afternoon tea at fortnum’s

January 10, 20252 Comments

One afternoon while in London I took my Mum for tea at Fortnum and Mason, on Piccadilly. It was an early treat for her birthday, something festive to do before Christmas. I took her there once before years ago (I think the prices were about half what they are now) and have wanted to take her again for ages. It’s up in the Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon, though to get up there you need to brave the packed store full of Christmas shoppers and squeeze into the tiny elevator. It’s lovely though, and I still put Fortnum’s among my favourite London shops. During the pandemic for Mother’s Day I ordered a hamper for my mum and another one for my mother-in-law which had to be shipped over to California, they do really nice tea and cake hampers. Piccadilly at this time of year, the start of December, is even more crowded than usual, but I don’t mind. It means London’s doing alright. We walked about a bit looking at expensive cars in the Lotus showroom (they had Ayrton Senna’s old F1 car), expensive jewellery at Bentley and Skinner, and expensive glassware at the Lalique store in Burlington Arcade. I took the opportunity to draw Fortnum and Mason from across the street, as during Christmas time the whole store is made up to resemble an advent calendar. As you may know, I have a long history of making advent calendars so the idea of turning an entire building into one makes me happy. A lot of people were stopping to wait for the little statues of Mr. Fortnum and Mr. Mason to come out from the ornamental clock and tell us what time it is. Fortnum and Mason dates back centuries, 1707 in fact, the time of Queen Anne, Fortnum being one of the Queen’s footmen. I sketched for a while as my Mum looked around some shops, and by the time I was about done there was a woman who had set up a little camera on a tripod to film herself talking about the Bible and singing psalms, fair enough but when they get a microphone out and start going on about sinners that’s enough for me. Anyway it was time for our tea. We each got the regular Afternoon Tea with scones, sandwiches, cakes and tea, as much as we could eat and drink, and we ended up taking many of our cakes home with us and eating them over the next couple of days, they were quite rich and filling. We started off with a drink called a ‘turtle dove’, a kind of cocktail that was so good, a nice way to kick off Christmas. For tea I had the Afternoon Blend, Mum had the Queen Anne. I think, I can’t remember now. I think I had a couple of different types actually. I had to draw the teapot and cap along with a cake that looked like a present. When we were done I spent more money downstairs picking up a few things here and there to bring home for family, but I could have got so much nice stuff. My Mum bought a nice Fortnum’s ornament for my wife (when they wrapped it, it was like that scene in Love Actually with Rowan Atkinson and Alan Rickman), and I bought chocolates and tea and fancy greeting cards. I bought a lot of fancy greeting cards on this trip, Britain does the best ones, by far. So that was our tea at Fortnum’s, a nice treat and a very festive thing to do before Christmas.

tamara’s book signing at jam

January 9, 2025Leave a comment

While I was back in London I went to a book signing at a small independent bookshop in Portobello Road. It was a special treat because the author was my old friend and German theatre pal from university, Tamara Von Werthern, who I’ve not seen in more than ten years. In fact the last time I saw her was on one of my Christopher Wren sketchcrawls in the City (the one in 2014), when she came along to sketch with her husband (also an artist) and young children. She’s a playwright with many published and performed works and in recent years has also become a detective novelist, writing a series of books in German based on her father Philipp; ‘Ich Glaub, Es Hackt’, ‘Ach Du Liebe Zeit!’ and the newest one, ‘Adel Auf Dem Radel’. These have even been included on the curriculum of the German department at our old school, Queen Mary, and she has been invited back to talk about them. The first two books have been translated into English, as ‘Only The Lonely’ and the most recently published book, ‘Silent Night’. It was this book that was being signed, and Tamara has done a series of book talks recently accompanied by her father visiting from Germany. I’ve seen Tamara post about her books for a few years now since the first one came out in Germany, but as I’ve not been able to get hold of any I hadn’t read them. So at the bookshop I took the chance to buy the first two in both languages (I will save buying the third German one for another time). I drew them (above) when I got back to America, and so far I’ve read the first one ‘Only The Lonely’ which was really fun with an interesting twist, well not a twist but a surprise I didn’t see coming. I am going to try to read the German original next; I am so out of practice with my German, it’s twenty years since I last visited!) but I’m looking forward to reading Silent Night. I kind of wish I’d read it over Christmas, but I’m a very slow reader.

