while we were getting high

December 23, 2008January 5, 20093 Comments

I’ve been back in London almost a week now, and done a fair bit of sketching; but not much scanning or getting online. I did post this picture on the urban sketchers site though – it’s the Gatehouse pub in Highgate, an area I used to live in, and one which I love. The Gatehouse is right on top of the hill, and while the wetaher has been really mild and bright since we arrived, it was a little nippy while I sat drawing this.

I hadn’t intended on going to Highgate that day. I was on my way in to the City to go to an exhibition (This Tiny World, by my cousin, and it was very good) but the tube stopped in Golders Green (typical; welcome back to London). So I detoured to Highgate and had a little mooch around my old stomping ground: Highgate Village, Waterlow Park, Hornsey Lane, Archway. I used to go to this pub sometimes, but I didn’t on this day – I finished the wash in the warmth of the nearby Angel Inn. I miss this part of the world a lot.

ladies and gentlemen

December 8, 2008December 9, 20081 Comment

Remember when I drew this scene while sitting in Alamo Square back in July? No? Well I did (here it is to prove it). And here is the same scene again, drawn this week, but in sepia wash. The ‘painted ladies’.

Drawn on a 5×7 canson watercolour postcard with a copic 0.1 pen and cotman watercolours. And a whole lotta love.

à la maison

December 7, 2008December 7, 20083 Comments

Another one in copic and sepia…this is my mother-in-law’s house in Santa Rosa. It’s in the historic Luther Burbank district. He invented lots of plants.

As you can see, I’m still doing the whole tree in front of the frame thing. It’s becoming my thing.

thousands of colours all fade into one

December 2, 2008December 2, 20083 Comments

The Belfry on A street (the street of the indefinite article). The colours of a blooming autumn (or whatever other expletive you wish to use). We are now foggy and grey so these enormous splashes of colour make a world of difference. I have drawn this building before of course, back in March, when the leaves that are now in the autumn or even winter of their lives were barely even buds. And look, I have drawn vehicles; I daresay there were probably vehicles parked here in the original, but I peteshopped them out. At least you can see the building in the original though.

I don’t know if there are any bats in this belfry. I remember when I first moved to Davis, and I read online about the bats of Yolo county, and how rabies was endemic in them. Yeah, that didn’t completely scare me. Funny things, bats. Their leathery wings always, for some reason, remind me of Lovejoy.

back in black

November 29, 20083 Comments

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving! Except if you’re in the UK, in which case ‘Happy Last Thursday’. Or Canada, in which case ‘Belated Happy Thanksgiving’. Or everywhere else. Anyway, it’s the most turkey-ful time of the year, and why not. I love thanksgiving, for the food. The autumnal colours are always nice as well.

But the next day is Black Friday. Black, because of the mood after spending hours locked into the consumerist nightmare that is big box america, home of the all-you-can-spend strip-mall. Black Friday sounds rather like a good pirate’s name, “yarrr, Captain Black Friday, shiver me timbers.” In a way though, Black Friday is the captain, that is supposed to steer the ship of the economy back on course (but you wouldn’t trust ‘im, an’ he’s only got one leg, etc etc). Not for me the 4:30 lining up in the freezing darkness outside Best Buy – I did that two years ago as an experiment, and have no need to do so again. I popped down to the action zone later on in the day though, to see for myself the economy rumbling back into gear, and spent hours stuck there in the maelstrom (or the toy department of Target at least), coming away with not a clue and no bargains at all. I did stop to draw Best Buy though. Looks very peaceful, doesn’t it.

Speaking of autumnal colours, the day before Thanksgiving we actually had some rain in Davis. Weather.com said there was a Severe Weather Warning for the Sacramento Valley. Severe weather. Shit. I looked, and they said there would be Some Rain, 30-40% chance. Some rain. Well, I braved the severe weather and got a tiny bit damp, 30 or 40% damp on my jacket at least, dodging brown leaves as they fluttered gently to the puddle-spotted pavement, and drew the picture below. Severe weather, seriously.

By the way, I posted both of these drawings on Urban Sketchers this week. Good reminder for you to go and check that site out; it’s nearly a month old, with hundreds of urban drawings already.

father wears his sunday best

November 25, 2008November 24, 20083 Comments

This is not Our House and it’s not in the middle of R Street, it’s the Hunt Boyer House and it’s on the corner of E Street, and 2nd, Davis. There used to be this absolutely whopping tree behind it, and I mean enormous, but they cut it down as it was leaning a bit too far to the right (never a popular thing in this town). Mind you, from the other side it looked like the tree was leaning too far to the left. Oh well, I suppose many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Perhaps instead of cutting it down we should have bailed it out.

right through the very heart of it

November 19, 2008November 19, 20088 Comments

The final bit of urban sketching done in New York (I also took a lot of photos for reference drawing later, but you can’t beat being there on the streets tasting the air). Here I am just off Washington Square, looking up Fifth, indeniably NYC in November. I never went up the Empire State. Always thought it would be better to go up the Rockefeller anyway, because at least from there you can see the Empire State – I love seeing that building. I also adore the Chrysler – it’s one of those buildings that when you first see, you cannot stop taking photos of it. It could be the most beautiful modern building in the world (and I say modern meaning in the past 100 years). I sketched it from the steps of the New York Public Library, itself a fantastic old building (but not one with baby changing facilities, I might add).

