sketchcrawl 20 (part 2)

October 28, 2008October 27, 20082 Comments

Saturday’s sketchcrawl in SF’s Mission District continued; I drew the view down 22nd St looking towards that large insectoid alien invader tower thing. I do know what it is called, but it is funnier if I call it that. You may notice, there are no power lines in this picture, what was I thinking? Was I going to spend a day drawing in the Mission without sketching my beloved powerlines? Surely not. But I had a checklist: powerlines, victorian houses, spanish-language shopfronts, and sutro tower with a hill full of buildings. Otherwise I may as well just stay in Davis and draw trees. I got the drawing of a building with a tree in the foreground done, that’s an old chestnut for me, plus the purple pen outing and the view from the train, I am becoming predictable. Can I resist drawing a framed picture with a tree or lamp-post escaping the frame? No I can’t, and there it is above. Below, a grand old Victorian on Guerrero, the sort of place you would just love to live. I enjoy drawing these. I gave this picture a very green tint to it.

After this, I strolled down to 24th to look at murals and sketch some more. Part 3 coming tomorrow…

sketchcrawl 20 (part 1)

October 27, 2008October 27, 20082 Comments

Saturday October 25th was Worldwide Sketchcrawl #20; I journeyed down to San Francisco to join the group of about sixty sketchcrawlers in the Mission District (you know I love it there). This was my eighth participation in the Sketchcrawl, and my second in San Francisco (the others being Davis twice, Berkeley twice, Sacramento and London). For me, the sketchcrawl is another excuse to go out and draw, maybe try some new things, to see how much I can do in the time given, but more importantly to see how other sketchers work. The many different ways of interpreting the same scenes are inspirational. Plus I get to check out other people’s pens.

I got the early Amtrak from Davis; it was going to be a very sunny day, even in the city. As always, I got the moleskine out to draw the view from the train through the Valley as it crossed the Delta into the Bay. I noted the times I sketched, along with a lyric from whatever happened to be on the headphones at the time. I got off the 14 bus at Mission District and within a block trod in some dogpoo – not a good start. Thankfully I was able to clean it off easily. Having lived in France and Belgium, I am normally hyper-aware of dogpoo, but living in the US has thrown me off, still this was the first time in many years and was probably an omen for a good day (the last time I trod in dogpoo was on the way to my second date with my future wife). But enough of the social history of dogpoo (that is another blog entry entirely, perhaps on another blog), and back to the 20th worldwide sketchcrawl.

There were a lot of people with sketchbooks at Que Tal on Guerrero, the meeting point. I was pleased to see the cafe sold Barry’s tea, my favourite, but I just had a bagel and went out into the street to start the sketching along with everybody else. Sketchcrawl’s founder Enrico Casarosa was there, with copies of his new book the Venice Chronicles. I began with a building opposite, on the corner of Guerrero and 22nd. The sun was casting dramatic shadows. Oh look, there’s a tree in the foreground (for a change). A lot of sketchers were drawing people, while I’m usually fixated with architecture, but I did too, using the micron purple pen that crawls out of my pencil case every few months or so. I recognised some of the faces from previous crawls, but my natural shyness meant I just buried myself into my moleskine and got down to business. But the great thing about other sketchers is that they don’t mind being sketched, so you never have to pretend you’re not sketching them. It’s quite liberating.

Part 2 will come tomorrow; in the meantime check out everyone else’s SF ‘crawl posts at sketchcrawl.com.

überlingen am bodensee

October 20, 2008October 20, 20085 Comments

Überlingen am Bodensee. I came here in 1996 to stay for a year, but liked it so much I stayed for nearly a month. That was a funny episode in my life. Whatever possessed me to up sticks and suddenly move to Germany? Where I knew nobody, with practically no money nor idea of what I was doing, going off to save the world I think it was. I’d always wanted to live in Germany. I had gone to work with mentally disabled children at the local Heimsonderschule, several miles out of town (on my one day off a week I’d hike or hitch into town, look around the record shop and the bookstore – I love German bookstores – then trudge back again). For one reason or other I decided it was the wrong move, though, and trudged back to England.

