Tag: brown paper

brown is the colour

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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). 

sudwerk marzen

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.

toy digger

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

luke skywalker

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

profile

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.

enterprise and pole

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.

call the engines, call the engines

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toy fire truck

Above: a toy fire truck, drawn in my brown paper book. This was actually in the course of being played with while I was on the floor sketching it. At one point, Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi – volunteer firefighters, didn’t you know – jumped on board and went to rescue a kitty. I find I’m drawing things I think my kid will like. Below is UC Davis fire station, drawn during a lunchtime this week. Did you know the firefighters here actually have collectable baseball-type cards that kids can collect? It’s true, and they’re pretty cool, they tell you about the fireman or firewoman, and they have a safety message on there and everything.

UCD fire station

ghost of a steam train, echoes down my track

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railroad museum

We went to the Railroad Museum in Sacramento this morning. A train-obsessed toddler’s paradise, for sure, but I loved it too – I could go back some time with the regular sketchbook and spend a whole day! As it is, I had my small brown-paper book (only 89 cents, it’s great) and made a couple of quick captures, 5-10 minutes each one. The engines there are absolutely enormous, much bigger than I had expected. I can see why train-anoraks get so excited.

railroad museum

on a chinese envelope

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uc davis, on a chinese envelope

I wanted to draw on some different surfaces, try out some new things. I get a lot of mail from all over the world in my job, mostly from China, and my recycling bin is chock full of interesting looking envelopes waiting to be drawn on. So I cut one up, pasted it into my moleskine and drew the view from the stairwell today, the UCD water tower on a foggy January lunchtime. I don’t remember which university this envelope came from, nor do I read Chinese, but I thought the effect of the red writing looked really cool on the brown paper. Oh, and yes I know it is upside down.