don’t let the sun blast your shadow

March 11, 2010March 11, 20102 Comments

I was outside Newsbeat, on Third Street, Davis. I don’t normally sketch standing up but the noisy trucks parked in front of me meant I couldn’t avoid it. I tried to lean against the wall, but I think someone had if not peed against it, then certainly left their scent there. There are smelly people in the world, I accept that. The fact I could smell it meant at least I was getting over my cold (although allergy season is apon me to re-block those nostrils). My pen didn’t like drawing at the funny angle of standing up, and protested. At least I had shade; it was sunny. But sunny is good, as it means I get to draw shadows of bare trees against cool little wooden buildings.

white house experience

February 16, 2010February 17, 20105 Comments

Pancake Day was a success. In otherwords, I had pancakes, proper pancake-day pancakes with lemon and sugar (and one with nutella). My two-year-old excitedly shouted ‘pancake day! pancake day!’ and giggled as I flipped the pancakes up in the air from the pan, but he wouldn’t even eat a nibble. Ah well. I often say that Davis, my current home city, is flat as a pancake, and it is. But it has some nice old houses, like this one on 1st Stret – I have wanted to draw it for ages, and so today at lunchtime (70 degrees warm folks, not bad for winter) I got out and sketched it. I just love that big roof, it’s so ‘America’, it’s so ‘Not Burnt Oak’. I don’t know if it’s a frat house. There are so many on this row I wouldn’t be surprised. Either that or it’s from a horror movie.

the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face

February 1, 2010February 1, 20101 Comment

The last day of January; it was a long, busy month, wasn’t it? Long, cold and dark, with not as much drawing as normal. Well the Sun came out and so did I, with the sketchbook.

The last day of January; it was a long, busy month, wasn’t it? Long, cold and dark, with not as much drawing as normal. Well the Sun came out and so did I, with the sketchbook. Wandered town looking for something to draw; I was not inspired by anything new, so went somewhere old. It’s the time of year when trees are like bare spindly bones, just asking to be sketched. Of course drawing them out in the open takes time and patience. I may have to photograph a few while they’re still leafless and draw some complicated pictures of branches at home in the warm (like I did here and here and here, a couple of years ago). No branch left behind. Doing them outside is fun too (like here and here) but going for branch accuracy in chilly weather can be a struggle on the old fineliners. Still, in yesterday’s cold sunshine I gave it a shot.

I’m making a habit of revisiting old spots. I last sat and sketched this corner, 5th and E Streets in Davis, about two and a half years ago. Here’s how it looked back then, on a hot July day (in moleskine #1, when for some reason I didn’t want to draw powerlines):

every leaf speaks bliss to me

November 5, 20091 Comment

November in Davis means warm and cool sunny afternoons, with turning leaves and long, lazy shadows. Alright, what I’m saying is we have nicer weather than back home in London, where it rains and is cold. But now the clocks have gone back, it also gets dark earlier, so less time for sketching. I don’t really have the time anyway, so here is another one scrambled in during lunchtime yesterday. A building (I think it’s owned by Allstate) on the corner of 4th and D, with a tree outside it.

Oh, was it Guy Fawkes Night back in England? I had forgotten to remember.

look into my eyes, look into my eyes

September 7, 20093 Comments

“Ah come on Ted, you never know, there might be something in it. Sure it’s no more peculiar than that stuff we learned at the seminary, heaven and hell and everlasting life and all that; you’re not meant to take it seriously!” – Father Dougal Maguire

I’ve wanted to draw this building for quite some time. I don’t know who the Davis Psychic is, or what they do, but if they have half the prognostic track record of Mystic Pete then they can’t be half bad. Mystic Pete, for those who don’t recall, is the famed predictor of football seasons (that year when he said that Newcastle would win the league! And they came 14th), and I am his representative on Earth, etc etc. He’s taking a sabbatical this year (and coincidentally Spurs start playing well). Anyway back to the Davis Psychic. That’s a bold statement, a yellow house with purple trimmings. Who is the Davis Psychic? Perhaps we’ll never know. Here is the page on the Davis Wiki: http://daviswiki.org/Davis_Psychic. The wiki writers seem to think the Davis Psychic is a mystery figure with a Hummer who elusively hangs up the phone whenever they call (or whenever they crank call, by the sound of it). I wonder if they have an assistant called the Davis Sidekick? Maybe a Dougal type of person, in a tank-top? “Well, I’m very cynical as you know…”

sacramentalists

September 6, 20092 Comments

I went sketching in Sacramento yesterday; it’s been a while. The bus is 50 cents more expensive now. Not much else has changed though. I decided I finally wanted to draw that tall brick building downtown, I think it’s an elk’s lodge or something, and was excited when sketching out the perspective lines. However, this being downtown Sacramento, there are a larger than average concentration of street mentals per square yard, so I was distracted. As I was sat on my stool, one slightly agitated gentleman started screaming into an empty doorway at the brickwork, some nonsense about his “enemies in the drywall” and how they’re coming and what not. I carried on. But then he took residence in the middle of a large structure of metal poles and began yelling abuse at the universe in a variety of voices. I’m not really into that, and I felt a bit like, you know, I didn’t want to hang around such nonsense for too long, so I abandoned the interesting perspective sketch and traipsed up to Midtown to draw a wooden building, on the corner of 23rd and J, with a tree to the right and some blue sky. A typical Pete; it’s my equivalent of a three-chord song (but it takes considerably longer, when drawing every tile and slat).
Shame; you would have liked the brick building. Maybe next time.

my fair lady

August 13, 2009Leave a comment

I painted the ladies again. Well I drew them first. San Francisco’s famous old houses, sloping down Alamo Square, with the City in the background.

