in the middle of our street

August 7, 20125 Comments

On Sunday I had to get out to draw. I cycled downtown and stood on a bench (yes, stood, so I could see over the large vehicle in the way) on 2nd Street and drew a famiiar scene, but this time as a double-page spread in that lovely brown pen I have. I do like drawing these panoramas. This took about two hours, maybe less, stood in the shade on that bench. The funny thing about standing so high is that people don’t look over your shoulder quite so much. One other thing about sketching these panoramas is you have to scan them in two sections, stitch them together, and then they are so hard to post. If you want to see a bigger version, click on the image above. Below, you can see how big it is in real life. And the thing is, I intend to redraw this as a bigger and more colourful drawing.

Here is a close up of the middle section, for those who can read the tiny writing and are interested in the movie times…

still standing

August 6, 2012Leave a comment

Another one from the boiler building, which is still standing. I sketched from the back today, this big old window, full of texture and detail. I don’t know when this building is finally going under the sledgehammer, but apparently it is soon. Still standing…

little giants

August 5, 2012August 5, 2012Leave a comment

My wife and I went on a date night to see the San Francisco Giants last week, playing against the New York Mets. It was a long and interesting game, going into extra innings (unfortunately! We had a long drive back to Davis but stayed until the end, unlike many others). The Giants ended up losing 8-7, which was a disappointment, but it was a back-and-forth game. I quite like the Mets; they’re that New York team that isn’t the Yankees, and I always think of them fondly, as a bit like Manchester City (before they got all that money and won the league). I did try to chant “You’re just a small town in France!” but nobody seemed to get that one. We were sat in club level, and enjoyed garlic fries and beer and ice cream, and a great view. In club level they have an amazing display of Giants memorabilia, including the 2010 World Series trophy, along with historic bats and baseballs (I sketched one of the game balls from Matt Cain’s perfect game), and an intriguing series of ‘bobbleheads’, those odd reproductions of famous players which often get given away on special game days. I sketched a few from the World series year of some of the well-known players from then (all still prominent Giants). Those bobbleheads never really resemble the players they’re supposed to be – that one of Buster Posey is just well off-base, for one. It was a lot of fun looking at all that stuff, and I could have sketched all night, but there was a game to watch, and garlic fries to eat.

when the sun shines, they slip into the shade

August 2, 20122 Comments

Lake Spafford, in the Arboretum area of UC Davis, sketched on a lunchtime, a not very interesting lunchtime, one in which I head out on my bike and go, so what am I going to draw? There’s nothing I want to draw today. No, not that, done that, no not that, too much greenery. Actually, no, I will sketch that, I know I ‘only just sketched’ that but that was actually 2007; god I feel like I’ve been in Davis a long time, and these long hot summers are really getting to me. Seriously – you go to San Francisco, less than an hour and a half away, and pass through some sort of invisible force field where it suddenly gets thirty to forty degrees cooler. They should make it illegal, this heat. Oh, it’s just the Sun exercising his right to free speech, the Sun is people too, the Sun has a right to bear UV Rays. Where I’m from we only let the Sun out three or four times a year and even then it has to behave itself. Actually where I am from the Sun listens in on your phone conversations and goes through your bins. So anyway, I sat in the shade, like this fellow here, and sketched away. I’m freckly, I have red hair. I am not anti-Sun, I just believe in traditional weather…

old vedanta temple

July 27, 2012July 27, 20121 Comment

At the corner of Filbert and Webster in San Francisco’s Cow hollow neighbourhood is a very peculiar looking building. I noticed it on a previous trip to the city and wanted to go back and draw it. This building is the Old Vendanta Temple, topped with exotic domes and adorned with fanciful windows, yet still retaining that sense of old San Francisco. Well, this is old San Francisco – built more than a century ago, it was said to be the first Hindu temple in the Western hemisphere (according to this interesting piece on sfcityguides.org). I sat acros the street behind a telegraph pole (my only shade) and sketched from the domes down, which was fun, but by the time I was messing about with the windows I was getting a bit antsy and wanted to stop. I prefer the unfinished look of the sketch though, it tells more of a story and leaves details to be filled in by the brain. Plus it gave me time to go looking around the shops on Union Street. After the morning at the Tenderloin, Cow Hollow with its flash cars and fine heels and fancy bistros where it is brunch all day is the exact direct opposite.

