered about Chelsea, looking for one specific pub that Simon knew about, and I can definitely say I got my ten thousand steps in that day a couple of times over. Still at least we got to look at some cool shops and see loads more colourful Jubilee displays, including this union-jack-themed mini. Simon used to have a very beloved mini, so I just had to draw this, though now he lives in Dublin he probably wouldn’t drive this particular one about. There were so many interesting floral displays along the Kings Road, we spent a lot of time taking photos (and being silly of course) before resting with a pint in the old pub he was looking for, and then heading over to Harrods (I got some delicious cannoli). One thing about this trip, I did explore a fair bit of London I either hadn’t been to before, or not been to in years. It’s like a book you can keep coming back to and learning something new, but because it’s the city where I’m from there’s always a connection.

love and bridges

August 3, 2022Leave a comment

Another break, I was in Europe again recently, so I have many more sketches to post and stories to tell. But we are about four months behind, so you get those ones first. Here are a couple of bridges over the creek in the UC Davis Arboretum that I drew during the Spring quarter. I like a bridge. The one above is fairly newly renovated, having had a big upgrade in the past few years. The one below is a footbridge only, and people put those little padlocks with hearts and names scratched on onto the railings, which I am not a fan of. There’s that one in Paris isn’t there where so many of those silly padlocks have been attached to the bridge that the bridge starting creaking under the extra weight. “Oh I love you dear, I know, I will leave a stupid little padlock I bought off a guy for twenty quid on this bridge in a place we don’t live so that if we ever come back we can see if it’s still there or if it’s been cut off by council workers due to it being vandalism, just like the thousands of people have done before.” “Oh thank you dear you are so romantic and original.” “Well I try. Do you still have that single rose I bought you for a fiver from some guy bugging us at our restaurant table?” “That must have been someone else.” I put a lot of thought into these imaginary character conversations. In fact last week (late July) I was in Paris and that bridge there doesn’t allow those silly love-locks any more, but that doesn’t mean the stupid love-lock industry is dead, because they put them every bloody where else. Up at Montmartre, it felt like every metal fence was covered in them, you could see the cheap brass glistening in the light, and scrawny men were wandering about with bags of them trying to sell them to people. And they are mostly heart-shaped now as well. Honestly there are so many of them it would become utterly tedious to try and look through them when you return with your partner years later to find it, this unique special thing, yeurch. Anyway don’t do that. Don’t carve your initials onto trees either, nor into rocks, or write hit records for them, or build huge domed palaces for them or travel the universe gathering infinity stones so you can wipe out half of all existence with the snap of a finger for them, or any of that cheesy stuff, just be cool.

Anyway, I better start scanning the new sketches and coming up with more interesting things to say. I’ve done some travelling in the past few months and my legs hurt, but it’s the height of hot summer now and time to start catching up. Stay tuned.

VTDF #4: Amiens

July 16, 2021July 16, 20212 Comments

Stage 4 of the Virtual Tour de France finds us in the northern city of AMIENS, on the river (and department) Somme. It is difficult to say the name ‘Somme’ without thinking of the historic atrocity of the 1916 Battle of the Somme, in World War I. Three million soldiers fought in that battle, with over a million wounded or killed. Amiens is right in the heart of World War 1 country, and itself saw a 1918 battle that ended in an Allied victory. World War II didn’t exactly pass it by either, with another Battle of Amiens in 1940 when Germany took the town, and later on pretty heavy bombardment by the Allies in 1944 before it was liberated. There were wars and sieges and sackings here in the many centuries before, but Amiens and the Somme are inescapably linked with the awful World Wars.

This is a nice view though, down by the river, looking up at the cathedral. I could imagine coming here and eating lunch by the Somme, before driving on to another town for a bit more history. I found out recently that an ancestor of mine from Dublin fought in World War 1 and was wounded in a gas attack at Loos, not far from Lens. I saw my great-great grandfather’s photo (his name was James Higgins, as was his father, and his son who I think also fought in that war?) and he had the most amazing bushy “General Melchett” moustache. He wasn’t a general though, just a regular soldier. I also saw a postcard he sent home to his wife (my great-great granny) in Dublin from Loos before the battle took place. Fascinating stuff, I never knew he even existed until recently. I never inherited the moustache. It was a big handlebar one with two pointy tails, that reminds me a bit of the Red Bull logo, or two rats fighting. I would not know how to take care of an amazing moustache like that, I would probably get it in my soup, this is why I shave. I only briefly had a moustache, though it was part of a goatee, and that was for a few months in the 90s and that my friend is where for most people goatees should have stayed. Funnily enough I never saw anyone in France with that classic French moustache, the one with the twirly sides, that all cartoon French people have (along with the beret and the onions and the baguette), but I have seen many hipster people in America wear that ‘tache. I couldn’t pull it off.