One of the things I love about New York is that you always feel a little like you’re on the set of Ghostbusters. Things are so familiar. And not just Ghostbusters, but any of the million or so other movies or shows that have been set here. Not a feeling you get strolling down Edgware High Street.

I still hadn’t eaten, which is not a good thing (and surely an impossibility in the big apple), and as I previously mentioned, I wanted something ‘New York’. But then I happened across a little Belgian place, the BXL Cafe in narrow 43rd Street, which called me in to taste some Maredsous beer and some absolutely amazing moules frites (better than I have had even in Belgium, I might add). I drew the place (right) in copic and faber-castell brush pens; trying something different for a change. Overheard some Scottish women talking about shopping for their kids, sounded like they had saved up a long while for this trip, and I felt sorry for them because the pound has absolutely plummeted this past couple of months. I overheard a lot of British people in New York – more than I did New Yorkers – the place is choc full of them. Probably why I felt at home.

Came back down again the next day, with my wife and baby, to go to Central Park and see the amazing fall colours. We ended up getting a little lost on the Subway, which is enormous fun with a stroller by the way, and sitting in a cafe off Sixth trying to feed the baby (while overhearing, of course, English people). And I finally had cannoli, something definitely New York, and it was good. New York is good. Can’t wait to go back.

and i sang ‘you’re as free as a bird’

November 17, 2008November 17, 2008Leave a comment

The second morning in New York was brighter and breezier. I took an early train, and went all the way down to the bottom tip of Manhattan, to look out at the Statue of Liberty, which is famous because it was in X-Men. It was placed out on Liberty Island way before the world became a place full of digital camera snapping tourists, so it’s not there just as a cynical ploy to get you to take the ferry and get a closer look. It was there to greet the throngs of immigrants, the huddled masses arriving on ships toward Ellis Island, that the New York was eager to welcome, and who have contributed so much to the city and the country’s character (something to remember, daily mail readers). A gift to show the bonds of liberty and friendship between America and France (something to remember, fox news viewers). From here though it’s kind of hard to see properly. You’d think they’d move it closer.

Gotta love her though. Really, I couldn’t come all this way and not see Lady Liberty, holding up her ice cream. I’ve been close up before, and she’s cool. This day however was a sketching day and that means packing in as much of the city as I can grab, and drawing some along the way. I wandered about the financial District, stopping off at the World Trade Center site, still empty and closed off as it was when I was there six years ago. Mooched around the narrow streets that reminded me so much of the City of London (and with names like Thames Street you can see why). Stopped off in Wall Street, to see what all the fuss is about. There was a lot of construction work going on, cue all the quips from all the passers-by. Sat on the steps beneath a huge statue of George Washington (on the site where he was inaugurated President, which is pretty cool), I sketched the New York Stock Exchange, which is still covered over with that huge (and unnecessary) flag, which reminded me of a giant band-aid. Are they hiding behind it?

hitched in hitchin

October 31, 2008October 30, 20084 Comments

It’s Hallowe’en…this is supposed to be the most haunted building in Hertfordshire ( that’s England, folks, just north of the part of London I’m from). It’s the Sun Hotel in Hitchin, and today my friend James is marrying his fiancee Lianne at this very place (many congratulations dudes!); unfortunately I can’t go (what with being on the other side of the world) so I drew this for them.

Happy Hallowe’en!

sketchcrawl 20 (part 3)

October 29, 2008October 28, 20085 Comments

And so on to 24th Street, and to the more colourful latin-american part of town. I loved it down there and was itching to draw some spanish-language shopfront. I chose a barber-shop (yep, drawn barber-shops in SF before) which i could have simplified, but i did have lots of kids and adults wearing chivas etc football shirts looking over my shoulder exclaiming excitedly in spanish so I felt i should keep adding details. I enjoyed drawing this one. The one below, I finally got a powerline in there. Several other sketchcrawlers were at this intersection – one even spoke to me, and happened to be from England – and there were also two large cops on two large motorbikes hodden behind opposite corners, bursting out sirens screaming every time someone jumped a stop sign (presumably that was the reason, unless it was something more serious). Decided to colour this elsewhere, over a well-deserved fat tire in a little Irish bar called napper tandy’s, full of fairly well-watered and friendly Irish people. Decided on sepia in the end, give it a different flavour.

Sketchcrawl ended at Muddy’s, a cafe with pretty much nothing on the menu that I wanted (this is why I prefer these things to end at a pub, at least they have beer, but that’s just me being a Londoner; I don’t drink coffee, so all those different flavour beans mean nothing to me). There were a LOT of other sketchcrawlers there, sharing their sketchbooks – though I usually like this bit, I was a little intimidated. I did sit and swap books with a few people, all great work, some people just doing one or two pictures, others filling pages and pages with quality work. I was given some nice compliments. But I got too shy to go mingling, and slinked off for a very messy mission burrito, before heading off to catch the amtrak bus over the bridge, and the train back to Davis, tired and exhausted.

I really enjoyed this Sketchcrawl. They’re always different. I guess the next one is in January some time – we’ll see! Hope you enjoyed my little trip through the Mission District.