My wife got me a new small Moleskine diary, and it’s awesome; it’s 18 month so started in July, and fits right in my pocket. I christened it with a drawing of my son’s fire truck, given to him at the weekend by his great-grandma. I might draw in this fairly often, something small to commemorate or represent each week. Maybe.
More from Medford, Oregon. Amid a large reunion of family, on a very hot Independence Day (America is independent, you know, not part of a chain). I sat outside and listened to the sound of the kids playing, and drew under the shade of a big tree and two cars. A nice way to spend an early afternoon. There are lots of interesting things to draw at my wife’s grandma’s house, from the things in the front yard (my son just loved that wooden duck! I liked the little owl), to the birdhouse/doll’s house (um, I forgot to ask which!) sketched below. I did that in the evening while babysitting.
It was a fun weekend. Lots of nice people. Oregon is cool, different from California; you can’t pump your own gas there, for example, and there’s no sales tax. I was also away from the internet, and the news, for several days. Apart from the events at Wimbledon (poor Murray! and then poor Roddick!), I had no idea about the outside world, and that was nice. I totally missed that Palin woman’s resignation (she seems to think there’s no big deal, resigning as governor of a state midway through the first term, ah people do it all the time – um, no they don’t, not if they wish to remain credible) (hang on, did I say ‘remain’ credible? Palin?). I also missed Michael Owen’s apparent transfer to Manchester United, which could turn out to be the deal of the summer. (Or it could of course turn out that the boy Owen really has lost it, as his Newcastle form suggested, and that Sir Alex will just be putting lipstick on a pig… er…)
Optometrists (opticians in the old tongue). They are always filled with hundreds of glasses you can’t imagine anybody wearing, let alone yourself. I bought a pair of glasses from here once, though I usually get mine from a different place in Davis. On that occasion, my one had no styles I liked, so I went here, and found one that I thought might suit me, a different theme for me. I called them the ‘half-Svens’ because they were kind of half like the Sven Goran Eriksson rimless style (they had half a rim). Normally I prefer the Fabio Capello style of specs. Anyway ultimately I decided I didn’t like them. They didn’t quite fit right; I did get them adjusted, at least slightly, but still no. So I went back to my old place and found they’d just started doing some great Fabio Capello type glasses. (For those who don’t know, I’m not talking about great fashion designers, I’m talking about foreign England football managers, who happen to wear trendy glasses). I didn’t really like this optometrist anyway. They weren’t enormously helpful, and were a bit disinterested, not even calling me to let me know they were ready after they said they would, whereas the service in the other place is much better. (Jeez this isn’t a consumer blog). However, they operate in a bloody cool looking building, very sketchable, and so I drew this today at lunchtime, on the first day of July. The second half of the year has arrived.
A couple of months ago I mentioned the story of the Davis Toad Tunnel, and promised to draw the little toady post office they built to evade the snakes. It’s down by the human post office, on Pole Line Road. Toad Hollow, it’s called.
Yes, they are actually pretend solar panels on the roofs. This is Davis, after all.
I have this bag, from Eddie Bauer, which I carry everywhere. It’s the perfect size for what I use it for, which is to carry my sketchbook and pencil case and anything else that might come in handy, with lots of extra little pockets and compartments, without being so big that I’m tempted to fill it up. It’s my perfect shoulder bag (I went through a few to get there).
And today at lunchtime I had nothing I wanted to draw, so I just drew the bag. Ive drawn it before. I also wanted to use my blue/black micron 05.
Hundred degree weather came back to Davis this week, after a relatively cool period for California – on the KCRA3 Weather they said it had been a ‘summerless June’. Apart from a few clouds and some rain in the mountains, it has been generally sunny and in the warm 80s. So, obviously gloves and scarf weather. You gotta love Californians.
I’ve drawn this view – the Bike Barn and South Silo, as seen from Bainer Hall – several times before. I like the view, it is fun to draw and you always see it anew each time. The only things that change are the leaves on the trees and the work on the green in the foreground. Funny enough, that even changed while I was drawing. I had to spread it out over a couple of lunchtimes, and on the second lunchtime that fence had gone, and someone was mowing the lawn (after I’d drawn all that spongy long grass). Oh well! It is the front of the Hog Barn – sorry, it’s not called that any more, it’s the Hubert Heitman something or other, as they made clear at a campus design council meeting I went to there (coincidentally, fellow Davis sketcher/blogger Pica was at the same meeting, and caught me without sketchbook). Anyway it has recently been renovated and opened (and it smells so new inside) so they’re adding the finishing touches. The world sits still for no sketcher.
Here are some other versions of this scene.
Getting quiet on campus. I had Taco Bell for lunch on Friday, at the Silo, and drew the cup and the scene beyond it. The fountain soda cup (not the Big Gulp, mind) should be the on the seal of the United States, forget the eagle. this is pretty much the national symbol. Back in Europe the cups are all so small. Small means small. Here, ‘regular’ can mean ‘small’ in one place (roughly twice the size of European small), but ‘medium’ in another. ‘Medium’ on the other hand doesn’t mean ‘medium’ but ‘actually that’s quite big’, in most places. I know one thing, enough of these and ‘medium’ and ‘small’ soon cease to be in your vocabulary.
This is UC Davis, drawn again in purple micron 01.
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.
The Monterey Peninsula is some of the most incredible coastline I’ve ever been to, and it’s teeming with wildlife. And massive expensive houses. We drove the 17-Mile Drive, getting out every so often to take pictures, paddle in the rockpools, spot whales (and we did! out in the distance), and I even managed to scribble a few quickies before hopping back into the car. There’s me sketching quickly by the rocks. The last time I’d been, the fog rolled in and out like an army of ghosts, but this time it was warm and sunny.
We visited the Point Pinos lighthouse, which was very interesting. It dates back to the 19th century, and is pretty well preserved. 
You’re not even allowed to use the toilet, it’s so well preserved. When I was a kid I used to want to live in a lighthouse (so many of them in north London). I think it was because of that show Round the Twist, where they all lived in a lighthouse, or it might have been because of Fraggle Rock. Let’s face it, it was the latter. My son enjoyed ringing the huge bell downstairs, but we weren’t allowed to go up to the lamp. During World War II, in fact only days after Pearl Harbor was bombed, Japanese planes flew by Monterey Bay, and this lighthouse was used as part of the coastal defences.
After 17-Mile Drive we lunched in Carmel-by-the-Sea, where Clint Eastwood was once mayor. I popped into a little candy store that sold British chocolates, at a price. $2.95 for a Curly-Wurly!!! Can you believe it? They used to be 15p. There was a Lamborghini parked outside. Curly-Wurlies are surely not luxury items. I imagine this rich movie star now, supermodel girlfriend, Lamborghini zooming down the coast, chomping on a Curly-Wurly. Didn’t stop there. $3.95 for a Fruit-n-Nut! Four bucks for a Walnut Whip, sod that mate, I’ll go without. I didn’t even check how much the box of Maynards Wine Gums were. We drove on to Carmel Mission, which is an absolutely gorgeous building on the edge of Big Sur, which looks like a trip back into the Mexican West. Another quick study, this time in wine red copic, and then off again.
Monterey, sunset. Micron pen and watercolour, in a watercolour moleskine, and pretty much all but done in the dark. That’s ocean fog hanging out there in the distance.
petescully 