There does appear what looks like a lifesize Subbuteo figure standing in the river, to the left there. I think it is called “L’Homme sur sa bouée” (“The man on his buoy”). It seems that it’s common for the people of the town to dress him up, put t-shirts on him and so on. He is the work of German sculptor Stephan Balkenhol and was originally installed there in 1993, but being made of wood and manhandled by so many locals it degraded a fair bit over the years and was replaced in 2019 by the artist, this time in aluminium. Or maybe it is still wood but now painted in aluminium, it’s hard to tell. L’Homme sur sa bouée has become a bit of local celebrity in Amiens. There are two other similar statues by the same artist placed nearby against the walls of buildings that the man in the river is looking at. If I ever got to Amiens I will look out for them all.

After Amiens we leave Picardy behind and head into another part of France famous for its role in World War II: Normandy. So join me on the Road to Rouen.

over the creek

March 15, 2021Leave a comment

While I’m only going to campus once a week it’s still good to track the changes going on. This bridge near my office, where LaRue crosses Putah Creek, reopened recently after a long and necessary update. So on one of those very windy days we had recently I walked over and drew it. The Robert Mondavi Institute (RMI) of Food and Wine Sciences is in the background; they have a whole beer lab, and their own research vineyard. The wind was blowing so I drew as quickly as I could and painted it in later. It was so windy I didn’t even listen to a podcast. In my last post I mentioned about all the things about podcasts that make me turn off, but didn’t mentioned what I am listening to most these days. So here goes, my current podcast list, good for listening to while sketching. I like it when a podcast is roughly 50 minutes – 1 hour long as that’s a good time for a full sketch, unless it’s a bigger more complicated one or a double-page panorama. So in no order:

(1) Adam Buxton Podcast (very funny, he did a really fun one with Paul McCartney recently but I love his specials with old comedy mate Joe Cornish); (2) You’re Dead To Me (presented by Greg Jenner, historian from Horrible Histories, another one where I really love his enthusiasm and voice and his guests again always provide a good balance for the listener, he always has a historian and a comedian and they illuminate any subject colourfully, it’s definitely a highlight when this podcast comes out) (3) Guardian Football Weekly (I really like Max Rushden as a presenter, and he makes a good-natured balance to the dour but hilarious Barry Glendenning, the grumpy wit Barney Ronay and the scholarly Sunderlander Jonathan Wilson), the only thing is I think I actually enjoyed football podcasts more last year when there was no football, and they found more interesting ways to talk about the game in general rather than analyzing the endless mill of games we have now, and I can tell they want a break from this season; (4) Totally Football Show (with James Richardson, formerly of Football Weekly but best known for Football Italia on Channel 4 in the 90s, which us 90s lads all have fond memories of, and I really love the special Golazzo podcasts he does about the great characters and teams of Italian football); (5) Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men (I’ve been listening to this for several years now, as they walk us through X-Men comics history, over 300 episodes in and they have reached the late 90s and even if I am completely unfamiliar with the stories or characters they are talking about, I can’t help but be drawn in by their enthusiasm and knowledge, and audibly they make a perfect conversational balance with each other, I could listen to them both talk all day); (6) The Infinite Monkey Cage (with Brian Cox and Robin Ince, science based and with a mix of science people and comedians saying funny things (or trying to) after the science people have said the science stuff; (7) History of the English Language (Followed since episode 1, this one is right up my alley as a fellow history-of-English enthusiast); (8) Travel with Rick Steves (I like Rick and his friendly nature, and there are always a lot of interesting stories from the guests about the various places or themes they focus on, but he did lose a bit of travel-cred when he kept referring to Windsor Castle as “Windsor Palace” in one episode); (9) Join Us In France (this is presented by a French woman who lived in the US for a long time and talks about all different areas of France and French culture, and I’ve discovered a lot of places I would like to explore by listening to this); (10) Checkered Flag Podcast (This one runs during the Formula 1 season and is really just a review of what happened that race weekend, but it’s always quite fun even if the hosts tend to sometimes wind each other up a bit much). I also listen to “History Extra Podcast”, “History of the 20th Century”, “Revolutions”, “Formula 1 Beyond the Grid”, “Nessun Dorma” (about 80s/90s football), “Zonal Marking”, “Talking Comics”, “Full of Sith” (Star Wars related but the voice of one of the hosts annoys me a bit so I don’t listen often, but I love that they love the prequels), “Dan Snow’s History Hit”, “Shakespeare Unlimited”, “Grounded with Louis Theroux”, “In Our Time” (with Melvyn Bragg), “Listen Up A-Holes” (Marvel Cinematic Universe reviews, though I tend to skip past some of the long-winded stuff), “Star Talk Radio” (though Neil DeGrasse Tyson isn’t as funny as he thinks he is, nor is his comic sidekick, he does know his physics), “The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry” (science), and quite a lot more that I listen to occasionally. But I also just listen to music, and we’re not getting into that here. I’m thinking of starting to listen to audiobooks more as well, I do like a good story.

But then again, when out sketching, usually I prefer to listen to the sounds of the environment around me, particularly if I am in a big city or somewhere new. The sounds make their way into the sketch. In this one though, it was the sound of the wind telling me to leave it for now and finish it up later.