Jam Bookshop was small but really well stocked in some great titles, and very much an artist-friendly shop. I did also buy a beautiful novelization of My Neighbour Totoro for my son (we both love the Ghibli films), as well as a zine about Rediscovering Colombo (apparently this was a thing during the pandemic; I did not know, but I had myself started watching them online too just recently. I’m getting into detective stories, reading a bunch of Agatha Christie books lately). I also got a couple of drawings on notecards (one of Totoro, one of Columbo) which were drawn by the shop’s owner. I didn’t realize he was the artist, David Ziggy Greene, until he offered to sign the back of them for me (though he signed mine to ‘Paul’), and he is a cartoonist for the magazine Private Eye which was very cool. Anyway of course I wanted to sketch Tamara actually doing the book signing near the front of the store, and she signed all four of my books, as well as signing the sketches I did. It was great to catch up with her after all these years; I had just run my first 10k the week before and she shared with me her own running stories. I sketched fast, preferring my second one (below), while people came in and spoke with her and bought her books. Very cool indeed.

IMG_0794s, When it was time for me to move along and get sketching the rest of Portobello Road (and meet several other artists along the way, as it turned out), I did stop for a little while outside the shop and started drawing the exterior, which is actually inside an indoor section besides the market. I was thinking, I mist take my son here if we come back to this part of London, I think he’d like it (though maybe not the crowds of the market). Unfortunately, I saw their posts last week that the shop has closed. Being in that inside passageway did not bring a lot of foot traffic, and it’s such a hard time for bookshops these days (I used to work for an independent one in Finchley that is now long gone). I’m sorry to see it go but am glad I was able to visit and draw it while it was there. Tamara said they had been very good with supporting artists and local authors, and had moved form another location in east London.

Anyway, despite that news, I’m glad to have been able to go to Tamara’s signing and hope that her books do really well, and I am looking forward to reading the rest. Finally – a fun fact, Tamara is the only person I have ever allowed to draw in my Moleskine sketchbooks. It wasn’t on this trip, it wasn’t even on that sketchcrawl, in fact it was on an evening out with friends in London in late 2009 at the Ship pub in Soho, when I had my purple pen and was not very comfortable drawing people, so she drew us instead.

a saturday down portobello

January 7, 2025January 7, 20255 Comments

On the last day of November, exactly a year since Shane MacGowan died, I found myself in Ladbroke Grove, heading to Portobello Market. I was going to a book signing by an old friend of mine from university at a little bookstore. I was up early; my Mum and I were playing the Pogues music in honour of Shane, and having a morning singalong with a bit of the Wolfe Tones on my ukulele, and then I headed out for my day of sketching and literature. I decided not to take the tube, but caught the 302 bus from the end of my street like I would do in the long-ago old days. I hadn’t been this way to Notting Hill in over 25 years, I think, changing bus in Willesden for the 52 towards Victoria. The 52 used to run all the way from Victoria to Mill Hill before they split the route in two. I sat at the top looking out of the window, trying to remember and recognize all the places along the way, seeing some of them in a new way as an urban sketcher. I must explore Kensal Green and its big old cemetery some day. I got out at Ladbroke Grove, which was already quite busy with foot traffic for the market, and sketched the tube station from across the road. It’s not the most visually exciting tube station, but worth sketching. I am really into sketching tube stations, and old pubs, and bookshops. I like sketching markets too, but they get so busy that I often shy away from it. I stood outside an estate agents; as I sketched, tourists stopped by to look at all the places that were listed, massively overpriced tiny flats in a massively overpriced massive city. Tour groups gathered outside the station. Portobello has always been popular with tourists; growing up Ladbroke Grove was always seen as a little bit rough, but definitely a big area of music and culture. I’ve only been to the Notting Hill Carnival once, on a baking hot day in 1996, and spending a day squashed in a slowly moving crowd that moved like a thick sauce through these wide streets before ending up watching Jamiroquai in his massive hat, that was once enough for me. I thought about that as I sketched. I am better in a crowd when I’m by myself. I headed into the crowded market looking for some food, and smelled out what looked like a delicious paella. It really wasn’t, and I ended up throwing it away. “More like a paella shite” I said to myself, making a mental note to remember that if I ever came back. I went to my friend’s book signing at the nearby Jam Bookstore (more of that in a different post).

