Tag: moleskine

street of ink

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a fleeting visit

Sleep-training the baby is not fun, especially if the baby stubbornly refuses to sleep. During that process, going in and checking on him every ten minutes (as per the book), I got the Copic pen out last night and drew lots of little lines, that eventually ended up looking a lot like Fleet Street in London (my favourite street); there’s the church of St. Dunstan in the West, there’s the Royal Courts of Justice, there are offices of newspapers past and present (well, not many present any more), there are the clocks I was watching closely.

life across the pond

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houses by hampstead heath ponds

I love that part of Hampstead Heath by the big ponds, especially those big multi-windowed brown brick houses clustered along the edge. That’ll be them above. Not sure I’d like the famous night-time entertainment though; all those politicians out looking for votes, as it were.

Did this drawing over a couple of evenings (interrupted by baby-feeding). Below is the work-in-progress.
hampstead pond houses (unfinished)

shake, ache

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bellyache

it was a nice shake though, chocolate and peanut butter. But I couldn’t walk it off.

Went to see Indiana Jones* this afternoon (note to self: wearing shorts and t-shirt in a freezing air-conditioned movie theatre is not necessarily a good idea), and then since I was downtown and it wasn’t as roasting as I’d expected, I decided to draw. I didn’t have my little stool, and I didn’t want to sit on the floor, and was feeling less than inspired by things to draw downtown that didn’t involve sitting in the sun or on the sidewalk. So I found a shady bench on E street and drew a completely uniniteresting sight. With cars! I never draw cars.

Lots of graduating people out today, with their folks.

dirty old river, must you keep rolling

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by the banks of the thames

Now I think I’m tenacious in my sketching. I go out in all weather, just to get a drawing in the moleskine. Admittedly I live in Davis, so the weather is usually very changeable – one day it’s hot and sunny, next thing you know it’s hotter and sunnier, can’t keep up. Back in London it rained almost every day; on Monday I went back to the South Bank with simon sketching on the south bankSimon, where we sketched in sunshine a year previously. It was ok while we were under a tree, and the clouds merely threatened us like hoodies in a chicken-shop doorway – that’s when I did the pic to the left there, drawing someone with absolutely no resemblence to my sketching pal. But then we moved on, and I started to draw the banks of the Thames by Oxo Tower, but rain stopped play.

For me, anyway. Si sketched on, disregarding any silly rain, his sketchbook getting slowly drenched, now unable to erase any pencil marks. But he was on a roll, and did a fine pencil pic cafe rouge, shepherds bushwith lots of detail. I chickened out, and finished mine off later (the top image). It looks like it’s a monochrome, but I guess this is actually a colour picture, since that’s exactly how it looked that day. London was an exercise in greyscale waiting to happen (it sometimes is in the summer).

Prior to that, there was lunch in Shepherd’s Bush, at cafe rouge, and I did this sepia picture of the mirror while we ate. Not exactly the bar at the folies bergeres, more the cafe at the buisson des bergeres. Kinda.  

 

morning in hampstead

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outside hampstead tube

A sketching morning in Hampstead, with Si, starting at the tube station, wandering about the high Street and its alleys, then off to the Flask for a good pint of Deuchars. And it didn’t even rain!

phone box on hampstead high street back lane, hampstead 

it’s so grey in london town

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it's so grey in london town

Sketched on a quiet corner of craven street, behind busy whitehall, the house where herman melville lived 150 years or so ago for like five minutes probably (had a whale of a time). It started raining while drawing this, so I ducked into a doorway, and then hightailed it to a nearby old pub, the ship and shovell, where I finished off the wash, washed down with some cold bavarian hofbrauhaus beer, served by a brazilian.

But this says London, doesn’t it. I think so.

(sketched may 29, micron pen)

long to rain over us

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angel & crown

I got out and sketched today – I saw the sunshine – and before long it was raining. I don’t get much opportunity to practise my rain-sketching back in scorching Davis. It’s a good job my paper is for watercolours. I enjoyed walking about in the rain, and with my sketching stool I could sit aywhere: this was drawn beneath the shelter of a theatre awning on st martin’s lane, the angel and crown pub, a very typical old pub in central london. I finished the colour off in the warmth of the ship in wardour street. I’ll post the rest of my sketches later; scanning here is more time-consuming!

þe mayster-toun hit evermore has bene

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I’m back in London, for the first time in a year.
st paul's

After such Davis heat, I am happy to say that the rain I had wished for has come in abundance, though I got out to sketch on Saturday with my old long-missed sketching (and lightsabering) buddy in some great sunshine, drawing from St.Giles to St.Paul’s. I stocked up on pens before coming and have really not had many chances to wear them out yet; but I have been eating hob-nobs, drinking millions of tea, looking at old photos, spending time with family, catching up with friends over many a cider in Camden, gettig frustrated with the sheer amount of people gong here and there in this mad mad place. How did I ever survive here for so long? But I did, and this is still my town. The town I know so well. More to say have I, but not the energy just yet.

By the way, ten points (or an MA in my case) to they who can guess the reference in the title.
 

on the last bus out of town

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get on the bus

Appropriately as I am red-bus and red-brick city bound, an old routemaster which has travelled wide and ended up in Davis. (Hence my illustration friday for this week, theme “wide”). I sketched & painted this (and it was a proper sketch, not a drawing, as i was sat waiting for my own bus) in just over 15 minutes before another bus and some people got in the way. I had better get used to that where I’m going. this is a little bit of London in California. I can relate to that.

If Mayor Boris Standard-endorsed Johnson really does get rid of bendy-buses (at a cost of millions which could go into, say, crossrail) perhaps they too will end up in Davis.

Illustration Friday…

“Knock Knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Wide”

“Wide who?”

“Wide don’t you open the door and find out?”

(kids! don’t open the door to strangers! especially if they tell bad knock-knock jokes!)

 

i think i know, but i don’t know why

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SEED

My illustration friday entry for this week, theme: SEED

and so, a load of pens, what’s that got to do with seed? Geoffrey of Monmouth and Baugh & cable; seed? I tell you it has, and you know the answer. It’s quite a lame connection, to be honest.

This was, incidentally (for pen fetishists) drawn in copic multiliner 0.05.

By the way, I like the difference between ‘A History’ and ‘The History’. I think you should always trust ‘A’ over ‘The’ (especially a Galfridian ‘The’).

(yes, Galfridian is one of my favourite words – actually, it is my favourite word – and I always look for an excuse to use it).