Tag: moleskine

the e street strummer

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12-string guitarist, E st

He stands outside Chipotle and Peet’s Coffee n E Street, busking on his twelve-string at lunchtimes when I am there, sounding like Dylan, Nelson, Haggard; his music is very nice. He has one of those harmonicas you can play while guitaring; no cymbals at the knees though. Very distinctive with his long white hair, moustache, sunglasses; he has a long feather in his hat. One of the characters of Davis.  He was singing a song about watercoloured wine while I was drawing this, munching on my burrito. It was cold outside; November is really kicking in. The Fall Colours have just exploded all around us, the trees have suddenly turned the colour of flames, and there’s no way I’ll keep up with them.

between a rock and a hard place

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central bar, hard rock Las Vegas

The Central Bar at the Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas. Stopped there first on my overnight trip to Sin City. Not much sinning going on, but lots of beer and some great Bavarian food at the Hofbrauhaus afterwards, and excellent company too. My idea to come here first, but then I remembered I’m actually off guitars at the moment. This bar kinda looks like the inside of the TARDIS. That pink light turned yellow from time to time, and then blue, sometimes green as well, though that may have just been through the bottom of the beer bottle. Those people there, playing video blackjack or whatever it was, at the bar. This was the only sketch I did in Vegas, I wasn’t there for long enough. Came back 24 hours later, much the wiser.

plane sailing

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SMFI took an overnighter to Vegas, to see my Best Man; last time we’d been there together was for my wedding. He plays poker there now, so I flew down for some chat and some beer. Having seen so many other urban sketchers drawing in the airport, on their various trips around the globe, I thought I’d finally get a sketch in (on this one occasion when I’m not chasing my nearly-two-year old son around the departure lounge; oh that will be fun on our trip to London). This is a Southwest plane at Sacramento airport (SMF).

 

it’s a bit complicated

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i couldn't sleep

#1 in a series of 1. Most likely. Might be a story idea, or just random thoughts. This is the living room. By the way, if you do ride your bike around town at 4am, please remember your bike-light. I always do. It’s the law. It’s also annoying when a fellow cyclist comes hurtling towards you the wrong direction of the bike lane with no light on. You feel obliged to make some sort of self-righteous grunt or comment as you pass. But then, you don’t want to be That Cyclist, either.

 

stop, look, listen

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Think of a big STOP sign, and you will stop thinking about what you were thinking; if you need to, that is. Well I was listening to The Jam and sitting outisde Uncle Vito’s Pizza (not very good pizza, btw) in downtown Davis on a sunny Sunday afternoon in downtown Davis, at the corner of 2nd and E streets.

stop sign on 2nd & E

I was thinking about perspective. Incidentally this is just the other end of the block from this one I did about a month ago.

shoe business

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Having been drawing all of my son’s shoes, I felt it necessary to include all our family’s shoes. (All together now: “Once upon a time there were three shoes: Daddy shoe, Mommy Shoe and Baby Shoe…”) This is in fact the first page of moleskine #5 but I’ve been drawing it slowly. 

a family of shoes

In fact it’s not yet finished, as I intend to add a wash of colour to the shoes. I’ll post it when it’s complete, but I kinda liked it like this too.

I’m really getting into drawing shoes. What’s that proverb about walking a mile in another man’s shoes? Isn’t it something like, make sure they fit, and make sure he isn’t chasing you? 

Mine is the adidas trainer, in case you were wondering.

every leaf speaks bliss to me

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a house and tree on 4th and D

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.

nailing it down

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nails by tam, 3rd street

This place, ‘Nails by Tam’, is found on 3rd street in Davis, way down near L street (aka Linguistics Street, as per my street re-naming rules). This is the first drawing from Watercolour Moleskine #5. Actually that’s not true; this is the second, but I haven’t finished the first one yet, on page 1 (it’s of shoes, if you’re interested). But this is the first posted. I drew this yesterday on a quick cycle downtown. I had to draw some urban on Urban Sketcher’s first birthday. It was fairly warm and I had to chase the moving shade of a telegraph pole in order not to get sunburnt (haha, it’s November, folks back in England).

I have drawn this place before; it’s very sketchable.  The last time was back in 2006, when I coloured it in watercolour pencil (see below). I think it’s nice to see how my style has evolved and improved over the past three years. But I do like the effect in the old one.nails by tam

to market, to market

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farmers market, davis

The last page of Moleskine #4. I might draw something in the back cover though. This is the Davis Farmers Market in Central Park (not that one), a popular market, to which I rarely go. However we as a family decided to head down there yesterday, to sample fruit, eat chocolate croissant, and (in the case of my son) run about in the crunchy brown leaves. It was a lot of fun. I stuck around after my son went home for his nap, and drew the market itself.

I have the next watercolour Moley waiting patiently in the wings. Click on the pictures below to see all of the drawings from each of the four watercolour Moleys from the past two and a half years.

sketchcrawl 23 pages 1 and 2 Moleskine 4 (Feb 2009 – Oct 2009)
seeing triple Moleskine 3 (July 08 – Feb 09)
in the sunshine Moleskine 2 (Nov 2007 – July 2008)
pete's sketching kit Moleskine 1 (June 2007 – Oct 2007)

froggie’s

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froggies

Froggies, on 2nd and G in Davis. Hadn’t been here in quite some time, so came here on Thursday night for a quick beer and a long sketch. Actually I took my time drinking the beer and drew faster instead. Froggies is alright; the serving staff are friendly, and the beer is good and not expensive. They do really nice food too. But I’m generally not a regular; the acoustics are bad in here, it’s a little too sports-bar in it’s character, I don’t know; can’t quite explain it. It gets a bit packed with young students on the nights when there are DJs, and can be a bit uncomfortable. I like it a lot more than the Grad (Davis’s big sports bar), though, and even the G Street Pub (which is certainly more pub-like, but appears to have been modelled directly on the worst possible late-80s Camden Town dive, particularly in the toilets). Froggies is better than those places. I prefer Little Prague though. Ah, the bars of Davis. So anyway, I fancied popping in here to do a slightly less brown pub drawing. And look, I even drew some people. 

My oldest friend Tel, who now lives in Korea, loves this place. He last came here in 2006.