while waiting for the bus

July 26, 20123 Comments

More from San Francisco last Saturday; after spending a good while on top of Nob Hill it was time to move elsewhere. I wanted a bit of upscale, after the intimidating grunge of the Tenderloin, so I headed over to Union St, aka Cow Hollow. I had to get there first by bus though, and since I only had just spent one of my two dollars on a nice cold Pepsi Max, I had to walk down to Polk St to get some cash from a bank. I hadn’t been to Polk in a while, the Polk Gulch, and it’s pretty grungy down there too, though in a less ‘shuffly’ way. When it came time to catch my bus to Fillmore, I had about ten minutes or so and that was juts long enough to catch a sketch of this interesting club, ‘Red Devil Lounge’. They have live music there, and were advertising shows by Adam Ant and ‘From The Jam’, which as you may know is basically the other two non-Weller members of The Jam, well foxton at least (not sure about the drummer), and the picture featured an aging Foxton trying as he might to reincarnate himself as Weller circa 1979. Which Does Not Work. Anyway I sketched away (I added the colour later but did all the penwork in that short time), and caught the #1 bus up the hill and down the hill to Fillmore St.

I wasn’t planning on checking out all the very cool and decidedly un-grungy shops on Fillmore St, Pacific Heights (the opposite of Tenderloin), so just went to wait for the #22 bus to Union St. The helpful bus-stop display said it was going to be 11 minutes or so, which was just enough time for another sketch, of the Jackson Fillmore trattoria. I drew this very quickly in Moleskine #10 with my brown pen, and covered a lot of detail before the bus came. I later added some of the bricks on the left and some lines on the right, and splashed some sepia on for the sky, but otherwise it was all crammed into that short bus-waiting time, so it goes to show that when given a tiny crack of time you can draw quite a lot. I’d have drawn the same if I were given 30 minutes for the bus, I am sure. When the bus came, I stood, and it went up and down some steep hills, which is quite the ride.

After sketching down Cow Hollow (I’ll post that next), there was another bus wait, for the #30. So I got out the pink pen and the sky blue marker and quickly drew the view to the south of me, in my SF city moleskine. When the #30 came, it was jam packed, and a little stinky.

goodness gracious

July 25, 2012July 25, 20121 Comment

San Francisco: after climbing the excruciatingly steep Nob Hill, leaving the shuffling Tenderloiners behind, I sketched Grace Cathedral. Regular listeners will recall that I drew the cover for their Christmas brochure last year, and was fortunate enough to go and sketch at their Christmas show itself. It is an amazing cathedral, and with my current desire to draw cathedrals (I have been trying to practice by drawing from books) I was eager to return. It was windy up on that hill. I stood behind a newspaper stand and drew the choir end. I drew in my Moleskine and coloured with watercolour, except for the sky which was done in a new blue Pitt marker I just bought – I was trying it out for colour. Darker than expected! It’s a magnificent building from the outside, but epic inside. I don’t get many opportunities to sketch cathedral interiors from life, and believe me it is a completely different animal from drawing from a photo. It’s all about trying to show the magnificence which is all around you. I drew on larger paper than usual, my Canson Urban Sketchers 7″x10″ sketchbook. After the craziness of Market Street, it was so peaceful sketching inside Grace Cathedral. There was a piano playing, and after a while a powerful baritone tested his tonsils, while to my right silent folk strolled around in circles following the lines of Grace’s famous labyrinth, as I stood sketching by a large stone pillar. I’m not a spiritual or religious person, but I’ve always loved cathedrals, the immense old stone and bright stained glass and beautiful acoustics.