The last drawing I did of the Painted Ladies was in sepia. I added colour this time. They are supposed to be colourful after all. This will very likely be for sale on my long-time-coming Etsy shop which is of course not yet ready. Keep your ears peeled.

I do love these buildings, but now when I see them I think of that awful Sleep Train Mattress Center commercial on TV (“a ticket to a better night’s sleep”), which uses them (or near approximations). the thing about those commercials is they always do these special holiday greetings for events throughout the year. They use the standard American commercial ‘Happy Holidays’ line at Christmas, fair enough. For Easter, however, they used the over-generic “Happy Spring”, Easter being a bit religious for them (though I can go into how the word and the bunny and egg-hunting have absolutely nothing to do with Christian religion). And yet, throughout March, they constantly wish you a Happy St.Patrick’s Day. Which is wierd, because that is a religious, Christian event (or at least it is in Ireland); it’s named for a saint. Sure, it’s an event for the Irish – though as we know, everyone wants to be Irish on March 17, so they can pretend to be an Irish sterotype and pretend they like Guinness (I’m London Irish, and I can’t stand Guinness). It’s just funny how ‘Christmas’ and ‘Easter’ are seen to offend on religious grounds in the eyes of commercial-makers, yet the saint’s day of a very Catholic country is not. Just an interesting observation. Anyway that’s what crosses my mind when I think of those adverts, and now, by association, these buildings. But I still love them, whatever holiday it is.

true it’s a dream, mixed with nostalgia

July 17, 2009July 18, 20092 Comments

After the sketchcrawlery of last Saturday, I rested my pens for a few days before taking up another version of the houses at Hampstead Ponds, which I’ve drawn several times now. It’s therapeutic, drawing all of those windows, from the comfort of my living room. The older versions drawn last year can be seen here and here. I’ve mentioned before, it would be my dream to live here, the Hampstead Village of Keats. We used to live not far from here, in Highgate, it’s just the perfect part of London. I do prefer Highgate, on the other side of the Heath, but Hampstead would be more convenient for getting to family in Burnt Oak and to the pubs in Camden (and I wouldn’t have to look down on Arsenal’s admittedly nice looking stadium). It’s damper there though, than here; in Davis this week we’ve had five days where it’s been about 100-105 F, and dry. The pubs are better here, but I prefer the beer in the Pacific US.

Anyway… if you are interested in seeing the steps of how this was done, the graphic (well, animated gif) below shows you how, though each step is but a second long.

hampstead-animation

On another note, I am thinking of starting an Etsy shop to make some originals and some prints available to buy; I might be listing this, so I’ll keep you posted. It’s 5″x7″, if you’re interested. In the meantime, if you should find yourself in Hampstead, pop over to the Heath and check this view out. It’s a lovely place.

the sweetest thing

June 13, 2009June 12, 2009Leave a comment

The last one from Monterey. I sketched this fabulous building from the 1880s, the Thomas Kinkade National Archive, in the Harry A. Greene Mansion. Or Willy Wonka’s Summer House, as I prefer to call it.

I sat across the road on Sunday morning sketching this venerable candy stick, wondering if there might be an old witch stuck in an oven inside. Why would someone put a giant toffee apple on their roof? Perhaps it attracts the flies and mosquitoes, they stick to it, nobody gets bitten, they’re laughing. Makes sense, really. I might try it. Better than spraying insecticide everywhere to prevent West Nile. Stick a load of half-sucked sticks of rock or candy canes out in your garden. Maybe that’s where the Christmas tradition came from, you don’t know.

Here’s the obligatory action shot.

this is not america

February 28, 2009March 1, 20094 Comments

I’ve always wanted to draw this building, the Cooper House, on the corner of 4th and F in Davis, so today I finally did. Now I don’t have to ever again.

In that article this week I was quoted saying that Davis looked like America and that I was drawing it to show people back home; I said something about it being all picket fences. I think to date I’ve drawn one picket fence, two years ago. Well, there was a mini one here, and I guess this ragged collection of sticks is a technical picket fence (and I drew it a second time to be sure), but they are still notable in their absence. There are actually fewer pickets than, um, er, help me out here, something about strikes. The point I’m making is, um, Davis really isn’t a picket fence type of town. Actually there are more two-level apartment complexes than anything else, housing students and scholars and all the other folk. Perhaps they don’t like pickets here. Perhaps they cause a fence (oh please, come on). Anyway, I think even without the fence, this drawing says ‘America’ to some degree. Don’t ask me, I’m British.