bic to school

September 22, 20083 Comments

It’s that time of year again. Things start getting busy in the academic world. I invigilated (or ‘proctored’ as they say here) an exam today, during the air-conditioned silence of which I drew part of my bag (“draw what is in front of you”) in my rhodia notebook, in ball-point pen. I like drawing in biro, though I don’t do anything other than scribble endlessly and mindlessly in it (this accounts for at least 70% of all the drawing I do, mostly scowling faces and figures with lightsabres or football shirt designs, which you never see). Squared rhodia paper seems so appropriate (and I love it, it reminds me of France). Behind the bag, some of the extremely hard stats stuff, none of which I could make head nor tail of, but which I’m sure looked like elegant poetry to the trained eye.

chez nous

September 22, 2008September 22, 20081 Comment

First drawing in the new apartment. Unpacked boxes not in view. Wish I hadn’t done the shsding lines on the walls, but they have a ‘sod it, just finish and go to bed’ feel to them. This apartemtn is in reverse to the old one, it’s wierd, like bizarro world or something.

say your prayers

September 20, 2008September 20, 20084 Comments

An attempt at Barack Obama (but looks a little like Les Ferdinand). Funny, Tony Blair was on John Stewart’s show this week because he’s now teaching at Yale on faith and globalization and he mentioned about how it’s not quite proper for British PMs to talk about their religion, how in the UK it’s a much more personal thing, and yet out here the Pres has to be seen to be worshipping God on every corner (well, let’s face it, it’s to win votes in the Bible Belt).

That said, Blair could only convert to Catholicism after leaving office, because to do so while in Downing Street would have been a huge political no-no (even now they are still quite sceptical of Catholics in the UK, oh how things have changed since 1688). Here, however, for all their ‘separation of church and state’ affectations, and for all their ‘freedom of religion’ founding ideals, it is pretty much a given that an atheist will never be President (unless, perhaps, someone chose a ‘token’ atheist as their running-mate to win the God Less America vote). Barack Obama is a Christian – yet it seems people are not convinced that he isn’t a Muslim: just the other day, on NPR, a woman said that she thought he was a secret Muslim, giving her justification as she “just didn’t trust him”. Opinion polls equal democracy here, by the way (to quote Dan Bern). But, what if he were, would it matter? He’d still believe fervently in God after all, same as you Governor Palin. If his faith is the issue, that would clearly not be in question, and if the system the US has is designed such that religion is kept separate from political issues, then again it wouldn’t matter if he worshipped Papa Smurf or Gargamel, it wouldn’t affect his foreign policy. Unless, of course, you actually believe it should. Unfortunately it appears so many do.

Incidentally, came across this blog entry just now, a guy in Alaska who staged a one-man protest against Sarah Palin by simply sitting outside the Alaska governor’s mansion with the sign “Palin Lies” (which, it is becoming increasingly apparent, she certainly does, especially with regards to earmarks). Fair play to the man; unless he means Michael Palin? “No, the parrot’s not dead, he’s just stunned”.

Anyway, that’s my religio-political blogging for the month (and I write this wearing a Celtic shirt). If you want me, I’ll be putting lipstick on pigs to see if they really are still pigs. I don’t know what it means but apparently it’s popular.

buttons

September 19, 2008September 19, 20088 Comments

nice with tea

Last week I was lucky enough to receive a package in the mail containing Cadbury’s chocolate buttons, sent from England by the fenland artist Anita Davies (check out her artblog). I had commented on one of her drawings (of a cake covered in chocolate buttons, it looked perfect to have with tea) that I had been moaning to myself that I can’t get Cadbury’s Buttons here in the US, and so she offered to send me some in exchange for a drawn postcard.

Cadbury’s Buttons for a drawing, well how could I refuse, and so I draw the picture below and popped it in the mail. It’s a picture of the Silo, which I’ve drawn on many a lunchtime (but a place which completely fails to sell Cadbury’s Buttons). It went from one flat land (Davis) to another (the Fens). I soon received my choccies (various different size Buttons, plus two ‘Freddo’s which were dunked in tea and eaten almost as soon as I saw them). Cheers Anita! Much appreciated.