city hall tavern

July 16, 20122 Comments

After a very busy week, I went out on Friday evening to the Art About and did some sketching at the Pence Gallery (haven’t scanned them yet), chatted to some very nice folk, and then strolled around downtown before parking at the City Hall Tavern (in the old City Hall building I tend to draw a lot). I wanted to do a bar sketch so I looked at the massive scene of bottledom and said, yeah ok I’ll give it a go. Those revolving bike wheels on the ceiling were a little challenging but there they are. The Giants were winning, beating the Astros, and there on the right are the black straws again that pop up in all of my bar drawings, everywhere in the world. The beer was nice too, Third Shift Amber Ale, and only $4 a pint. It was pretty quiet when I came in, but got busy by the time I left, with the young Friday night crowd. One guy spoke to me while sketching and recognized me as the guy who drew the bar at De Vere’s. Another guy, a younger Aussie bloke, chatted to me about Iggy Pop. I told him I always liked the song The Passenger because I can’t drive either. He said Iggy Pop was a real rocker, not like Justin Bieber or someone. Perhaps, but in thirty years people might be saying, oh these kids now aint real popstars, not like Bieber, yeh he was a proper rocker. You never know. I saw Iggy Pop supporting the Pistols at Finsbury Park in ’96, and just wanted him to put a shirt on to be honest.

This whole sketch took almost two hours, starting from right to left. It was done with a Micron Pigma 02 pen, with a bit of uniball vision micro for some of the thicker lines and shading.

against the grain

July 9, 2012July 9, 20122 Comments

We spent a quick weekend in Medford, southern Oregon; I wasn’t feeling too well, however, so didn’t do a great deal of sketching. I did get out for a couple of hours one afternoon though, to Central Point, where it was very hot and there wasn’t much shade. I really wanted to draw this building, this big grain tower, but didn’t want to dry while drawing it. Eventually after much walking about, I crossed the railroads and drew it from the back, finding a tree to sit beneath. It was right beside a gas station which I think is the gas station of choice for police cars, as quite a few stopped there while I was sketching. I listened to the local wildlife, blackbirds chirping away, a young couple arguing loudly all the way down the street (“if you don’t walk as fast as me you’re walking home a single woman”, the charming man yelled at one point). These industrial buildings dotted the landscape, and I wanted to sketch them all, but I will tell you the most important thing to consider when doing an urban sketch – find somewhere comfortable to sit or stand first!

the anchor by the thames

June 23, 20123 Comments

And so on I went down the South Bank, until I came to the Anchor pub, decked out for the Jubilee. It was surrounded by a large horde of shaven-headed lager-drinking chain-smoking England football fans, getting a few in before hitting the tube to Wembley for a pre-Euro 2012 warm-up match against Belgium. All good natured, of course, and enjoying the day with all the tourists and Jubilee celebratories. As I sat down in a nice quiet spot to sketch the historic riverside pub, they all moved off, singing about being off to Wembley, leaving only the passing tourists. I didn’t drawn any of those, they kept moving, so I focused on the building itself. To be fair most people who milled were milling away from this spot and in the pub’s beer garden to the right. I sat for almost an hour and sketched (I did finish some detailing later, but chose not to colour it). One young lady came up and asked if she could ask a wierd question. Depends on how wierd, I replied. How wierd could it be? Not very wierd in fact. “How do you find time to draw?” She was an artist herself it seemed but never seemed to have time for it. I had struggled to find time to do all the drawing I wanted to do on the trip (you wouldn’t believe it) but still managed to get a lot done, because it is really important to me to have drawing time. I get grumpy if I don’t (quite grumpy indeed) so I make sure I find the time for it, even when I’m ridiculously busy. I told her about Urban Sketchers, and the Drawing London groups, and said that by seeing how other people busier even than me manage to somehow fit art into their lives inspires me.

With this sketch of the Anchor, I wanted to sit and do something detailed and old and full of bricks. With this other sketch on the right, Stoney Street in Southwark (near Borough Market), my time was running low so I did a quick about-ten-minute sketch to capture the scene. When time is short, think what you might be able to get in with that time, and be ok with it. I hate watsing time, even though I do it often, when I could be sketching already something else. I went on to the market and had the most amazing grilled halloumi sandwich, right by London bridge. Even thinking of the smell makes me ravenous for more – I’ll say it again, I love coming to this part of London.