Here are all fifty NaNoDrawMo sketches, all hydrants and metal pipes of some sort, 41 of which were in Davis. All in order.
Tag: NaNoDrawMo 2010
towering over our heads
Finally! I reached my goal of fifty drawings in November for NaNoDrawMo 2010, and here are the last four. Actually I drew more than fifty drawings this month, but I’m not counting those not in this set. I filled a whole watercolour sketchbook front to back with drawings of fire hydrants and other metal pipes that come out of the ground. The final sketch is the biggest metal pipe, the larger of UC Davis’s iconic water towers. This was a fun project, and the majority of the drawings were done on site (except for those few from photos taken in LA), as I had really wanted to use this project to explore and take a closer look at the missable stuff around us. I can now spot even subtle differences between the hydrants I see around town, so the observation exercise was successful. Everything is interesting if you take an interest in it.
And now, no more fire hydrants for a long, long time! Here’s the book they all fit in, and the pen that made it through to the end (others were chewed up like, er, I dunno, chewits).
See the other great artists who made it to 50 here.
formed a band, we formed a band, look at us, we formed a band
Ever more NaNoDrawMo pipes… I stood behind the Engineering building at UC Davis to draw the one above. I like pretending that these things are actually something else, like robot spying devices, or a cyberman’s torturing device. In fact it’s rather like a big elaborate pound sign (that’s pound sterling, not the # sign – which we Brits call the hash key, not ‘pound’ as Americans do. Very confusing when using banking menu systems). Below left is an insectoid intruder, poking his head through the concrete like a metal mole. Reminds me of an underwater adventurer.
Above right is a fire hydrant I attempted to sketch in Santa Rosa. I had to abandon it because I got rained on significantly, so finished it at home from memory (didn’t even have a camera). Well, I can remember what these types look like, surely.
Below, a big white dragon from outside the police station. It has two dragon-cubs beside it but they weren’t drawn in, as I didn’t have time, and couldn’t be bothered.
Below left, Ringo Starr’s drum kit. Actually could be any drummer, Ringo just popped to mind because he is an ickle fellow. I love Ringo.
Numbers 44-46 are drawn from photos taken back in September, when I was down in Los Angeles. These are hydrants from Venice Beach and Marina Del Rey. I was getting sick of local hydrants so added a few different designs. I sketched similar ones to these while down there, but took photos of these in case I had some ridiculous excuse to draw them later on, like NaNoDrawMo. Here they are. #45 is like a big yellow clown, like c-3PO’s insane cousin from the circus. I particularly like #46.
Just four more to go… today’s the last day…
the red lion
The quest for the NaNoDrawMo fifty marches on… these three were drawn on the Davis sketchcrawl. I was drawn to those very red pipes outside the cinema on F street. There was something I wanted to say about the colour red and that particular weekend… oh yes! That Team in Red 2, Spurs 3! Great way to start the weekend, that.
More to come…
enter the dragon
The green pantomime dragon of Fifth Street. It’s pretty common to see (especially at this time of year) nice coats on these colourful water pipe things.
So the rain has come… but tomorrow we’ll still be sketchcrawling in Davis! Rare opportunity to draw Davis with puddles so must take it (positive spin!). Join us at the Amtrak station at 11:00, or catch up at some point down 2nd Street as the day goes on. I’ll be the one sketching fire hydrants. We’ll finish up at 3:30pm over at Davis Commons on 1st/E, outside (or, let’s face it, inside) Borders, to see what we’ve done. Let’s Draw Davis!
but you didn’t take a peek in their artillery room
These metal pipes are starting to look more and more like armed robots. I hope they’re not! Otherwise, well, there’s a sci-fi zom-rom-com right there. I might write it, maybe for NaNoWriMo next year. These ones above, red team and white team, look more like they should be shooting lasers at X-Wing fighters than putting out fires.
Here’s another fire hydrant, which someone on Flickr commented that it looks like a traffic cop. It does, but I prefer traffic droid. This one is opposite the UCD fire station.
say hello to my little friends
I decided to go to old town Sacramento yesterday, and as you may gather, I sketched more fire hydrants. I also met with the SF Bay Urban Sketchers (Jana Bouc, Cathy McAuliffe et al) who happened to be visiting Sac that day and sketched with them a little while. The wetaher right now is gorgeous – sunny, a little breezy, but not cold, and perfect for sketching. Hopefully it will stay like this for next Suday’s Davis Sketchcrawl.
The hydrants in Sacramento are largely silvery grey, with a different colour top depending on the water pressure, or something. Iwas excited (yes really excited) to draw some different coloured hydrants, though of course it means that this set is no longer solely Davis based. Sacramento is close enough though. Below is an odd looking water pipe found by the underpass that connects old town to the downtown mall.
she may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid
And this project is not even half way over… More fire hydrants, one from UC Davis, the other pair from Fifth Street. I don’t think there are any more designs in Davis, but I’ll keep looking. Of course, different designs will be drawn more than once, in different locations, and of course there are still a great deal of water and gas pipes still to sketch in this town. 23 down, 27 to go. I’m particluarly proud of that top one.
And I will, of course, get around to drawing some other subjects at some point too…
and they were all yellow
Six yellow dwarves, in six yellow caps. Please forgive my use of a Coldplay line in the title. Actually, no that’s not forgivable. It’s just that the line was obvious – they are all yellow, so very yellow after the white and blue hydrants of campus. These are all found in the City of Davis, and are all ‘dry’ hydrants apparently. Oh, they work, but, actually I’m not going to try to explain it. Davis Wiki can do a better job than I. I’ll tell you something though – I found an interesting website all about fire hydrants which at first amazed me in the range of interesting and unusual designs, and then made me jealous that I couldn’t see and sketch them all.
And then I felt a little like Arnold Rimmer and his collection of 20th century telegraph poles. Oh well, I’m getting to that age where I don’t care about geekery (like I ever really cared) and now fill sketchbooks with fire hydrants and water pipes. To me, though, this is urban sketching at its essence – sketching the urban furniture, the bits that make up the everyday in our towns and cities. Plus look at that one below left. that looks well cool, doesn’t it! And someone has drawn a heart on it, because they must love it so much, huh.
Anyway, back to them being dwarves. There are six of them, so one is missing obviously. I will call them Stumpy, Grubby, Captain, Constable, Eraser and Beretta. There, they are now christened, and maybe all fire hydrants should have names. Or maybe not.
So that is 20 of 50 for NaNoDrawMo… more to come!
is it a bird? is it a plane? no, it’s…a pipe
More pipeage. This colourless specimen above is rather like an industrial era Oliphaunt. This could become a story book for children, ‘the Pipes of Davis’, rather like that book ‘the Toads of Davis’. Although, perhaps the more hippy side of our town might take a different meaning of the word ‘pipe’ and be disappointed to find it’s just all fire hydrants and gas pipes. I wouldn’t market it to the hippies, then. I’m not sure what the story would be about, though. Maybe they could all be super heroes that put out fires, perhaps the gas pipes are the wicked industrial villains who start them, and the super-mutant-ninja-hydrants all save the day.
Like these ones for example, they are outside the Center for Neuroscience. Well there’s a super-hero origin story just waiting to happen. All you need is a cape and a wicked laugh. I liked the look of these though, they were like a futuristic space-station or deep-ocean lair.
This bottom one, though, is small, rather like a simple droid or a techno-hobbit, found on the corner of 3rd and E Streets. I like this one. I sketched it late on Saturday afternoon, when shadows were getting long.
petescully 