’twas the night before christmas

December 24, 20124 Comments

It’s Christmas Eve! And for some of you back home in the UK, Father Christmas will be arriving soon so still time to be good. A while to go here in California, but the mince pie is at the ready for Santa, and a nice turkey dinner awaits us. Oh, and a trifle, I made a very nice trifle this year. Above is our tree. We cut it down ourselves from a local Christmas tree farm (in the rain and mud), a bit bigger than last year, and heavier too. Most of the presents beneath the tree are for that smallest member of our family, who has been getting up excitedly at 4:00am every morning to open the latest window on his spectacularly successful daddy-drawn advent calendar (it was a xmas-tree-shaped race-track).

I draw a christmas tree every year, so I thought you might like to see every tree I have drawn since 2006. I neglected to sketch the first tree after we moved to cA, 2005, but since it is the same fake tree we used to get every year you can just imagine what it looks like. I’m including a couple of my mum’s trees from visits back to north London as well.

2006: Davis (left), Burnt Oak (right)

2007 (well, Jan 2008, but the tree was from Xmas 2007): Davis. Not-yet-President Obama was on the telly!

2008: Davis (left, though in the background), and Burnt Oak (right)

2009: Davis (left); 2010: Davis (right)

2011, last year, Davis CA.

Happy Christmas to all, and have a very merry 2013.

christmas at the cathedral

December 20, 2012December 21, 201216 Comments

As mentioned in the previous post, I drew the cover for Grace Cathedral’s 2012 Christmas Concert brochure. Last Saturday my wife and I went down to San Francisco, and up up up Nob Hill, to see the wonderful show itself, courtesy of the cathedral. Naturally I took my sketchbook. While last year I drew the impressive vaulted ceiling all the way down to the singing choir, this year I took a panoramic approach; you’ll have to click on the image for a larger view, I’m afraid. I did all the penwork during the concert, and added the colour when I got home (from my detailed notes – shirt=yellow, hair=brown etc). I have drawn in here a few times now so i am getting used to this impressive space. It is always nice to draw with a cathedral full of singing all around you. The Christmas Concert at Grace Cathedral is a San Francisco tradition, and I’m very honoured to have illustrated their flier and brochure two years in a row. Here they are…

The concert was majestic. I love all the old Christmas songs, Hark the Herald Angels Sing and all that; though I’m not a religious person myself, they make me nostalgic, somehow reminding me more of England than America, Christmas Carols, mince pies, junior school concerts, Harry Secombe on the telly, Shepherds washing their socks by night. There was, almost inevitably, one deeply sad moment: a verse of Silent Night, added to the set following the terrible event that happened the day before in Connecticut. It was a well attended concert, one of several that have taken place this month at Grace; this weekend there are performances of Handel’s Messiah performed by American Bach Soloists. Many thanks once again to Abby and Bruce for giving me this opportunity again. As I have said before, I do love drawing a cathedral!

http://www.gracecathedral.org/visit/concerts-and-events/christmas/

cargo coffee

December 15, 20129 Comments

It was a cold, cold day, and I really had to sketch something this lunchtime, so I chose Cargo Coffee by the School of Education. I don’t drink coffee but have meant to sketch this place in a long time. I listened to a podcast about the history of Rome, to try somehow to think about other things. Today was a really horrible day in America.

that’s what i’m trying to tell you kid, it’s been totally blown away

December 11, 20127 Comments

These lunchtime sketches are the last drawings ever of the old UC Davis Boiler Building. I made a point of getting there today to see what was left, and met a wide open space and a sad, defiant little corner. I just had to sketch straight away. As I sketched, big machines heaved and huffed and knocked away segments. Large cracks appeared accompanied by deep thunderous booms. It’s nothing personal, they said, we just want a place for the music to happen. The old external boilers, which originally drew me to the building (I sketched those back in 2010 as part of my hydrants and pipes NaNoDrawMo series), were holding out. I moved to the other side, to excitedly grab another sketch from a different angle. Such a thirst for the creative powers of destruction! When I came back a couple of hours later, all that remained were the boilers and a small section of wall. Oh, and a lot of rubble.

I am not done, of course. I’ll chart the new building as it grows, the new Recital Hall. I don’t know what it will look like yet (I don’t want to see any of the plans, I want the surprise).

Fare thee well, old Boiler Building! Rest in Pieces!

but i need a friend and i choose you

December 9, 201214 Comments

We happened to be in Midtown Sacramento today, buying art supplies and stocking stuffers at the University Art Store on J Street. I decided to stick around and sketch a building I last sketched back in early 2007, the Parish Church of St.Francis of Assisi. It was a cool day in Midtown, and I had a long walk to the bus afterwards, but it was a good walk. I always forget how much I do enjoy Midtown Sac, how many great sketching opportunities and interesting little stores there are. I remember when I first discovered the area, my wife had dropped me off to check out that record shop The Beat one day and I was hooked, it became my favourite place to escape to from Davis (other than the Bay Area of course). I was amazed I had never been there before; I generally avoided Sacramento in those early days, having only seen its rougher edges, but Midtown was cool. On those long Sundays when my wife wanted me out of the apartment, I’d be there somewhere between J or K or L, sketching. This building was in fact the first thing I ever drew in Midtown, so when I stopped there today it felt like I was sketching an old, old friend. I don’t go to this area very often now, maybe a couple of times a year, but it’s an interesting area, and has well-stocked art stores, comic shops, record shops and a British pub – what more do you need?

