back on the couch watching the sports

July 2, 2024Leave a comment

Before we get to all the sketches from London and France, which I am still scanning, here are some from the last couple of days back here in Davis. The weather is hot, very hot, very very hot, and getting hotter. There may not be much going outside for a while, unless I start doing the early morning sketching like I do when I’m on vacation. I am still getting up early, thanks to jetlag, and I still want to just go back. But there are things to do. First though, the football. But before that, the Formula One. I was up early on Sunday to watch the Austrian Grand Prix, a ho-hum race for the first two thirds, and then a crazy exciting race for the last third (Max and Lando crashed into each other fighting for the lead, and then George Russell won it in the Mercedes; F1 is back). I sketched from the couch, my usual seat with the side-on view. Our cats are pleased we are back, I assume. I looked at the Austrian Alps in envy. I want to go everywhere, and I’d like to go back there. As I look at the long hot Davis summer stretching out ahead of me, I just want to get on another plane and explore somewhere very far away, while the world is still there to explore. Anyway, then it was time for the football. I’ve had a strange relationship with this year’s European Championships. In the past it has been one of those exciting times of year, but I’ve struggled to get as interested this time. The kits are okay, I suppose, but I haven’t wanted to get one this time. I think in the run up, I was so busy and stressed out that I didn’t think about it, and then it started while we were in London. This meant watching it at unusual times for us, that is, the afternoon and evening, as opposed to the typical very early morning that we have gotten used to (or that 3am start for the Women’s World Cup). I saw the opening game Germany vs Scotland with a friend of mine in an old Dutch pub, De Hems, in central London, Scotland got battered like a piece of cod. Some of the games have been interesting, Austria look good, Spain look frightening, but let’s face it – England have been dull as dishwater. If I had spent hundreds, thousands of quid to go and watch them chug about the field against teams they know they should beat, barely taking a shot or connecting a pass, I’d be furious. The group stage was so boring, football at its worst. But everyone’s tired! they say. So are we all, mate, so are we all. The knockout stages should be better. I’ll be back home, watching them in the mornings from the couch (or my desk if I’m at the office), and they are must-win. England v Slovakia was, predictably, turgid. Slovakia played well, England did not. I sketched during the game, above. The commentators, in the closing minutes of the game with England 1-0 down, were putting the game very firmly in the England Hall of Shame, with the leading men Kane, Bellingham and Foden having done absolutely zero. I was telling my friends back home, it’s bad news for the English game. They aren’t creative enough, they are positive enough, they’ll go on getting bad results, getting bad results, getting bad results. Everyone seemed to know the score, we’ve seen it all before. And then, in the 95th or 96th minute whatever it was, Jude Bellingham, the young Real Madrid superstar, decided to do a bicycle kick to plant the ball in the bottom corner, breaking Slovakia’s hearts, as the cliche says. Full-time, 1-1; extra-time, and Kane makes it 2-1 instantly. Suddenly the, er, narrative changes. It doesn’t wipe out the previous 96 minutes of dull porridge, but England are in the next round now, just as England topped the group, and like in 1990, nobody will care how boring they were because of a brief moment where it went right. That’s how football works I guess. As I look towards the long hot summer in Davis with nothing but work and imposing heat on the menu, I think about the trip we have planned right at the end of summer before Fall begins, and maybe that’s the Bellingham and Kane moment that will make Summer 2024 worth it. I dunno. We had a pretty nice trip just now, I’m just in the post-vacation blues. England are in the next round against the Swiss, who look really good after knocking out a dreary Italy.