I no longer recall that much about Überlingen; I did revisit briefly in 1998 while on my five-week tour of Europe, and took the photo from which I drew this picture, but didn’t stay long. It also made headlines after two passenger planes collided ouside the town, a few years ago. I have been to Bodensee (or Lake Constance, on the Swiss/Austrian/German border) several times, first of all when I was 15, on a school work experience trip to Vorarlberg. “Schnupperlehre”, I think the experience was called.

I do remember hitching into town, though. The walk was pleasant enough, going past pear orchards and rolling sunflower meadows, but long; a lift would be nice. I often hitchhiked while strawberry picking in Denmark – pretty much everybody I knew there did, not just into town or back to the farm, but often across Europe. I was told one trick of hitchhiking, to stand nearby to where a car has broken down. They may just be waiting for the AA to show up, but you’re more likely to get offered a lift by some kind passing audi. When it’s raining, you’re happy for such advice, even if you feel a little guilty about it. But local people would always offer to give you a ride: the first evening I arrived in Überlingen, I was checking out the map at the station as the sky grew ever darker, when a family asked if I needed a lift to wherever I needed to go. Oh, no that’s ok, danke, ich gehe zu Fuss. “Nein, nein, es ist zu weit!” they insisted, laughing hearty German laughs (after discovering how far it was and how dark the countryside was at night, I bashfully agreed). They even invited me to dinner at their house the following week (I regret not going). It seems so long ago. The idea of hitchhiking anywhere now seems so mental to me, perhaps it’s living in America where, and I thank you media, hitchhiking equals certain death possibly involving machetes and being buried in the desert.

smelled the spring on the smoky wind

October 16, 2008October 16, 20083 Comments

Between 1999 and 2000 I lived and worked in Charleroi, Belgium, as my Year Abroad while studying French. Who could love Charleroi? The sprawling decayed post-industrial mess at the heart of the slag-dumped Pays Noir, derided as a bed of crime and shady politics, and the place where a lot of England fans threw a lot of chairs and got hit in the face with big water-cannons for their efforts. Well, grimy as it is, I do love Charleroi. The people are warm and welcoming, and down-to-earth, and beneath the soot and neon there is some gorgeous art-nouveau archtitecture to be found. It’s the home of some of Belgium’s most beloved BD (comic book) stars, such as Spirou and Lucky Luke. Yes there are rats the size of small cows, but so what? (I tripped over a massive rat here once, actually tripped over it – it ignored me and just shuffled along, watched by a prudent cat).

And the beer is amazing. This is la cuve à bière, a little pub I used to visit several times during the week, largely because they had a TV that would show match of the day on BBC1. I’d sit and write or draw, taste new beers, eat cheese. Sometimes, Tel would come over from England and drink Kwak. I remember that on cold sleety nights I would walk through the doors, my glasses would steam up instantly, but by the time I’d wiped them clean and gotten to the bar, my beer would already be there waiting there for me. I don’t even know if la cuve is still there; I hope it is. When I’m back in the UK this december, I might pop over there to find out.

dial M for redrum

October 12, 20082 Comments

Just as you get off the freeway at downtown Davis. Caffino is a drive-thru coffee booth, and Murder Burger is an old-school american diner that does incredible burgers and amazing milk-shakes. Oh, sorry Redrum Burger.

They used to be called Murder Burger, and to most Davisites they still are. But a few years back they opened another one in some other dog-knows-where town, and someone complained that Murder Burger (“so good they’re to die for”) was not appropriate as a place to eat (even though appropriateness is usually measured by the money something makes). So they decided to change their name, and asked their customers to vote on a new name. The name that won with an overwhelming majority was, in fact, Murder Burger. So they went with the second choice, Redrum Burger (yes, I thought it meant the horse at first).

