le petit

October 19, 20082 Comments

Over eight and a half months old, baby luke is becoming little boy luke, and is getting himself around and into all sorts of mischief: what i didn’t draw here were his surroundings, a pile of dvds he just pulled off the shelf. Life is about to become a whole load of fun. He already loves to tear magazines apart. My sketchbooks will be hidden far far away.

This was drawn in baby’s journal. I can’t quite get his face right yet though. Eyes are wrong, face too round, hair too dark. Then again each time I attempt a drawing, he changes a bit more. They really do grow so quickly at this age, just like everybody says; I can barely keep up.

dial M for redrum

October 12, 20082 Comments

Just as you get off the freeway at downtown Davis. Caffino is a drive-thru coffee booth, and Murder Burger is an old-school american diner that does incredible burgers and amazing milk-shakes. Oh, sorry Redrum Burger.

They used to be called Murder Burger, and to most Davisites they still are. But a few years back they opened another one in some other dog-knows-where town, and someone complained that Murder Burger (“so good they’re to die for”) was not appropriate as a place to eat (even though appropriateness is usually measured by the money something makes). So they decided to change their name, and asked their customers to vote on a new name. The name that won with an overwhelming majority was, in fact, Murder Burger. So they went with the second choice, Redrum Burger (yes, I thought it meant the horse at first).

I don’t eat red meat anyway.

choc and awe

October 6, 200810 Comments

A quick one; a cup of tea and a chocolate bar. My illustration friday entry for the theme of “sugary“.

The chocolate bar is a Milky Way, but don’t let that deceive you, British friends – American Milky Ways are nothing like our Milky Ways. They are in fact almost exactly like our Mars Bars. They also go very well with tea. The Milky Way/Mars Bar thing is one of many instances where our two cultures look different and call itself different things but are in fact the same. I can’t be bothered to name any others.

I got that mug at the Getty in LA. And you know what? I didn’t actually drink this cup of tea from that mug, I drank it from a different one, with my name on it. I just thought the colours and pattern would be better next to the milky way. I used to have a funny way of eating Mars Bars: I’d eat the sides first, then I would nibble off the top, and then the rest. A friend at college once gave me a king-size Mars Bar for ny birthday with a big note on it saying “eat it properly”.

nice one, centurion, like it

September 28, 20086 Comments

Illustration Friday this week, well, “packed” – considering we still aren’t completely unpacked it was appropriate. Two weeks in the new place and it’s still hard to remove some objects from their very temporary homes. We only moved a hundred yards, for heaven’s sake, I can see my old apartment from my new one (it’s a bit like seeing Russia from Sarah Palin’s house). The books are all on the shelf (permanent positions undecided), CDs, records, glasses, knives and forks; it’s the stuff marked “misc” (or “pete misc”, to be precise) that is having a hard time settling.

Speaking of new homes: this is my 100th post on my new website (hence the title). That’s 700 posts in all if you include the old blog. Wow. At this rate, I should hit 1000 posts in around… April 2010.

sold down the river

September 23, 2008September 24, 20083 Comments

Under the toun of newe Troye,
Which tok of Brut his ferste joye,
In Temse whan it was flowende
As I be bote cam rowende
(John Gower, Confessio Amantis)

Another boat? Yes, this one was on the Thames last year, and so today I drew it into my small wh smith sketchbook. There’s the City in the background. I always seem to draw London in black and white these days; is it becoming like an old film to me already?

In this time of incredible financial turmoil, a picture of something actually staying afloat in the financial heart of the City.

chez nous

September 22, 2008September 22, 20081 Comment

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

say your prayers

September 20, 2008September 20, 20084 Comments

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

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

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

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

and now i’m mrak, from outer space

September 18, 20083 Comments

We moved apartments this week, hence lack of activity in the pete sketchbook front; however I had to get lunchtime sketching at some point, and yesterday took my little stool down to an old chestnut of a sketching spot, the view of mrak hall from putah creek (drew it last year too). The creek is actually made of green pea soup; it’s always St.Patrick’s Day in the arboretum. You may notice that the two very small hills formerly in this view with the eggheads on top have now vanished, to be replaced with mud and construction, the groundwork for the extension to the law school, because apparently what this country needs is more lawyers. This means this view will not last much longer.

The weather is cooling off here, at last – yesterday I wore a jumper for the first time in absolutely ages (that’s a sweater to you). And a couple of days ago I even got – if it can be believed – several spots of rain on me!! That’s literally all there were. From the cloud that had obviously gotten lost. It’s the first rain since about February I think. Or since the 1890s, or I don’t know, it feels like such a long time. Most of my son’s life. His Irish genes must be confused (though he was born in a torrential central valley rainstorm). Still, he has his own room now so is as happy as larry. Anyway, those seven or eight spots of rain were probably just a teaser trailer for the winter. “Winter”. That’s a misnomer. California’s winters are like our British summers.

Here are some more views of Mrak.

and when it’s cloudy we say nothing at all

September 11, 2008September 11, 20084 Comments

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

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

Moving, though. I hate moving. Ever.

you do the math

September 6, 20084 Comments

I don’t like that expression, by the way. Plus being British I’d say ‘maths’ (though being a Londoner it sounds more like ‘maffs’). A lunchtime sketch; I’d never drawn the front of my work building before, so thought I should give it a go. since one of my other drawings will be adorning the front of the chemistry dept’s new handbook, maybe i’ll use this sketch for something one day too. Or not. There are then still things in Davis I’ve not drawn. It’s just usually too hot to draw them (he says with several full sketchbooks).

Mathematics…it must be popular in California, you always hear about all those math labs on the news, I think. At school, all I wanted was just to pass maths, no better. I quite hated the teacher of the top class, Blindty, an ancient creature who had been teaching there since before Pythagorus got into triangles, and he quite disliked me; well, me and almost everyone else. So I requested to move into the second class (and tried my best not to get moved back up), and as a result had a much much better teacher, Miss Barker, and I passed the GCSE no problem, and restored my self-esteem. I left maths behind at 16, but I’m still pretty good at the numbers game on Countdown. Perhaps I should try to become Vorderman’s replacement?