I sketched a couple more games yesterday, writing down the commentary as I went. France v Belgium (ended 1-0 to France, a goal they classed as an own goal by my man Jan Vertonghen), France otherwise just don’t know how to score properly. This was followed by Portugal 0-0 with Slovenia, Cristiano Ronaldo who is playing his 112th tournament trying as hard as he might to score goals and failing, much to the eternal patience of his team-mates who would like a go please. Ronny, you don’t need to take every free kick, your record of those for Portugal is actually rubbish. Of course he had a penalty saved by Oblak, ending in tears and more looks towards the heaven (and the big screens). He hasn’t scored in eight tournament games and wants to pile on more for his own personal record, team-mates be damned. And then it ended in a draw, and a penalty shoot-out. Portugal’s goalie made three saves in a row, and Ronny scored his penalty this time, but mate, that don’t count as a goal. Portugal v France in the quarter finals, along with Germany v Spain on Friday. The Euros are back. Meanwhile, the Copa America is on, hosted by the US. I finally watched a game last night, USA vs Uruguay… and the USA lost, and are out in the group stage. Oh well. As American politics gets charging towards the ugly election in November, I remembered, oh yes, there’s a British general election on Thursday, right in the middle of the Euros. It would have been strange for England to be knocked out right before it. They fight on for another weekend. I ain’t going anywhere.

christmas eve in front of the telly

January 4, 2024Leave a comment

We all have our holiday routines. For us, Christmas Eve has become our family day. Since on Christmas Day we will typically get up and go over to Santa Rosa for the day with my wife’s family, where we will eat crab for dinner, it’s Christmas Eve where it’s just us and we will have the traditional turkey and roast potatoes dinner, with ‘picky bits’ during the day. We will spend the day watching all our favourite Christmas shows and movies, though we always spend the couple of weeks leading up to Christmas watching all the old faves. Home Alone is the classic, though we always save Muppets Christmas Carol (my personal favourite Christmas movie and Michael Caine’s best role). A Christmas Story is great (and the new sequel that came out last year was surprisingly very good fun). Love Actually is the cheese but we love it; it always reminds us of the London that existed when we left it, and we saw that at the cinema in Muswell Hill when we lived on Hornsey Lane. We even watched Die Hard this year, which I’d not actually seen since the early 90s, because it used to be on tv a lot as a generic action film before people realized it was set at Christmas so we have to argue if it’s a Christmas movie (I think you can say it definitely is, I don’t buy people saying it’s their favourite one, but each to their own); it was fun and I realized the big blond hulking terrorist who wanted to avenge his brother’s death reminded us a lot of Erling Haaland at the end of that Spurs-Man City game. We love Iron Man 3, a total Christmas action movie. We also watched the Creature Comforts Christmas this year, which I’d not seen before, and we always watch the Christmas episodes of the Simpsons, and the festive Father Ted Christmas special, the one with the Golden Cleric Award (“and now we move on to liars…”). This Christmas Eve, we started by putting on a bunch of Christmas episodes of Friends, followed by the other favourite, Charlie Brown’s Christmas. It always reminds me of when we took our son to see a kids stage production of it in Folsom when he was about three or four, in some tiny little venue, very simply produced yet amazing and memorable. Then it was time for the Blackadder’s Christmas Carol, which we know word for word and absolutely love, especially the bit where Beadle’s portly lads sing “piggy-wiggy-wiggy-wiggy-woo” which I used to sing to my son when he was a baby. Then it’s time for The Snowman, a proper gentle piece of festive animation; this was one from my own childhood, I was about six or so when it came out and remember watching it on TV, and being excited that the kid had red hair like me. Then it’s time for The Muppets Christmas Carol. I have it on an old DVD so it’s the full version, and I love how straight Caine plays it. It’s pretty close to my other favourite version, Scrooge (with Albert Finney), which I haven’t watched in a while. There are so many versions; I never really liked Scrooged, and don’t get me started on that TV version that Ross Kemp did, but nothing beats the Muppets. This year we followed that with a film that will always feel like Christmas to us, The Force Awakens. It does have snow in it, but it’s because it came out right before Christmas that it feels right, and we loved that one. Actually that year was the last one where we spent Christmas in London; hard to believe we’ve not spent Christmas with my London family in so long, I do really miss them at Christmas. By this time we’re already getting ready for dinner, and so there might be a bit of music or maybe a nap, but after dinner is done and the last bit of wrapping gets underway, it’s always time for It’s A Wonderful Life, which is a Christmas classic without really being that much of a Christmas movie itself, just that bit at the end. I love it though. There are other films that come on Christmas Day when we visit family (Gremlins played this year, and Elf usually comes on) but this is pretty much our usual tradition, just spending the whole day at home, and it’s a fun one. I hope you all had a lovely time this year. It’s already 2024 now and slowly back to work, but we did get a lovely tropical holiday in for New Years; sketches coming soon. Happy New Year!