Incidentally, here is the version I drew nearly six years ago… different angle, different light, different pens, very different days.

it’s party time

December 7, 20124 Comments

Yesterday was our department’s (Statistics, UC Davis) annual holiday party. In all my years there I’ve never sketched any of our department events, but this time I felt the need to. I usually decorate the whiteboard for the party in dodgy dry-erase markers (and did so again, with snowmen – easy to draw – and a leafless tree – took a bit more time), but I don’t have a decent photo of that so you’ll just have to imagine it. Technically it’s my largest piece of public art. I had meant to bring a trifle too, and I went to the store and got all the ingredients, and quickly cycled home eager to put together my favourite favourite dessert, and realised I had forgotten one important thing. No sponge cakes. Back home I’d use either Jaffa Cakes or basic trifle sponges, but here, among other things, I’ve taken to using Twinkies. Well you all know Twinkies are now consigned to the big bin-bag in the sky, but I had cleanly forgotten to look for an alternative (Ladyfingers I’m told are good, but I can’t ask for them without thinking of Alan Partridge gyrating around a pole), and so it slipped my mind. I won’t make a trifle without this aspect of it, so the trifle did not get made. I considered burning the other ingredients ceremoniously, but I decided to keep them and make a trifle on a different day. I will probably use Pims (a near-equivalent to Jaffa Cakes, not the stuff you drink on a hot day in Surrey). Still, the food at this potluck was amazing as always, and I particularly enjoyed the vegetable biryani. Very festive!

bring it on down

December 6, 20124 Comments

Back to the old Boiler Building, and the machines are really tearing it down now. The whole east side has been turned to rubble, leaving a sad, draughty, haunted shell. A small crowd of people with young, construction-machine-loving-aged children (you know the age, parents!) to see the mighty mechanical dinosaurs at work, and to wave goodbye to a historic part of UC Davis. Back at work, I spoke about this sad demise of a much-loved campus sight to some of the professors who have taught there for the past few decades. “Where’s this, then?” they said. “Boiler Building? Is that downtown somewhere? Don’t know that one.” Well, I’ll miss it. Even if I too had no idea what it was for until recently.

at the holiday sale

December 1, 20121 Comment

This weekend is the Davis Art Center’s annual Holiday Sale, a big and popular event at the DAC featuring art, crafts, jewelry and many other lovely hand-made products. They are also selling cards with a selection of my Davis sketches on them, which look great! I came by this afternoon during a lull in the stormy weather (having spent the morning getting very muddy chopping down a Christmas tree), and after watching Beckham’s last game for LA Galaxy (they won the MLS Cup). After perusing the stalls, I whipped out the sketchbook and drew a scene in the main atrium. It was bustling with people, a friendly family atmosphere. If you are in Davis, tomorrow (Sunday Dec 2) is the last day of the Holiday Sale, so why not pop by and check it out? The Davis Art Center is on the corner of F St and Covell, by Community Park.

Davis Art Center

when it’s raining, it’s raining

November 28, 201212 Comments

Big rain storms rolled into California today. Late November can be a very colourful time of year, when the trees are bright yellow, fiery orange, deep reds, and leaves flutter down on every breeze. When the storms come it blows everything around, meaning what would otherwise be a grey and dismal day was in fact a beautiful, I mean really beautiful stormy morning. I walked to a meeting mid-morning, and could have walked on all day in the rain. The ground was covered in bright leaves, like a dusting of golden snow. I don’t have a window in my office so I can’t gaze dreamily out at the rain (I have to draw a picture of it on my whiteboard), but I can hear it on the skylight, tap-tap-tap, and by lunchtime it was pounding. I couldn’t wait to get back out, find a sheltered spot, and draw the colourful storm while it lasted. I listened to a history podcast about England’s medieval conquest of Wales and drew in the Moleskine. It’s funny, whenever it rains here people are often, oh no, rain, I don’t want to get my raincoat slightly wet in the brief dash from my car to Target, whereas I’m like, oh it’s just a bit of rain, grrr. So I scribbled down this cartoon in my notepad this afternoon. Thought you might like it.

will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls

November 27, 20122 Comments

I can’t get enough. I’m not obsessed or anything. Here is the UC Davis Boiler Building again, still in the same state of deconstruction as in the previous two sketches. It’s looking so sad and beaten, yet triumphant as well, as though it’s saying, come on, do your worst. Another demolition machine has lined up beside it now, like a warrior preparing for more hyperbole. I drew it from the back this time, another angle, in fact the same angle as I drew it from in August, this one here:

It was sunny today, too. I just didn’t show you the blue sky. It just didn’t seem appropriate.