After I left the book signing at Jam I went back into the busy world, and stood in between two parked vans to sketch this book stall. I had books on the brain, and also on my arm, carrying a bag with five new books in it. I didn’t have space to buy any from this stall, but they were getting a fair bit of foot traffic. As I sketched, there was a fellow behind me taking photos, photos of me sketching as it turned out. I didn’t much mind. He introduced himself to me and offered to message me the photos. His name was Trevor Flynn, and he’s an artist himself who has sketched around Portobello for years, and runs a company called Drawing At Work (http://drawingatwork.co.uk/), he has got people out sketching for years. He also knew about Urban Sketchers London and has worked with sketchers I know. Always nice to meet other sketchers. In fact he told me he did all the sketching and storyboarding for the film Notting Hill, back in the 90s. I loved that film, I remember I had a really long and stressful day at university, I studied drama and they were usually long hours, and I would often stop at the cinema on the way home (either in Stepney or in Camden) to catch a film and relax, and this one night I watched Notting Hill and it cheered me right up.

I kept strolling further down the market; I had sketched down here last year so wasn’t necessarily going to do too much today, as I was heading towards Notting Hill Gate with the idea of walking down Kensington Church Street, but this colourful art market area on Tavistock Road caught my eye, especially the bits of orange on the trees in the background. Well I had to sketch the scene. As soon as I did, a lady in a pink high-vis vest came to talk to me, she told me this was something called Open Art Spaces (see openartspaces.co.uk), and these were all independent artists selling and showing their work, and she gave me their card (a Moo card; I had forgotten mine). As I sketched, I was joined by one of those artists, Chen Xi, who is also an urban sketcher. He is from Singapore but is in London doing a Masters, and he knew several of the Singapore sketchers that I have known over the years, even been taught by them. I chatted with him for a while sketching the scene, and when I was done I bought some of his cards and walked around the market talking to other artists and buying more cards, coasters, bookmarks. It was fun getting out and talking to people in my favourite city, I should do it more often.

I walked down Portobello with that Al Green song from the movie stuck in my head, though the seasons didn’t change, and I don’t look like late 90s Hugh Grant, well not much anyway. I saw the Electric Cinema and decided I really needed to draw that, with the Christmas trees for sale outside. I never saw a movie here, but I have a vague memory that they had a small bar here back in the 90s and I came in for a drink with an ex, though it might have been somewhere else, or maybe I imagined it. I’ve been dreaming about London for so many years now, I mean actual dreams when I’m asleep, that whole areas have grown that my sleeping self is convinced are real but actually don’t exist at all, built as if from broken Lego sets of real places and experiences; I wish I could draw them. There is a lot of London that I’ve not been to in over 25 years that I have almost entirely forgotten; later that week I walked around parts of Mayfair that I had honestly set outside my mind completely, not since I was an open-top tour bus guide, but when I walked through certain squares and down certain roads, memory and story came flooding back. In some cases, they trickle back, and it’s like that around here. Sometimes the mystery of memory is more exciting. I was standing next to a stall that sold quite posh looking ham, if memory serves (and we know it doesn’t), and the market was getting busy but I wanted to press on.

Down Notting Hill Gate I went, and there’s a lot to sketch around there, but I just wandered about, thinking about stories. I was near Campden Hill Road; back in the mid-90s I actually took an evening course in screenwriting here, not a very long one, but it was enjoyable. I remember quite liking the people in the class, and the teacher was nice, and I had to write a short screenplay; I think I wrote one about a priest meeting a woman, it wasn’t very original, and in fact the instructor complained it was too derivative of a TV show called ‘Priest’, which I had never seen, and didn’t sound like the sort of thing I’d watch. Then I wrote another about a woman who was in love with the grim reaper and would murder people to see him again; not very sophisticated, and my heart wasn’t in it. I’ve never written a love story since. I remember there was an Irish guy on the course who was writing a screenplay about the Battle of Brunanburh, but this was before I studied Old English poetry so I wasn’t really familiar with it, but I remember he did a good job. I should do more evening courses, though there’s not as much choice in Davis as there was in London, and I don’t know what I’d want to do. Not screenwriting again. I walked down to Kensington Church Street as I wanted to visit the Churchill Arms, or at least watch their Christmas lights come on. This is a famous pub, often winning pub of the year awards for its unusually over the top floral arrangements outside, though for the festive season they deck out in thousands of lights, and as you can see from the sketch lots of people gather to watch them come on. I stood across the busy street and drew fast. My waterbrush ran out so I had to add the paint in afterwards. As I sketched, a woman with a thick Texas accent asked me without prompting or introduction if I had visited the Tim Burton exhibition. I said I had not, and she proceeded to tell me I should go, because they had just been there and it was wonderful. She said my drawing reminded her of his sketchbooks, which was a surprise to hear. she then asked if I knew who Tim Burton was; now the thing is, whenever anyone I don’t know randomly asks me if I have heard of someone, my natural instinct is to say I haven’t, so I said “no; is he the guy who invented trousers?” It just came out; I was thinking of the clothes shop Burtons. So she listed all the films he had directed, and by this point I had to keep pretending I didn’t know who he was, in case she thought I was taking the mick, so I ended up making the “no, don’t know that one” face to films like Batman and Edward Scissorhands. I did like the sound of this exhibition though, and said I would try to go and see it; “Tom…Barton?” “Tim Burton, you’d enjoy it.” “Thanks, I’ll check it out.” “You should. Have a great vacation!” and off she went. It’s nice to meet people, I’m getting good at it.

