i’m only a droid, and not very knowledgable about such things

February 10, 2012February 10, 20127 Comments

Wow, you MUST think I’m obsessed with fire hydrants, right? Well I am alittle. I can spot differences and everything now though. But I’m no expert, I don’t even really know how they work (it’s basically a tap, right?), and I know the colours on the caps signify some sort of difference in water pressure or something, maybe, but I like to think they’re just fashion choices on the part of the hydrant itself, which is of course a little robot with thoughts of its own. The one on the top left, drawn on the sloping streets of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, is related to R2-D2, but probably more of a ‘Moopet’ version, with a graffiti tattoo and chains. Perhaps those pentagonal bolts are really restraining bolts, like the ones fitted by Jawas. These larger, fat hydrants are common in SF. The green-capped one on the left was on Union Street. I actually sat a little bit off the sidewalk to sketch it from the preferred angle, shielded by a parked car. At one point though a girl came up and asked if she could photograph me sketching. I forget how odd I look when I sketch, all hunched over and tangled up.

say hello to my little friends

January 27, 20123 Comments

I’ve been drawing fire hydrants this week, ones I have not drawn before. The taller yellow one below was drawn at the end of last week’s sketchcrawl; the stumpy yellow one above is on the corner of 2nd and University. The other two are drawn on brown envelopes – I work with graduate applications, and recieve mail, transcripts, from all over the world (well, mostly China). I like to recycle the envelopes from time to time for some drawing, and well it’s that time of year. The one above was drawn on an envelope from Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in China, and is a hydrant from the UC Davis campus (they are white and blue). The one below is drawn on an envelope from Sri Lanka, and is found in the parking lot of Davis Commons. There are still one or two styles of hydrant in Davis that I’ve not yet drawn, I’m sure!

to you in your little dream world

December 30, 2011December 31, 20112 Comments

I went to Sacramento today, just to get out of Davis for a bit. Downtown there are so many people wandering about, up and down K, J and L streets, but me I stop and draw fire hydrants. The one with the green top has an unusual head attachement that I’ve not seen before, while the yellow one is a fairly typical design you’ll see in Sacramento. Fire hydrants make such good models, don’t they!

the last days of summer

September 18, 20112 Comments

This hydrant is by Wright Hall, UC Davis, and I drew it at the end of yesterday’s sketchcrawl. Well I drew most of it there, and then finished it off at home, adding colour too. I drew it on a 8×10 piece of Strathmore hot press paper in uniball vision micro, so it’s bigger than what goes in my sketchbook. I have had my eye on this fire hydrant for a while, sitting among the long leaves, with the colourful theatre dept building and the Eggheads outside the Art building behind it. It’s so calm, but tomorrow the new academic year will begin, and so will the craziness…

another day spent sketching uc davis

September 17, 2011September 18, 20111 Comment

Another “Let’s Draw Davis!” sketchcrawl, this time on the UC Davis, an eerily quiet UC Davis, the calm before the very big storm of new students. We were a smaller group this time, but no less determined to sketch, and there was a lot to draw on campus. We met at the Memorial Union bus station, by the red phone box, and fanned out to sketch the campus.

Above is North Hall, a building I’ve attempted before, the one with the fun-to-draw staircase. Below, Alan and Alison, long-time Davis sketchers, sketching at the MU bus terminal.

The next one will be on October 15th. Stay tuned for details!

cannery row in monterey in california

September 6, 20111 Comment

Cannery Row in Monterey is an interesting place to sketch, and I’ve had my eye on this building above for a few years now. This ramshackle former gallery sits right on the waterfront, grizzling in the Ocean fog, timbers presumably shivering. I got out one afternoon while other family members tried to take an afternoon nap (not an easy task given the noise of seagulls and traffic), and sketched down Cannery Row.

This end is closer to the Aquarium, and is a tourist-trap mecca. Signs everywhere offer quotes from Steinbeck to people who go, ah yeah, must read that book some day, get an idea of what it was like, and then never read it, because they don’t really need to know what it was like beyond what the signs in the street tell them (that would be me, then). I can imagine the smell and the noise and the seagulls following trawlers because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea, and I can say it probably isn’t too different from today, except the smell is more likely to be chipotle grilled popcorn or something. Still it’s fun, and not quite as trashy as Monterey Fisherman’s Wharf pier (popular with pelicans and parolees on the day I went there). I’ll keep going back.

