Tag: drawing

i want to be in that number

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buck shaw stadium
The World Cup is over, and it’s a long wait until the Premier League season begins. But that doesn’t mean no footy! And who should come to California for a friendly but my own beloved Tottenham Hotspur FC. They kicked off their US tour with a match against their club partners in the MLS, San Jose Earthquakes, who happen to be my ‘local’ big team. When I say ‘local’ it’s all relative of course – San Jose is almost three hours away by train, and I’d never been before Saturday. When I say ‘big’, it’s all relative… their ground, Buck Shaw Stadium, is located on the Santa Clara University campus, and the Earthquakes recorded their largest attendance there with a whopping 10,712. I was in that number.

Sure, the match ended 0-0, but it was a fun occasion. We had our big names there, those who didn’t go to the World Cup – Bale, Modric, Huddlestone, and the returning Robbie Keane (who missed some sitters). I coudn’t believe how many Tottenham fans there were! A good deal of whom were American, but many were British (with their American kids tagging along; that’ll be me in a few years). And it was like a walking gallery of Spurs football shirt history! I’ve never seen so many different era Spurs shirts, not even at the Lane. All the classics were there, with the exception of the 1986 hummel one, I never saw that. My one wouldn’t fit me now, I was only ten back then. I wore the all-white Kappa shirt. On the field, the players were wearing the new Tottenham shirt for the first time, and it’s a beauty, I’ll be getting that. Surprisingly, here and there were dotted people in bright and obvious red Arsenal shirts; unsurprisingly, each of them were roundly booed as they passed (and some looked genuinely surprised at that fact too). There were lots of other shirts on show from all sorts of clubs and countries, something you also wouldn’t normally see at the Lane. A guy sat near me had the old Wales away shirt from the early 90s, the white Umbro one with little green and red arrows and lines on it. Haven’t seen that in years. Even the Earthquakes fans were well decked out, and I saw kits going from the current black Adidas tops to the old Nike blue ones with white arms.

yeah, that was offside

But enough football-kit geekery. You know I can’t help myself. I enjoyed watching the Earthquakes; it’s America, for sure, and there are cheerleaders and sunburn, but it felt a lot like how football used to be, or still is for small clubs, intimate, friendly, informal. I really enjoyed that. I would go again. I also liked that I cycled to the stadium from San Jose train station. Good job I knew the way.

mission at santa clara

Oh yes, and some urban sketching. Before the match I drew the Mission Santa Clara de Asis, on the SCU campus right by Buck Shaw.

Come on you Spuuuuuurs!!!!!!! Tottenham play New York Red Bulls on Thursday; I think I’ll watch that one on telly.

summer sessions

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davis in the summertime
Regular listeners will recall that often, in the summer time, it gets quite hot here in Davis. A hundred degrees, pah that’s nothing. It was at least that today, so I didn’t venture out into the oven world to sketch. I stayed in the stairwell, sat on a very dusty step, and looked out of the big window. I have drawn this view before, the UC Davis skyline, the tall water-tower dominating events. However, the stairwell in our building isn’t air-conditioned, so it started to feel very sauna-like after a short while. It gave me a headache. I’m not designed for hot weather, I’m red-headed and freckly.  I got this finished during lunchtime though, and in the incredible dry heat the paint dried as soon as it hit the paper.

preachin’ to the converted

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st.andrew's church in jacksonville
More from Jacksonville. There are so many interesting buildings to draw here, it’s impossible to know which one to choose. When in doubt, draw the church. Actually this was not as easy a choice as you might think, as there are several old wooden churches from the mid 1800s to choose from. I sat in the shade opposite the very classic Americana structure of St.Andrew’s church, originally built as the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1856. Picket fence, white wood, pointed steeple, all you need is a well-dressed bald guy with a pitchfork. How could I resist? 

I started drawing another church just around the corner, another one from the 1850s but this time for the Catholics, but only got a third of the way through before giving up – I had no shade that time. Sitting in shade on sunny southern Oregonian days is a good idea. It looked just like the one above, but had some windows, and a telegraph pole next to it. Just imagine it, I’m probably not going to scan it. 

Shade is good, but shade with fans and a bar and a cold beer is even better. That’s how I ended the July 4th sketching trip to Jacksonville, in the J’Ville Tavern. They have pool tables in there; I like the sound of pool, the kinetic crack of a break, the soft clunk of white potting black. I don’t hear it very often any more! They also have stuffed animal heads, lots of them in fact, and what looked like hundreds of dollar bills attached to the ceiling, for some reason (I didn’t ask; I prefer the mystery). Locals were very friendly though, and told me tales of historic Jacksonville. I guessed they tell them tales to all strangers.