I did want to rest my legs and have a festive pint before heading back to Burnt Oak though, as it was now dark and my legs were feeling weary. I stand when I sketch because I don’t like being hunched over on a stool, and getting some rest is good. The Churchill was packed, there was no room at the inn, even though the interior of that pub is on my list of must-sketch places. I used to go in there sometimes years ago and marvel at all the stuff on the walls and ceiling, the landlord was from Tipperary I think because I remember lots of Tipperary hurling memorabilia, had some good nights out in there years ago. They also did a lovely Thai curry, but no chance today. I walked about to some other little pubs I was surprised were still there, but didn’t look much like they did in the 90s, but I ended up in the Prince Albert, where a load of people were watching the football, Arsenal against a really bad West Ham. I sat down for a while with my back to the screen, nursed a pint and sketched them watching it, lads with no faces. The food smelled expensive and not very enticing, so I didn’t eat, and then I got the tube back home. It was a year since Shane MacGowan died, and I went back to Burnt Oak to spend the evening out with my Mum and some longtime family friends, and several pints of Guinness. That was a busy day.

that was the 2024 that was

January 1, 2025January 1, 20254 Comments

2024 sketches sm

And so 2024 is over, and 2025 has begun. I always find it odd that we celebrate the new year starting in January when January is often the worst month of the year, back to work, back to school, crappy weather, very short days, putting away all the festive stuff and start getting on with the grind. At least birthday season starts towards the end of the month in our family, and then before you know it Spring Break is here, but Januarys can be hard work, and this one, with its geopolitical shifts, is going to be a slog. Sometimes I do a lot of drawing in January, as a way to fight off the mental nature of this long gloomy month. I just started a new sketchbook at the close of 2024, and new sketchbooks are always filled with hope, though I know I’ll fill it with the same old stuff, drawings of Davis buildings with a tree in front of them. While I still have a lot of sketches yet to post, most of those from December, here is the annual sketch list for 2024. I put these together as I go along to keep track of how much I am drawing, and then do a comparison with previous years. It’s not exactly scientific; this year for example I started using the portrait format for two of my main sketchbooks, and that format takes up less space in this list, yet would often be the same amount or more of drawing as a longer format which can take up more space. Below is the comparison with all the years going back to 2013 (I am not going back and manually doing the previous years) but you can see, 2024 was perhaps my most productive year, certainly since the big year of 2019 (the last year I went to an Urban Sketching Symposium). I am hoping to go to the Symposium in 2025 in Poznań, Poland.

What happened this past year, art-wise? I had a series of sketches from over the years published in SacTown magazine, I was interviewed in a KDRT radio show with Bill Buchanan, I was also interviewed in the California Aggie in November, and I also appeared on the Robert Elms BBC London radio show, though that was not about my drawing and more about growing up in Burnt Oak. There was also an article in the UC Davis L&S Magazine about a fun project I did at work in the summer where I created an academic family tree for our Stats department, based on the London Underground map. I also had a couple of pieces displayed in the Pence Gallery in Davis. There was a good amount of travel; we started off the year in Maui, also visited Los Angeles (dinosaur sketching) and Riverside (conference, but stayed at the historic Mission Inn), and a family trip to the national parks of Zion and Bryce Canyon in Utah, as well as Las Vegas to watch the Beatles Love show. We went to London in the summer, and I went back again in the winter. We went to the south of France, to Aix and Nice, as well as a day out in Monaco. And of course, our 20th anniversary trip to Kaua’i which was amazing.