lionesses before dawn

September 17, 2023Leave a comment

We all got up at 3am, for the second time in a week, to watch England playing in the final stages of the Women’s World Cup. The midweek semi-final was a fantastic win. The final, in those wee hours of a Sunday morning, as sketched here, did not go quite as well. Spain were the better team on the day, and deserved to win 1-0. Of course we all know what happened next with that awful Spanish FA president, it’s been quite a drama. The Women’s World Cup overall was a really fun tournament, even though we could not watch too many games live (as they were in Australian and New Zealand), we watched all the highlights each day. The USA were not so good this time, but I was pretty happy with how England did overall. European Champions last year, beaten World Cup finalists this year (I guess we start counting ‘years of hurt’ again now?). Congratulations to Spain though. This was nearly a month ago now, and these days we are back in the Premier League fun times, and Spurs are doing great so far under Big Ange Postecoglou. However now I am getting right into the Rugby World Cup, of all things. I’ve never been much of a rugby fan, I used to watch it sometimes on telly when I was a kid, but never really understood it like I do with football. I still don’t, but it has been fun watching these huge guys smash into each other this past week. Sport, eh. It’s the big distraction from all the other shitty things in the world, and there are increasingly shitty things in the world, that my mental health just can’t deal with, so I go back to watching sport. I was up at 5am this morning watching the Formula 1, and what a race (Carlos Sainz won; Max Verstappen for once did not win, coming fifth). Earlier this summer we watched pretty much all the Tour de France (well, all the highlights each day, I’m not actually watching them race live). At this rate I might even start watching cricket (no, let’s not go that far). But we loved the Women’s World Cup. And I’m now a big fan of goalkeeper Mary “F***-Off!!” Earps.

“it’s lights out and away we go!”

December 10, 2021December 10, 20212 Comments

A Sunday afternoon sketch at home from October, drawn on the iPad with Procreate, a slice of the life. Watching the Formula One, this was the United States Grand Prix, which seems like a million races ago now. More on that later. There’s my increasingly-tall teenage son on the couch stretched out with his favourite cat on his lap (apologies to the other cat, no he loves you both equally), while I draw. Outside was a massive rain storm. They called it the “Bomb Cyclone” because everything has to have a gimmicky name now. The “Atmospheric River” and the “Moisture Firehose” were also terms used by the weather news people, who frankly are just having a laugh now. Moisture Firehose indeed, do me a favour. We had such little rain this year, the drought in the west has been very worrying, but then all this rain came along on the same day and provided a perfect backdrop for staying inside, which we would have been doing anyway, especially with this race going on. I was worried that we would lose power, the lights were flickering for a bit, and not get to see the race (it really would have been “lights out and away we go” as they say at the start of the race). And boy, was it was exciting. The young Dutch buck Max Verstappen beat seven-times legend Lewis Hamilton in the end with them being close right down to the final lap of the race. This whole Formula One season has been one of the most exciting in years, with Max (we used to call him ‘Waluigi’- MarioKart reference) Verstappen storming about to win loads of races in the Honda-powered Red Bull, maybe on course for his first world title, while the GOAT Lewis Hamilton in the slick Mercedes has pulled off some of the best drives I’ve seen him do to bring it back to level-pegging, and they go into the final race of this season on EQUAL POINTS, a situation that’s only happened once before (back in the 70s), and that final race is this weekend in Abu Dhabi. Lewis has been magnificent in recent races but it all comes down to this. Whoever comes ahead of the other will WIN the title. If they both crash out (something that’s been done before), Max will win, because he has one more race win than Lewis. To say I’m excited for this grand finale is an understatement. I’m a long-time fan of Lewis (and especially after the way he raced in Brazil this year) but more than anything I’m just a fan of the sport and I like all the characters, and it would be interesting to have a different champion, and I’m not particularly interested in the arguments and entrenching into different camps and all that, I’m just glad we’ve had an epic season. It’s very much a team sport, and a technical sport, not just about the bloke in the cockpit, there’s so much involved. I think Red Bull need to win it now because Honda will leave the sport next season and they won’t have that great Honda engine. Max will be probably champion at some point regardless, but I’ve said that before about drivers. Still, I’m actually very nervous about this weekend. I really don’t want a ‘both crash, Max wins by default’ situation, that would be crap, I just want good racing, and good strategy. I’m still annoyed about Schumacher and Hill in 94. But it’s all drama, and the big race is this Sunday. I would love if the team principals Toto Wolff and Christian Horner just had a massive punch-up, the psychologicals between them all season has been just as entertaining. I have a feeling that Max will win. Aargh I’m so excited!