Finally, of course, a fire hydrant. While sketching this, a group of young men stopped to look at my sketchbook, and one of them, a black lad decked out in hip-hop gear, was so impressed he said, “Man, you got a motherf*#*#r’s details, man!” I cracked up; that was hands down the best compliment I’ve ever received. Especially for drawing a fire hydrant! And so, I went and met the family for a cold ice cream and a hot brownie. I do love Monterey. We go there every year.

unplugged

August 22, 2011August 22, 20112 Comments

Ever wondered what a fire hydrant looks like befre it’s plugged in? No? Well in case you were, here is one I spotted the other day, along with some others, ready to be inserted into the ground of whatever this new development is. I have cycled past this open space for years, watching the hares bound by and the snakes slither off, while kids on BMX bikes race over the bumpy dirt. however, the buildings have been slowly rising in this neck of Davis, and this land looks soon to be lost. And unusually for Davis it will have red fire hydrants (most of them are yellow, or white/blue on campus, except for a couple of red ones I spotted once). One was already plugged into the ground, like the flag of a conquering civilization (we should have put one on the Moon, that would confuse later generations).
Seen through the fence like this it looks a bit like a prison yard, with the hydrant doing press-ups or something. No, the anthropomorphizing of hydrants is silly (but might make a great comic).

come out, come out, wherever you are…

August 10, 2011August 10, 20111 Comment

The Fire Hydrants of Lisbon. You can just imagine how excited I was when I saw that they had them there, and that they didn’t all look the same. Some of them are rather Grecian-urn, others are more Venus-de-Milo, but with a suggestion of a dismembered C-3P0 in there too. Feel free to draw speech bubbles and make them talk.

Most of the hydrnats were red, but the occasional one was yellow, such as this one near Rua da Bica, splotched with purple. Beside it, a shapely one sketched over at Rua Santa Justa in Baixa.

Finally, an unusual hydrant – it has a plastic cover! I sketched this on the long sloping street that winds down from FBAUL, as scores of sketchers walked by on their way to the sketchcrawl meet-up on Praca Comerco.

hey paper champion!

July 30, 2011July 30, 20111 Comment

Five hours to kill in Philadelphia, so what do I do? Do I go down to the historic centre, visit where United States of America was made, see the Liberty Bell, see where Ben Franklin lived, eat a Philly cheesesteak? Well I wouldn’t do the last one as I don’t eat that sort of meat. No, for me it’s all about Rocky. I took the train to 30th St Station (an impressively grand station, in what I must say is an impressively grand city), checked out a map with my ipod on the free wifi (gotta love technology), and walked over to the famous Museum of Art, where Rocky Balboa famously ran up the famous steps, humming the famous tune under his breath, jumped up and down a few times, then ran down and got back into his tourist bus with the scores of other people doing the same. I for one walked up the steps. The view is very nice. At the bottom of the steps and to the side is the famous (and impressively grand) statue of Rocky, a prop from the movies which has become a pilgrimage spot for folks like, well, me. Well I wish they had a statue of Clubber Lang, he’s my favourite. Him and Mickey. “This guy’ll kill ya to death! He’ll knock ya to tomorrow!” Anyway after a sketch and a few photos of the Italian Stallion, I sauntered back to the train station, having only enough time to stop and sketch one Philly fire hydrant. I liked the yellow traffic lights here too. And then I flew to England, to tell everyone I saw Rocky. They were suitably impressed.

hit the road, jack

July 10, 2011July 10, 20111 Comment

I had my bike with me in Oregon, so I cycled to Jacksonville. I went there on the same Sunday last year, and was retyrning to sketch the things I’d missed last time. It didn’t take long to cycle there, and it was a beautiful journey, much of the road running alongside a creek, with rolling hills, vinyards and even a snaowy peak popping out aboce it all. I had to stop at one point to sketch the view above, overlooking Jacksonville. As sson as I entered town, the sketching stool came out and I drew the First Presbyterian Church, a lovely wooden building which dates back to 1881.