J'Ville Tavern

drawn on the fourth of july

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jacksonville, oregon
On a warm July 4 morning I was dropped off in Jacksonville – sorry, historic Jacksonville – just outside Medford, in the hills of southern Oregon. It’s a gorgeous little town, like the Old West, and Old Glory was draped up and down the main thoroughfare, California Street. And the cyclists! It was like the tour de France, so many cyclists, many of whom were on tandems – there was even a whole family of five on a single tandem bike, the tallest at the front, the shortest at the back (seems like it would make more sense the other way round). They received applause and cheers as they cycled south. There was a small British themed store, run by a woman from Yorkshire, and I bought a package of Yorkshire pudding mix (I love them!), which came with the warning that if I tried to make the puddings at any sort of significant altitude, they wouldn’t rise. I think I’ll be ok making them in Davis.

page one in jacksonville, oregonI opened up a brand new watercolour moleskine (number 6), drew a stretch of the main street, as cyclists and daytrippers whizzed and waddled by respectively. One passing woman stopped, asked me to remove my earphones, and told me that I should put my drawing on a t-shirt, Jacksonville needs that, “because you’ve probably noticed but there aren’t many t-shirts with drawings of Jacksonville on them.” I hadn’t noticed, no, I said, and put my earphones back on.

all you need is Löw

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joachim low

Clearly the most fashionable man in the World Cup (if you don’t include his identikit assistant), German coach and George Harrison c.1965 impersonator Joachim Löw and his team of counter-attacking kids have taken South Africa by storm. They face Spain in tomorrow’s all-important semi-final, having utterly destroyed Maradona’s Argentina, and we all know about what happened against England. No need to mention it again. That was a Löw point.

number five is alive

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the view from bainer, again
The last page of Watercolour Moleskine Sketchbook #5. I have #6 ready to go. This is a scene I have sketched twice a year since 2007, once in the summer, once in the winter – with leaves, without leaves. Run them together, it’s like you can see the world breathing in and breathing out. This, being on the last day of June, is the summer one. I decided against the normal colours though and went black and white and blue, to give a familiar, green scene an air of the ethereal.

You can see all the other incarnations of this scene in January blog post “and the seasons they go round and round“.

So Moleskine #5 ran from the start of November 2009 to the end of June 2010. It has been an interesting journey, physically as well as metaphysically, one with an ‘A’ and a ‘B’, not necessarily on that order. You probably say that when finishing your sketchbooks too. As with others it encompasses Davis, London, Vegas, San Francisco and Sacramento. I have tried to design pages a little more in this one, and paste different papers or materials in (particularly brown paper envelopes). Here are some of the spreads.

my cold fingers, in london
moleskine 5
moley #5 on russell blvd
weekend in san francisco
from moley 5
from moley 5

You can see all the pictures from this sketchbook at the following Flickr page: MOLESKINE #5

an urban sketch

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an urban sketch

This is Urban, who until his retirement this week was our computer guy at work. I took the opportunity to sketch him at his farewell lunch because I need practice drawing people on the spot, and also because this makes it literally an ‘Urban sketch’. Thought you’d like that. I drew it in my moleskine diary.

Speaking of Urban Sketchers…one month until the Portland Symposium…

come up to my lighthouse

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point pinos lighthouse

The Monterey Peninsula is remarkably beautiful; we were there last summer. This is Point Pinos lighthouse, overlooking the Ocean and Monterey Bay at windswept Pacific Grove. It is the oldest lighthouse in continuous operation on the West Coast, dating back to 1855.

When I was younger, I thought it would be cool to live in a lighthouse. Not so much for the whole helping ships navigate the night thing, more because of that show ‘Round the Twist’, an Australian kids show where the family lived in a lighthouse and lots of strange things happened. At least, that’s how I remember it.

This drawing is a present for someone who really likes lighthouses.

everyone’s a winner baby, that’s the truth

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england win! usa win! everyone's a winner! (except them what lost)

Except for France (see previous). The World Cup is very exciting now! Apart from the Brazil – Portugal borefest, and for every finale of Slovakia – Italy, you get a finale of Chile – Spain. The second phase begins, with Landon ‘Groupwinner’ Donovan leading the USA against Ghana, and England facing their old nemesis: England v Germany, game on, it’s too early in the tournament but who cares, the World Cup begins (and probably ends) here.

Cartooned quickly in my football journal.

allez les bleus! en est tous ensemble…

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domenech

Poor France. Seriously, I feel for their fans. I haven’t always felt so. Back in 2002, I lived in the south of France when they were champions of the World, Europe and the Inner Solar System. Public opinion prior to the Japan/South korea World Cup was that you could have Pele, Maradona, Puskas, Cruyff, anyone out there and France would still win without breaking a sweat. The player’s faces were on every yoghurt carton, every soda bottle, every TV advert; Zidane was a god whose image was omnipresent; and that awfully catchy song by ancient Franco-Belgian pop star Johnny Halliday, “Allez les Bleus!” Such was Gallic confidence, you could buy their shirts with the second golden star already sewn on.

And then they went to the far east, and failed to score a single goal. They came home stunned; nobody could quite believe it. The bubble burst. Never again would the previously soccer-cynical French public let themselves get so carried away with expectation. Therefore, it was a bit of a surprise that they came within a headbutt of winning the trophy in 2006. Even more of a surprise, retrospectively at least, is that the manager that took them so close four years ago is the same one who is so universally reviled now, Raymond Domenech, who I attempted to draw above in my football journal. 

What happened? I recall their pitiful display at Euro 2008, when he held a press conference not to explain the dismal defeats they had suffered, but to propose to his girlfriend. France had no confidence in him, and yet kept him on, knowing he’d be replaced after the World Cup with former player and favourite, Laurent Blanc. They scraped through a qualification play-off, thanks to a Thierry Henry handball, but in South Africa it all went ventre-up. Player revolts, Anelka being sent home, training ground bust-ups – other teams would give their right leg to play in this tournament and this is how they all behave? And then against host nation South Africa, Domenech refuses to shake the opposing manager’s hand. French football is in chaos. The French president himself is demanding answers from this shambles.

“Allez les bleus, en est tous ensemble,” sang Johnny Halliday, “allez les bleus, en est tous avec vous.” Not any more they’re not.