And just as a throwback… November 2008, Lewis Hamilton’s second season in F1, and he won the title in the very last race of the season, in dramatic fashion, right at the end when local lad Massa thought he had won it (still feel so bad for him). Back then, we didn’t get the channel that Formula One came on but the cable channel still showed it without sound, and I’d have the closed-captioning on. The people writing the subtitles obviously weren’t familiar with a lot of the names, and would write “Lou Is Hamel Ton”, “Right Gone On” (that was Räikkönen), “Cove Align On” (Kovailainen), and “Along Sew” (Alonso). I would watch it for the subtitles mostly. Those were exciting seasons though, and so I drew this in my notebook back then, Lewis Hamilton’s winning McLaren. I didn’t draw cars much back then…

life on the other hand

May 10, 2021May 10, 20211 Comment

I mean, this is my main view a lot, looking over the top of my iPad, on the couch, a can of Pepsi Max (sorry, Pepsi Zero Sugar), my knees. We saw all the drawings of my house a year ago (see petescully.com/tag/uskathome/ for some of them). I was having a bit of a tough week, touch couple of weeks, I think we’ve all been getting a bit like that, but there are days when you just want to focus and get the head straight. I wasn’t sleeping too well, and on this day I got up super early and started doing some work. By lunchtime I was already exhausted again, so I sat on the couch while Paris St. Germain played Manchester City in the Champions League. That was the first leg, when PSG had a great first half but fell apart in the second. I liked James Richardson’s description of the game, that “Parisians were losing their heads like it was A Tale of Two Cities, which in a way it was, the worst of the halves and the best of halves”. I wish I could have thought of that. I think of funny things sometimes but I forget them, and other people do too. Sketching often helps, it’s where I go when I need to go somewhere. That was the case at every age. I like drawing on the iPad to just mess about. I use Procreate to draw, but I use Notability a lot to write notes with, and doodle like I would on a notepad in a meeting. Constantly doodling. Ahhh, I need a sketching trip, a proper trip where all I do is go around by myself drawing everything, but right now even the thought of it exhausts me.

on the couch again

October 18, 20201 Comment

I have started sketching outside more lately, even though the weather is hot again (94 degrees yesterday, in mid October, that is not normal but what is). But earlier in the month I needed to sketch one evening, and even though I am thoroughly bored of drawing the living room I just went ahead and sketched anyway. I sat down to watch a replay of the Spain-Portugal friendly game (not knowing the score, and not knowing what an immensely boring game it was). Not an epic. More ‘claw my eyes out wish I’d spent my time watching something else’. Oh well, there have been a fair number of overexciting Premier League games lately. I’m thinking of changing the pictures on the wall going up the stairs, maybe taking down the prints of my cathedral drawings (three of them aren’t even really cathedrals, I should just call them big churches) and replacing them with my classic World Cup posters, perhaps to remind me occasionally that international football can be fun, even if the most fun parts are just the posters, the sticker albums and sometimes the kits.