These were the sketchbooks I used in 2024, not counting stuff done outside of sketchbooks such as larger pieces:

SKETCHBOOK #54 – Landscape Watercolour Moleskine #27 – December 2024 to present – Davis…
SKETCHBOOK 53 – Landscape Watercolour Moleskine #26 – October 2024 to December 2024 – Kaua’i (Hawaii), Davis, London, Santa Rosa
SKETCHBOOK 52 – Portrait Watercolour Moleskine #2 – July 2024 to October 2024 – Half Moon Bay CA, Davis, Muir Woods, San Francisco
SKETCHBOOK 51 – Portrait Watercolour Moleskine #1 – June 2024 to July 2024 – Davis, London, Aix-en-Provence, Nice, Monaco, San Francisco
SKETCHBOOK 50 – Landscape Watercolour Moleskine #25 – March 2024 to May 2024 – Riverside (CA), Davis, Zion (Utah), Bryce Canyon (Utah), Las Vegas (Nevada), San Francisco
SKETCHBOOK 49 – Landscape Moleskine #24 – December 2023 to March 2024 – Maui, Davis, Truckee, Sacramento, Los Angeles
Davis/UC Davis Summer 2024 Accordion Sketchbook – Seawhite of Brighton accordion sketchbook (medium) – July 2024
Small Moleskine 2024 – April-December 2024
Fabriano Venezia Small Sketchbook – April 2023-March 2024

So 2024 was quite active creatively, not including all the projects like the advent calendar, organizing sketchcrawls, and I’ve also been a lot busier with my guitars and ukuleles. Resolutions for 2025, well I really need to work on that long-awaited Davis book, let’s try to get that moving. A lot more writing, that’s always good. I probably don’t need to increase my drawing output, maybe relax a bit more, do some new things. Read more, a lot more. 2025 is going to be stressful enough, so make time for the creative and hopeful things, put the scrolling down, Happy New Year, stay safe.

a night at the spurs

December 30, 2024December 30, 2024Leave a comment

While I was back in London, I unexpectedly went to see my beloved Tottenham play in the Europa League against AS Roma (another Italian team I like, who have had a weird season so far, but recently appointed Ranieri as their third coach of the year). I’ve only been to see one previous game at the new stadium, a friendly against Inter not long after it had opened, and that was over five years ago. This was the first competitive game I’ve been able to go to in about nine years. My brother was sick and couldn’t go, though my nephew did go with his friend, I didn’t go with them as they were sitting in a different part of the ground. I went early by myself (I think I’ve never been to a home game by myself before?), eating down my turkey dinner that Mum made for Thanksgiving and getting the tube to Seven Sisters. That long long walk up from there with the many thousands of others, I have not done that in at least ten years. The Roma fans were being chaperoned up there by a lot of police, that was interesting. I made it to the ground, it is so massive, and popped into the shop to get my son a half-half scarf, he also likes Roma back from our trip there years ago, though Spurs is our football love, and our football headache. My seat was high up in the north stand, very high, but I had a great central view overlooking all the action, so I sketched in my little Moleskine before kick-off. It was so exciting. I was there among all my fellow Spurs folk, and there were a lot of families, kids, older fans, a great mix. It’s easier to get tickets to the European games, but you need to have a Membership to go to Premier League games. It has been a really long time since I went to a European game at Spurs; the Cup-Winners Cup I think, back in 1991 vs Sparkasse Stockerau, the little Austrian team? They had a player called Helmut Flicker, which I thought was hilarious. I was there thinking, if we lived in London right now I would for sure try to get a season ticket, get to see a lot more games. Well, season tickets are very expensive, so maybe not, but I love it, I loved being at the Lane, I love being at the new ground, which is in the same place. Anyway, I didn’t sketch after kick-off as I wanted to pay attention to the match, and it was an extremely entertaining game. It’s Ange Postecoglou football isn’t it, it’s crazy stuff. From where I sat I could really see our shape for the first time, much better than on the limited TV screen. We don’t like going too wide, our wing-backs/full-backs really give a lot of space to their wide attackers. Both teams played full-on, there were so many goal attempts, disallowed goals, off-the-line clearances, it was nervy, and highly entertaining. We should have capitalized on our attacks, but in the end when we were 2-1 up, everyone around kept saying the game feels like a 2-2, and when Mats Hummels (who I had no idea was playing for Roma now, after those years at Dortmund) popped up and scored an equalizer, to be honest it felt like a fair result. My jetlag was kicking in, but I had the long long walk back to Seven Sisters yet to come, among the thousands leaving the stadium. It was a great night, I’m glad I went and can’t wait to go and watch another one sometime, hopefully with my son. Come on you Spurs!