I don’t eat red meat anyway.

going strøget

October 11, 20082 Comments

Drew this from a photo taken on my first trip to Denmark (strawberries, adidas shorts, 1995), strøget in Copenhagen. The photo itself is bright and sunny and colourful, but for some reason I changed it to sepia and old-fashioned. Well, it’s historical, for me. I was nineteen and adventurous (and skint). I just decided one day to go and pick jordbaer in the south of Fyn, meeting lots of interesting people along the way. Back in those days they didn’t have the long road bridges between the isles: a trip across Denmark meant getting on lots of ferries. There was a great ferry that the train rolled onto, and off again once in port, straight onto the tracks. That hot summer, the night in Copenhagen came last. I must have had about ten quid’s worth of krone left. Doesn’t get you very far in Denmark. I went to an atrociously bad hostel, paid my money, sat on the bed (with the hudnred or so other beds in the converted gym around me, got up, went to the front desk, got my krones back and went off into the night. My bags were locked at the station, and went to a karaoke bar, and while singing ‘going underground’ I told Denmark about my predicament, and I swear I didn’t have to buy another drink that whole night. I was younger then. I got on the bus for London the next morning (the bus! Back before the cheap flights boom, the 24 hour eurobus ride from hell was the way the poor travelled) I had one Danish krone left, one of those coins with a hole in it. I threaded a piece of string through it and made it into a necklace. I probably still have it somewhere.

I’ve been back a couple of times since, each with different stories. A friend of mine just had his stag do in Aarhus, another place I’ve been a couple of times; wish I could have gone this time! I could at least afford the drinks now. I love Denmark, it’s expensive but the people really are the friendliest.

hampstead revisited

October 4, 20081 Comment

Another drawing of those houses by Hampstead ponds, this one done on bristol paper (no, that’s not one of sarah palin’s offspring); these buildings have a very hundertwasser quality, and I’m sure are very expensive (although possibly less expensive right now than before).

The last one I did, in my moleskine with a brown wash, is below. I’m leaving this one washless.

and now i’m mrak, from outer space

September 18, 20083 Comments

We moved apartments this week, hence lack of activity in the pete sketchbook front; however I had to get lunchtime sketching at some point, and yesterday took my little stool down to an old chestnut of a sketching spot, the view of mrak hall from putah creek (drew it last year too). The creek is actually made of green pea soup; it’s always St.Patrick’s Day in the arboretum. You may notice that the two very small hills formerly in this view with the eggheads on top have now vanished, to be replaced with mud and construction, the groundwork for the extension to the law school, because apparently what this country needs is more lawyers. This means this view will not last much longer.

The weather is cooling off here, at last – yesterday I wore a jumper for the first time in absolutely ages (that’s a sweater to you). And a couple of days ago I even got – if it can be believed – several spots of rain on me!! That’s literally all there were. From the cloud that had obviously gotten lost. It’s the first rain since about February I think. Or since the 1890s, or I don’t know, it feels like such a long time. Most of my son’s life. His Irish genes must be confused (though he was born in a torrential central valley rainstorm). Still, he has his own room now so is as happy as larry. Anyway, those seven or eight spots of rain were probably just a teaser trailer for the winter. “Winter”. That’s a misnomer. California’s winters are like our British summers.

Here are some more views of Mrak.

you do the math

September 6, 20084 Comments

I don’t like that expression, by the way. Plus being British I’d say ‘maths’ (though being a Londoner it sounds more like ‘maffs’). A lunchtime sketch; I’d never drawn the front of my work building before, so thought I should give it a go. since one of my other drawings will be adorning the front of the chemistry dept’s new handbook, maybe i’ll use this sketch for something one day too. Or not. There are then still things in Davis I’ve not drawn. It’s just usually too hot to draw them (he says with several full sketchbooks).

Mathematics…it must be popular in California, you always hear about all those math labs on the news, I think. At school, all I wanted was just to pass maths, no better. I quite hated the teacher of the top class, Blindty, an ancient creature who had been teaching there since before Pythagorus got into triangles, and he quite disliked me; well, me and almost everyone else. So I requested to move into the second class (and tried my best not to get moved back up), and as a result had a much much better teacher, Miss Barker, and I passed the GCSE no problem, and restored my self-esteem. I left maths behind at 16, but I’m still pretty good at the numbers game on Countdown. Perhaps I should try to become Vorderman’s replacement?

the last day of august

September 2, 20082 Comments

On Sunday, the last day of August, I caught the bus to Sacramento and walked around in the breezy sunlight, walking up to midtown, sketching a couple of things as I’ve not done here for a good while now, not since the sketchcrawl in March. Above, powerlines and some buildings and trees (for a change, eh), while below there is an old building I’ve wanted to draw for a while, the one next to the Streets of London pub on J street. Well now I have.