I should have watched Star Wars. I’ve been listening to some Star Wars podcasts (well one, called Full of Sith) and I’ve been thinking a lot about Star Wars, especially the prequels. I love the prequels, and even more so now the sequels are all done with (I was much less impressed with those – although I loved Force Awakens, I was undecided on Last Jedi, but I really disliked The Rise of Skywalker, despite a few good bits, it was overall poodoo). I might some day write an unnecessary blog post about it accompanying some tangentially related sketch. But I love the prequels, I have a lot of good feelings and memories around those, and I love them even more knowing that a lot of people are very sniffy about them. That said I love that one episode of Spaced where Tim is really annoyed about Phantom Menace. Maybe I should have watched Spaced, been a little while since I saw that series. Or maybe Shawn of the Dead, or Hot Fuzz, I love those films. I was less impressed with the final ‘Cornetto trilogy’ film, The World’s End, but maybe I should watch it again. I did watch a film last night, Knives Out, which was directed by Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, and starred Captain America and James Bond, it was a whodunnit sort of film. Why do we say “whodunnit” rather than “whodidit”? Speaking of the genre, you know the board game “Cluedo”, in America they just call it “Clue”. So why do we Britishers call it “Cluedo”? What about “Ludo”, do Americans just call it “Loo”? If only there was a way I could ask them. What about Ronaldo, is he just called “Ronal” over here? I’ve never thought about it. I wish I had thought about it during that Spain v Portugal match, because that would have made the game slightly more interesting.

the stay-at-home cats

July 16, 20201 Comment

These are our stay-at-home cats. Stay-at-home orders are nothing new to these two. They probably like having us around more, or they don’t, it’s hard to say. Whiskers and Sawyer. two brothers. However with all of the disruption that happened in our downstairs when we had that flood, what with moving out the furniture and everyone staying upstairs, the noise from all the air dryers and the work, it took a toll on the kitties, and one of them, Sawyer, got very ill with the stress and ended up twice having overnight stays in the animal hospital, poor thing. Not the TV show, but the place. He had to be nursed back to strength, amid all the confusion with the living room, and on top of that his brother started acting as if he didn’t know him. As soon as he came back from the vets Whiskers was hissing and growling at him, Sawyer didn’t know what it was all about, but Whiskers couldn’t get over all the new smells on him, to the point where we had to keep them separated while we worked from home, and it took weeks for them to be ok around each other again. We learned a lot about cat behaviour during this time! Thankfully they are friends again now, but it really took a while.

Animal Hospital, remember that show? I remember the sweet music and the little puppies being nursed to health, I remember also that it was presented by a kindly sweet old man in glasses, my memory isn’t great so I need to google that one, can you guess who it is yet, oh it was – never mind, never mind! I forgot he presented it. Wow, even Animal Hospital memories tarnished. Those guys were creeps, the Rolfs and the Jim’lls and the weather man bloke on the floating map in Liverpool, and all the rest of them. There was another show I remember though, Pet Rescue, I think it was presented by the former Chelsea and Romania player Dan Petrescu, but I may be confusing that one. Before this turns into another “remember this old TV show” post (and I do want to do another one of those), let’s get back to the drawings. I don’t draw animals often, but I really wanted to draw the cats again, after all they’ve been through. They are finally friends again now, maybe not as close as before, but not hissing and fighting as much, they are even back to cleaning each other, and occasionally alternating each other’s napping spaces. Now that the living room is normal they seem a lot more content. Cats are funny.

While I was messing around testing some new paints recently I did try a couple of quick gesture sketches of them looking out of the window. Always fun. They like to look out of that window at the other cats outside, the outdoor cats from down the block, and the birds in the trees. We get a lot of hummingbirds here, they like to come and hover about looking right into our window.