a hundred years of burnt oak tube station

December 28, 20242 Comments

A few weeks ago I was back in London for a quick visit to see my Mum and my Dad, but of course managed to get a fair bit of sketching and exploring in as well. I also had to draw Burnt Oak Station, which I didn’t sketch last time I was back, even though I had that little walk around Burnt Oak that was on the radio, starting out at the tube station. What I had forgotten was that 2024 is the actual centenary of the station being built. Back in 1924 there was an extension of the Northern Line into what they were calling ‘Metroland’, according to all the old posters, and these areas that were previously fields and small settlements, your Edgwares and Hendons and Stanmores, all became part of this large suburbia of an ever expanding London, full of nice terraced houses, or orange brick council housing estates such as the Watling Estate where I grew up (as did my Mum). Burnt Oak Station is a good starting point because you could say that the Burnt Oak we know started here. Well, we were all told at school that it started with the Romans, who used to burn an oak tree to mark boundaries of areas, and yes, it kind of did. The long Roman Road, Watling Street, arguably the most important of roads in Britannia, runs right through it up on a ridgeway and gave birth to the settlements around here (Red Hill was the village up there; I’m from neighbouring Orange Hill), now known as the Edgware Road, or Burnt Oak Broadway as it comes through this area. Burnt Oak Station is down from that on the street which was named Watling Avenue, and so some of the signs inside the station still read ‘Burnt Oak (Watling)’. Locals call that street ‘the Watling’. It’s changed a lot over the years. I was back in the iconic library at the corner of Orange Hill and the Watling, and was shocked to hear that it would be knocked down and replaced with a modern building full of luxury flats. I mean, FFS. Oh, but they will build another library around the corner in Barnfield, so oh that’s ok then. (Why can’t the flats go in Barnfield and keep the historic pyramid shaped library there?) Behind the station is a dingy car park and an old market area, I don’t know if the market is still on but it we used to go there when I was a kid. It was always full of rats when the market was closed. Anyway, that is going to be developed into loads more private flats, another whole development. I’m not sure the are can handle so many more residents, and these aren’t going to be cheap. Having seen Colindale become an endless sea of new tall buildings full of expensive flats, especially over the old Police training centre you could see from the tube, with very little making it feel like an area with community, I worry the same could end up happening to Burnt Oak. All the old pubs are gone. I had a dream that they knocked down Burnt Oak station and replaced it with something big and modern (like they are doing with Colindale now, to handle all its new volume of users), and that will probably end up happening. But I’ll enjoy it while it still looks like itself. One thing I remember from years ago, when coming up the Northern Line you could usually tell which station you were at if you couldn’t see the sign, each station along this way was painted a different colour – Hendon Central was light blue, Colindale was yellow, Burnt Oak was red. They changed that years ago, and mode those three paint in a cream and dark green paint job. Now they announce the stations anyway, and the big roundel signs are pretty visible. Lot of memories here, good and bad, but growing up this was the exit point to a more interesting world, as well as the familiar entryway back home. There’s nothing like that moment when, having travelled five thousand miles across the world, my train pulls in and I go up those little stairs again, knowing I’m just minutes away from getting to my Mum’s house for a nice cup of tea. Happy 100th birthday, Burnt Oak tube!

