roll out the map, and mark it with a pin

September 18, 2010September 20, 20102 Comments

This drawing of the Silo at UC Davis, done yesterday lunchtime. I’m trying something out. This is drawn in dark brown Pitt pen, in a regular moleskine sketchbook – the same one I started exactly four years ago and abandoned due to my dislike of the paper (my micron pens couldn’t get the hang of it, and it absolutely hates watercolour). But I have a new project, a Davis drawing project, that I want to put into my Urban Sketchers moleskine, the one I got at the Symposium in Portland. It will be a series in the same format as the above, more or less. Should be fun!

long to rain over us

January 22, 2010January 22, 2010Leave a comment

The massive rainstorms this week have confined me to the inside world. I feel like a hermit. But you’re from London, they protest, you must be used to the rain. Yeah, it got me just as wet there too. So anyway, I’m still using bits of cut up enelopes to make my drawing look a little different. I had a few minutes over lunch to draw out of rain-soaked window, in poor visibility, in brown micron on an envelope that came from London, funny enough.

wrapped up in books

June 17, 2009Leave a comment

Cycled to the Davis library on sunday, took back those books I didn’t read. I then got books out I’ve already read, well this one anyhow. I sketched the biography section in brown pen. I’ve always been a library-dweller, since I was a kid. I used to bury my nose in books about language, scouring libraries across the borough (preferably for those that said “warning: contains obscure language”). Sometimes I would read fiction, sometimes – quite often – I would read travel books. And I used to spend a lot of time in the music library, taking out records, any scratches marked clearly on the vinyl by the librarian with that yellow crayon. I would get back on the bus with a can of Lilt and a Mars bar, and read up on philology, all the way home.

the warriors of winter gave a cold triumphant shout

February 3, 2009February 3, 20094 Comments

away from the numbers

December 11, 2008December 11, 2008Leave a comment

Did some christmas shopping on monday night, out in the cold; thankfully there’s that nice warm Czech pub near the bus-stop, so I stopped off in there while waiting and did a quick dark drawing over a quick dark beer.

nice one, centurion, like it

September 28, 20086 Comments

Illustration Friday this week, well, “packed” – considering we still aren’t completely unpacked it was appropriate. Two weeks in the new place and it’s still hard to remove some objects from their very temporary homes. We only moved a hundred yards, for heaven’s sake, I can see my old apartment from my new one (it’s a bit like seeing Russia from Sarah Palin’s house). The books are all on the shelf (permanent positions undecided), CDs, records, glasses, knives and forks; it’s the stuff marked “misc” (or “pete misc”, to be precise) that is having a hard time settling.

Speaking of new homes: this is my 100th post on my new website (hence the title). That’s 700 posts in all if you include the old blog. Wow. At this rate, I should hit 1000 posts in around… April 2010.

just like wigan casino

July 30, 2008Leave a comment

dancing. i didn't, by the way.

SF trip, part 3: the evening. I ate at Squat and Gobble (the one on Chestnut, not Haight) before going back to the hotel for a rest. I was thinking of going down to Norh Beach, as I like it round there, or perhaps to the toronado in Haight, where they have a lot of interesting beers. I ended up doing neither, just sticking around near the hotel, up Polk Gulch / Tenderloin. I popped into a small place called Vertigo for a cocktail – for some unknown reason, I fancied one, something fruity. I got one called Polk Punch, which turned out to be the foulest thing I have ever drunk. It had something like grape vodka in it, some nasty shite. so I just went to the Edinburgh Castle on Geary – been there before, know it has good beer, sorted. I was wearing my favourite “northern soul” top, and as luck would have it, it turned out to be a northern soul night! Pretty happy accident. All of the music was utterly amazing. I drew the above at the bar, in blue staedtler triplus fineliner, and then scribbled some dancing, in brown.

A note on the dancing: years ago, I used to go to a tiny club in London, and there was this one guy who I think lived only to dance to northern soul, phenomenally active, dressed the part, hair just so. Anyway there was one guy dancing on Saturday who was almost exactly the same person, you could just tell that was basically what he did, it was his thing every bit as much as crouching over a sketchbook is my thing. Respect, I thought; until I saw he had pulled off his shirt and was dancing only in his tie. Respect lost, I thought again.

Anyway, that was my night out; don’t get them any more, so I’m glad it was set to good music.

don’t be too proud of this technological terror

June 17, 20081 Comment

Marching ever on with the Sketchbook Project, with Saving the World, with a brown micron pigma and a purple micron pigma. Parts 17 and 18; more to follow.

Incidentally, the polaroid that’s poking out of that box is a signed photo of me and my lifelong hero Ossie Ardiles, way back in 1994. My knees were going all trembly. (I signed a copy for him too)

did gyre and gimble in the wabe

June 15, 2008June 15, 20083 Comments

Parts twelve to sixteen of saving the world (the sketchbook project); the book is now more than half full (or half empty). I needed a second intermission after returning from the UK so some stamps seemed appropriate. Saving stamps as it were. The dialogue is very loosely inspired by something my mate Tel said to me at school (that was about santa claus). Then I decided to draw from hereon in various colours: twelve is in brown micron pigma, there’s my acoustic guitar there look; thirteen is in – allez les bleus – blue, or chould I say cobalt (copic 0.1) and shows the bookcase.

Fourteen is the trusty purple micron again, been using that one for a while now. It’s the bathroom sink. Wash your hands. In this story I wonder if superman ever washed his hands, and if it made a difference to those he saved. Part fifteen is a copic 0.05, in ‘wine’, while the last one is a copic 0.1 in ‘olive’. That’s the recycling bin. I wanted to draw it before taking it out.

If you click on these admittedly smaller than necessary images, they will magically transport you to the world of flickr, where you can see them much much bigger (don’t worry, you won’t have to shrink first). The book continues; the due date is august 1st. Plenty of time.