don’t you know you might find a better place to play

June 13, 2020June 12, 20201 Comment

Well the living room is all back to normal now I suppose and people are starting to go outside again, places are starting to slowly open up once more, and 2020 is starting to settle down into – no, no, this just in, 2020 is still a diabolical disco of dumpster fires mixed up with a party of poopy diapers dancing around a carnival of crap. 24 hour mental anguish, thy name is 2020. I’ve been feeling the weight of the world lately, the missing life in this bleak year. I can’t take any more news, or opinions, or anger, or politics, or lack-of-context-and-nuance-this-person-has-said-this-one-thing-so-scorch-them-from-the-earth, or this disease, this bloody disease, still racking up the numbers and not caring one jot about the angers and opinions of us puny humans. And the second half of the year will bring an election upon us, so no more watching TV shows with advert breaks in our house. But, small but important comforts – we have our living room back, and we can lie on the couch avoiding the news and turning off social media (ha! as if) and watching Shakespeare and HGTV and the Bundesliga. Football, football, football. The Premier League is finally back next week too, to give my mind a rest from all the real chaos and anger in the world, though speaking of which when is Tottenham’s Amazon show coming out? That will be a feast, though probably painful for such an avid Spurs fan as myself, given the season we’ve had. Formula 1 is coming back too, and not soon enough. I have watched so many old races. I rewatched the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix last week, oooh I had forgotten how crashorrific that race was, but also that they could just jump in the spare car and carry on! I miss watching F1 in the 90s though, I was well into it then. I’ve enjoyed the Shakespeare too, I’ve decided I want to build a Lego version of the Globe and put on little animated versions of the plays. I really liked the Globe’s production of the Merry Wives of Windsor, the silly performances really working with the crowd, and I watched the Donmar’s Coriolanus with Tom Hiddleston, that was good, though I admit I never finished it because it was long and I wasn’t really into it, I just really enjoyed the staging and the occasional Hiddleston histrionics. I cant wait for all the plays and movies and everything about this lockdown period, the COVID age, the Coronavirus times. I’m kidding, I definitely am not looking forward to those things. I’m also not looking really forward to the many ways they will restage Shakespeare as set during the time of lockdown, though you could have some fun with it. Shelter-In-Place-Shakespeare, the Social Distancing versions. The Merry Wife of Windsor, The One Gentleman of Verona, Romeo, and Juliet (staged as two separate plays – actually that might work really well) etc etc and so on. It’s not limited to Shakespeare. There’s Six Characters In Search of a Zoom Host (Pirandelli), Abigail’s Google Hangout (Leigh), the Caucasian Social Distancing Chalk Circle (Brecht, I’m stretching that one a bit, but he was into his Verfremdungstechnik so he’s fine with a bit of distancing) and of course Six Degrees of Separation (Guare, which speaks for itself). It’s not just with Shakespeare that I’ve been getting through this time, I’ve also been running a lot more than usual. It helps when I’ve got a head full of news, when the world seems too much, running and running and running is a good way to shake it off. And if you think “hey that’s very healthy of you,” I’m here to tell you that donuts are a good way as well.

And here’s my son’s room, it’s very much a not-quite-teenage boy’s room, it’s also where he’s been doing all of his distance-learning schooling (until this week – he just left elementary school and will start middle school at the end of summer, in person we hope) Sure his room is not exactly tidy, but it’s considerably less messy than my room at the same age. I think at that age I may have still been sharing with my brother, who had on and off times of living at home (he’s ten years older than me). I remember we had bunkbeds and he would come home at all hours and he’d be sat on my bed playing Donkey Kong. He and my uncle would play tricks on me, such as holding my arm down the side of the bed and writing rude words all over it and sending me downstairs, haha. I remember he used to kick the bottom of my bed from below for a laugh, until one time it actually collapsed in on top of him, and that was a laugh, I still bring that one up. Fun times! One time I thought I’d play a trick on him and set up a trap above the bedroom door, I placed some empty bottles (plastic, not glass) above the door so that when he opened it they would all fall on his head. The problem is, he didn’t come home that night, I think he crashed at a mate’s gaff, and so my mum came in in the morning to wake me up, the bottles fell on her and broke her glasses. Whoops! As you can imagine I was in big, big trouble. I think the neighbours were woken up by the shouting, I mean the neighbours in the neighbouring counties. My brother laughed so much when he found out, he still brings that one up. Fun times! I used to draw that bedroom too, years ago. I wonder if I can find any old drawings from back then, probably. Well, these are the last ones of the house I’ll be doing for a while, now I can sketch outside when I need to. Thing is, I don’t know that I have missed sketching Davis much. I’ve drawn it so much already. Who am I kidding, I say that all the time and yet I always find things to draw! So in the next few posts, I’ll show some of the Davis sketches I did in the earlier part of 2020 before we were all ordered home. I miss the old outside world, as it was. But at least we have the living room back.