christmas under the tree

December 27, 2024Leave a comment

These little fellows are sat at the foot of our little Christmas tree this year, and I just had to draw them. This sketchbook is nearly over (yes, I still have to post my London sketches) but Christmas isn’t. Well, I get the feeling from a lot of Americans that it is, because it’s past December 25th, but that’s only Christmas Day. At Target today while buying discounted wrapping paper for next year I heard someone say to their kid, “no, Christmas is over now”. Today, for me as a Brit anyway, was Boxing Day, laziest day of the year. I keep the decorations up until January 6th, though as far as British tradition held when I was a kid, Christmas lasted for those exact two weeks of TV listings in the Radio Times; once it’s January 2nd, forget it, party’s over folks. But they (and the TV Times, and other papers with good listings, even really awful papers like the Mail would have good TV listings at Christmas time) would always list the days as “Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Friday, etc, same with New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. So this day when people ask me what day Christmas Day is on, I say “Christmas Day”, because I figured we just didn’t use the actual name of the weekday for it, because the Radio Times didn’t. Still, I was glad to see Christmas Day fall upon a Wednesday this year, it feels somehow fair. Although on the Saturday before Christmas, I threw my back out and was largely unable to move too much for many days. I was in the kitchen making cranberry sauce, which I had never done before. I had the idea when I was deciding to make a special drink called a ‘White Christmas’, which I’d seen online, basically Prosecco with white cranberry juice (the one I used also had some peach), a sprig of rosemary and some cranberries. I had a lot of cranberries left over so I looked up recipes for cranberry sauce; there are hundreds, all different, some with loads of ingredients like rum and cinnamon sticks, some with hardly any. I chose one with perhaps a bit too much orange in it, and I squeezed the juice out of it myself. Once I’d made it, I put it in the fridge for a couple of days before tasting it, I was a bit afraid. It turned out ok, a bit tart and fruity, so we had some canned cranberry sauce as well, which was much milder. Anyway, after being down on the floor looking for various pots and pans in the cupboards, I somehow pulled my back, and this got worse over the next few days, even affecting my ankle and foot, meaning I spent most of Sunday and Monday lying flat in bed. In fact I drew this sketch when I woke up super early, unable to get back asleep, so I hobbled downstairs and drew these guys. Christmas Eve is traditionally the day for just our family, when we have my beloved Christmas turkey roast dinner. We go over to my wife’s family on Christmas Day itself and eat crab for dinner. At home though I get my parsnips (this year roasted with carrots and they were amazing) and different stuffings (both British Paxo and the American stovetop kind), turkey and crispy roast spuds, and of course I eschew brussels sprouts because I can’t stand them. This year though I made Yorkshire puddings for the first time ever, and they came out great. Achievement finally unlocked, why was I so afraid of messing that up. My wife made the turkey and it was fantastic. Though for all the bits I was cooking, I was bent over in the kitchen in agony and had to keep sitting down every few minutes, barely able to stand, but it all worked out deliciously. I was still pretty stiff on Christmas Day, but as the day wore on the back issue finally wore off, and by Boxing Day I was fine walking about Target. No mate, it’s still Christmas yet, not while there are mince pies left to be eaten, and I still have a lot I brought back from London. I’m in denial that 2025 has to start at all, if I’m honest. As I write it’s 3:30am and I’ve been unable to get back to sleep. Enjoy the festive season while it’s here folks, and to all a good night (or a good morning).

back at the avid reader bookshop

December 23, 2024Leave a comment

Here’s the other sketch I did downtown last week, actually over the course of a couple of days because I was a bit cold (and busy) the first day, so went back and finished it off, adding some paint. It was busy downtown, there were lots of last few-days-before-Christmas shoppers, and groups of teenagers roaming about after the last day of school finished early, all the lads looking similar with that same haircut the teenage boys have now, you’ve seen it, the one with the fluffy looking hair and short sides. It was cold out, I had to go inside a few shops just to warm up, and buy more things. In Newsbeat for example I went in and got another little Jellycat (one of those cute stuffed toys, they import them from Britain), and it was packed, everyone in line was buying a different Jellycat. Good to see though. It’s nice to see downtown busy and healthy, and it’s shops like this we need, not more boba tea cafes or frozen yoghurt shops or chain restaurants, and not that I don’t use them myself, but I don’t want more of them replacing the useful shops. This is the popular Avid Reader bookshop (I have a number of bookshops in my sketchbook now, did some more in London) which is a great place to pick up Christmas gifts, books as well as other things. As I’ve mentioned before this was the very first place I worked in America, back when Alzada ran the bookshop (she sold the store just before Covid, and she died a few years ago), and I always enjoyed my experiences there, working part-time as the book-keeper and staying on even after I got my full-time job at UC Davis, right up to when my son was born. I used to like working in the evenings when there would be book events, I’d be upstairs working on the invoices, I did that same job in London at a bookshop, one that was a little less successful in the end, as it closed less than a couple of years after I moved to California after a few decades in business; it’s been a tough time for bookshops, so it’s great when we have one that is doing alright, and is a real fixture for the local community. I’ve even given a couple of talks here myself about urban sketching (one of them being a book talk for Gabi Campanario’s first book in which I was featured), and I did an ArtAbout exhibit in here as well, a long time ago now. It’s fairly different inside now than when I worked there, a lot more products on sale, but the outside still feels the same with that familiar old sign. So I stood on the street and sketched and thought about books. I really need to write a new one myself, maybe in 2025.