So, folks, I draw for buttons.

but not for zips

Tell you what, I do love Cadbury’s Tiffin too…

and when it’s cloudy we say nothing at all

September 11, 2008September 11, 20084 Comments

Yes; lunchtimes are getting a bit uninspired. Did this at the silo today during lunch. I’ve not drawn this week, until this. I just had to get the sketchbook out and draw the first thing I saw: in this case, a bench and two bins. Moving very soon to a new apartment in exactly the same complex, and moving means mind occupied. Especially since AT&T (named after the galactic empire’s battle-transport du choix) tell us that, even though we’re moving less than a hundred yards across the parking lot, same address, our internet speed will only be a third what it is now. That is, as they say here, bullshit man. I wonder if it will take a third as long to look at my website? I hope not.

At least the weather has gotten a little cooler. It’s so much nicer here when it’s not so hot. Really nice, I mean. I know you have had shitty rain in England almost all summer; sorry about that. We’ve not had rain since I don’t know when. Clouds? What are they? I forget.

Moving, though. I hate moving. Ever.

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.

never his mind on where he was

August 31, 200810 Comments

Encore, my illustration friday entry this week: “Memories”, this time with colour. Not much colour, but some colour. I posted the black and white version yesterday. It’s an homage, or even an homage of an homage. I forget now.

Memory is a funny thing. Whole academic programs are set up around the very idea of memory, its uses, its effects on future actions, plus lots of other stuff I don’t quite know (or have forgotten). In the days before literacy, memory was of vital importance, to keep laws, to pass on traditions, plus lots of other things I can’t remember. Our incredible capacity for memory became less well exercised once things began to be written down – we trusted paper for permanence, rather than agreed ideas on what really happened or what the rules really were. We also began, everntaully, to equate language with what is written rather than what is spoken – a huge mistake if you ask me. But anyway back to memory. Do you remember, in the days before we all had cellphones, that you used to remember most of your friends’ phone numbers? You had to, in case you needed to call them. But now you just press their name in your nokia. Memory capacity unexercised. I don’t even remember my own cellphone number now. I don’t have to. So what’s the rest of my brain doing when it’s not being used remembering things like that? I forget.

As for what happened in our lives… it’s funny how quickly things whisper away from your thoughts. People, places, ideas; yet, if we have a small token from them, doesn’t matter how small or insignificant, we have a greater chance of retaining that memory. Photos are one thing, drawings are another. Each of these things above have some sort of meaning to me. I’d be happy to explain.

every day i look at the world through my window

August 26, 2008August 26, 200814 Comments

Illustration Friday this week is “routine”…this is my entry.

Now, before you say, “do what?”, I’m playing a game here I used to play when i did interactive theatre. This image, ok, it’s an image of Tel looking out of my window in Belgium, about eight or so years ago. Add the word ‘routine’ and you start to write the story in your head around it.

This may have been the night after this night here. But it was probably after a different night.

But that windowsill! Man, I spent so many days and nights sat on that, looking out of my thirteenth floor window, across the Square Hiernaux (I nicknamed it the Vicious Circle because of the quite crazy Belgian driving), to Ville Deux, to the Stade Mambourg (where England beat Germany in Euro 2000), and to the terrils, the large slag heaps that dot the landscape of the forsaken pays noir.

ainsi font, font font

August 19, 20088 Comments

Luke has this great toy (given to him by my cousin) full of lights and shapes and buttons and songs, all in French, and he absolutely LOVES it. “Ainsi font, font, font, les petites marionettes,” it sings as you turn it on. We’re trying to expose him to French early on (we also have a CD of French nursery rhymes and sounds for babies his age), so hopefully one day he’ll be able to teach us what we have long forgotten. I look forward to us one day taking him to the south of France, to where I met his mommy. And we’ll eat poulet-frites. (Funny enough I got a postcard from Menton today).