the bedroom days

May 26, 2020May 26, 20201 Comment

A couple more on the iPad drawn in the bedroom, or the Bedroom Office as it now is. Both drawn before we got our living room back (which was over the weekend, hooray!) so this was also the dining room and watching tv room. It’s also where I draw and write (haha, I hardly ever write at the moment), and it would be where I do my Lego animations but I’ve not done those in a while either. I felt like installing a running track around the bed and using it as a gym too. With all stuff from downstairs shelves all over the floor it would have been more like a hurdle track. Ah well, it’s where we are right now. I notice from some of my fellow sketchers in Europe that things are slowly beginning to open up there, and I think that they will here too soon, but extremely cautiously. Well most of us, some aren’t. I also can’t wait for the shelter-in-place to be over, because then the walking and running paths around here might not be so busy, people might stay in more. I don’t know, I want to go places, get on a train and wander about the City, but I don’t know how we’ll all feel. I have a nice mask. Lately I’ve been obsessed with the idea of going on week-long hikes along the national trails of England, as if that should ever happen. I used to think about that sort of thing when I was young but never got around to it, except my time in Cumbria when I was 17 doing the Outward Bound thing. In the meantime, stay at home, it’s very hot outside again in California. These two sketches were done on the iPad, sat on the bed, the one below while watching Revenge of the Sith (I do love ‘Sith’, one of my favourite films), the one above while monitoring an online seminar/workshop for our department. The bookshelf was moved from downstairs during the flood but I am going to keep it there as I like having books close by my bed. I have already moved the dvd shelf downstairs and replaced it with my old collection of Fighting Fantasy books. And right now, I’m watching the Bundesliga, as football has returned to Germany, albeit in empty stadiums. Unlike the quiet first round of games, the Dortmund-Bayern game has crowd noise pumped in, and the tv cameras are angled to show as little of the empty stands as possible. I’ve watched so many old World Cup games lately it is nice to watch some actual real new games. I feel like a teenager again, when I would rarely leave my room, just stay in there drawing and watching football or Star Wars or reading. Still on top of the recent flood which left us without a living room for a month, one of the cats got sick and was in hospital a couple of times, he’s recovering now the poor thing, but he did wee all over my side of the bed one night. Go home 2020 you are drunk! One thing all of this disruption and time at home has given me is time to go through things and organize stuff, get rid of what I don’t need, and one day I might get started on that.

In the meantime I’ll draw round the house. Tomorrow our local sketching thing Let’s Draw Davis will have a virtual get-together, less of a sketchcrawl and more just the show and tell bit, showing what we have drawn while stuck at home during this whole thing. I had an idea over the weekend that I might put a video together of my stay-home sketches, and the I thought I could do a series of YouTube videos giving a tour of Davis through my sketches, focusing on a different area or theme each time, make about 8-10 of them. Summer project.

fake plastic tree

May 19, 2020May 19, 2020Leave a comment

Different times, before the Shelter-in-Place, before the downstairs flood, before a lot of things, last Christmas in the living room. Our little fake plastic Christmas tree. Drawn on the iPad which is the first time I can draw the tree and not have to leave little spaces for the lights and ornaments, I just draw them on top digitally. One of my cats looks on. The cats aren’t talking at the moment; one of them got sick last week (he actually had to go to hospital overnight, poor thing), and now the other one won’t go near him without hissing. Hopefully once the house is back in shape they can all get along nicely again. Cats eh, it’s almost like they’re a whole different species. On the wall in the background you can make out the various advent calendars I have made over the years for my son. I made another one last Christmas, this year it was Hawaii themed, because we were going to spend Christmas in Hawaii. Those sketches will be posted soon. Seems like a million years ago. Anyway, the Hawaii advent calendar is below. I drew it on the iPad while flying back from England at the start of December (so it was a couple of days late), trying to grapple with Procreate while squeezed into a narrow seat in the dark with a large man with big elbows sat to my right, while also suffering with a stinging nose. I was looking forward to Hawaii! Be nice to be there now, with a Mai Tai and my ukulele.

I wish I had an advent calendar counting down the days until the Shelter-In-Place is over. Actually I now call it the “Global Coronavirus Shared Experience”, or “GCSE”.