tis the season

December 23, 20243 Comments

Before I post all my London drawings, here are a couple of festive sketches from downtown Davis. There is always a bit of a contest for the best dressed window in the downtown shops and I think the one above, at Bella Luna on F St, might be the best one. It’s not really just a window, it spills out into the street and around the tree outside as well, it’s quite a jolly sight as you approach it. I had to stand just off the sidewalk and in between two cars to sketch it, well the outline anyway, I am not standing in between two cars to sketch for too long. I went back on the sidewalk to keep drawing, and then added the colour later on because it was getting a bit cold, and it was my lunchtime. Anyway, Christmas is nearly here, all the shopping both downtown and online has been done, the mince pies are already being eaten and all the Christmas tv and movies are being watched. Spurs are being very generous with all the goals we are giving away (and scoring too), but I hope Santa can bring us some fit players down the chimney. The weather is gloomy and damp, and that’s totally fine, this time of year. I have made cranberry sauce for the first time in my life and it’s on the fridge, but I’m too scared to actually eat any of it in case it’s really bad, so we have a can of it ready to go. We usually have our roast turkey dinner on Christmas Eve, since my wife’s family usually have crab on Christmas Day. I am even going to try to make Yorkshire Puddings this year, never made them before, let’s see what happens there. And I’ve somehow done my back in, which has been fun today. It’s raining outside, and Christmas episodes of Friends are on TV now. Below, a quick sketch I did of the tree in E Street Plaza, I was going to make it all colourful but you know, it was cold and I decided I couldn’t be bothered to colour it in. Not seen in the foreground were those Hump Bikes, parked with various Uber Eats or whatever delivery drivers milling about waiting for orders so they can zoom off silently on the sidewalk and in the bike lanes. The clock was giving the wrong time, it was late afternoon on Friday, we’d closed up early and I was doing a bit more late shopping before heading home. I’ve drawn the festive tree before in other years, and I don’t know, I don’t enjoy drawing Christmas trees if I’m honest. Love Christmas, hate drawing the trees if I can avoid it. Yet I like drawing trees. Well ok I don’t mind drawing Christmas trees. I guess I’ve drawn a lot of trees this year, and what I enjoy most is usually the trunk. Anyway, back to the mince pies and the bad back…

beer and sketching after a long, long week

December 20, 2024December 19, 2024Leave a comment

After I was done with day two of the conference, finishing at about 8pm and exhausted, I walked downtown to grab some dinner and a couple of beers. Despite being tired I really needed to work out all the energy of that long long week into my sketchbook. I popped into the University of Beer, in a spot in the corner with a view that I have drawn before many years ago (2013), not long after it had opened. See below. I remember that afternoon, a hot day, and I was eager to practice my perspective sketching. Those older guys on the left were talking about Davis in the old days, the old bars that used to be there on G Street. They still had the long section of frost upon which you could put your glass to keep it chilled, but that seems to be gone now. And no more iPads with menus on! That seemed like a futuristic innovation back then but is apparently part of the dustbin of history now. To read the menu these days, you need to point your phone at a QR code, which means I have to read on my phone which is much smaller. So I’m sitting there looking over the rim of my glasses, even though I have varifocals, squinting to try and understand the ridiculous names all these beers have, looking for a nice normal amber ale. Back in the old days they only served beer too, but now they have all sorts of drinks, which is probably better for business to be honest, but the beer list is still long.

I ordered a beer and started drawing fast. I can draw quickly when it all starts coming out. As I drew, they started setting up for their Saturday night karaoke. It was pretty busy, that is a popular night out there I guess. People started singing, I didn’t always recognize the songs. I wasn’t tempted to have a go myself. I don’t mind a karaoke, historically, but I always like a stage. These ones where you are just in the corner by the door at the same level as people walking about would make me feel a bit odd. Not for me guv. Anyway, it was getting a bit loud, and I’d drawn very quickly and drunk my beer very slowly, but I wasn’t ready for the walk home just yet so popped by De Vere’s – sorry, not De Vere’s, it’s Bull’n’Mouth now, De Vere’s is in the past. I don’t go out much any more. They don’t do Smithwicks in there these days, and no Guinness, I think they are moving away from the Irishness of the predecessor pub. I drew a couple of quick sketches over a Bavarian beer, and made the long walk home for a long sleep. November was a long month.