back to nob hill

April 18, 2025Leave a comment

I went down to the city for a couple of days, as my friends James and Lauren were visiting from England for their 10th anniversary, and we met up for a fun day and evening to celebrate. They married here back in 2015, which history books will tell us is a different historical period, and I came down from Davis to spend a really fun day with them which included a few drinks with locals at Rogue in Washington Square. Nowadays we have self-driving robo-taxis going around San Francisco, and Rogue is long gone, but we ate at Fog City Diner, went to look at the few remaining sealions and walk around the Musee Mecanique, before visiting the old historic bars of North Beach, ending up with a trip to the Tonga Room, classic SF history. The next day after they went to the airport for the next part of their trip I spent the Saturday sketching around the city, mostly around Nob Hill where we had stayed. I sketched the view above, which I have done a couple of times before (a very long time ago – this one in 2006, and //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js” data-wplink-url-error=”true”>this one in 2011 – I’ve been here a long time now). Cable cars rumbled by, tourists took photos and waited on the corner for their robo-taxis (the Waymos; I took my first Waymo ride the day before and it is very strange sitting next to an empty seat watching a steering wheel turn by itself). It was quite sunny. When I came down the day before the morning started off pouring with rain, but it cleared up by lunchtime, I had good luck with the weather. We had just had a really nice filling breakfast and a walk back up the very steep hill.

When we were up here in Nob Hill for my birthday the month before we had such a great view from our hotel room (see that blog post to have a look, it was incredible) that I didn’t want to go out sketching the area during our rest time, so I caught up on that this time. The scene above is in the square in front of Grace Cathedral. I stood in the shade of a tree to draw this fountain. There are lots of little dogs off leash around here, people come and let them scamper about, meeting other dogs, they have a great time. Mostly small dogs with well-off Nob Hill owners. I took a little while drawing this; it had been a very fun evening before and I was feeling a little hungover, but full of sketching energy. Not as much energy as those little dogs though. I sat on a bench to add the watercolour, so I could put my paint set next to me, and after a while soon found that the dogs and their people were gravitating towards the fountain to chatter and smell each others bums (I’ll not explain who was doing what). Which was fine but the dogs were getting very excitable, and some would come over to me to see what I was doing and see whether my paints were lickable. One larger dog put his snout right into my Winsor and Newtons (that’s the brand of paint I use, not some Cockney euphemism) and I had to be like, whoah there. Its human owner came over and I assume apologized (I was listening to an audiobook at the time) but then decided to shield me from further canine interruption by standing right in front of me, which you do when someone is obviously drawing don’t you. More dogs and owners joined the dog and owner party, running around yapping and sniffing bums (again my memory is fuzzy as to who was doing what), and then put of nowhere an excitable Cavalier King Charles Spaniel jumped onto the bench and landed on my paintbox, knocking over my little jar of water. I had a dog like that growing up, ‘Soppy Dog’ (her real name was Lady) so I have a soft spot for them, and didn’t really make much of a fuss other than a Marge Simpson style “hmmmmm” and frown. The embarrassed dog owner quickly got them away and probably apologized (I was listening to an audiobook), and the crowd of dogs and humans started moving somewhere else. None of this affected my painting of course but I thought, this will be a funny thing to write about when I post this, instead of ‘it was a nice day and my tummy was feeling yesterday’s beers’.

I had the day to myself, it was Saturday and I wasn’t in a hurry, so I found another spot in the shade and drew the panorama above looking up at the Cathedral. I had intended to draw the whole lot in, maybe even do the rest later, but I did get a bit bored so just drew as much as I could and coloured in the bits that stood out the most. I wondered what it would be like to live on Nob Hill – you need to have a dog, apparently – and deal with these hills every day. I like a hill but even I’d feel a bit exhausted at the thought of going up and down them every day, so I probably wouldn’t leave the area much. It’d feel like some village, I don’t think I’d enjoy it. I didn’t go into Grace Cathedral this time (not now you have to pay a lot to enter – sod that, it’s nice but not exactly Westminster Abbey), but remember years ago when I illustrated their Christmas Concert official program, two years in a row? That was fun, I got to go to that concert both times, once with my wife and once with my mum. Well over a decade ago now, time flies.

I walked further down the Hill along Bush Street, and could hear people drinking and partying. Lots of people in green, it was St Patrick’s Day weekend, and there was a parade going on, and not far from here some big street party with live music echoing up the hill. I wasn’t in green (I was in blue, St.Patrick’s actual colour as I boringly point out to uninterested people every year, even though St.Patrick probably didn’t wear navy blue polyester with a big ‘AIA’ and a little cockerel on it). I stood in the shade and drew the Eglise Notre Dame des Victoires, deciding to sketch in pencil to be quick. I’ve meant to draw this church for years. I think there is an Institut Français around here, because this little quarter has a lot of French stuff, I remember my wife telling me about this when we first came over here, she came here while learning French (we met in France, see).

Which brings us to the next sketch (above) which is the Cafe De La Presse, on the corner of Grant and Bush, a French style cafe I’ve enjoyed for years. When I say enjoyed I mean I have eaten there probably two or three times in the past 20 years, but I don’t live locally so that is quite regular. Last time I had some lovely eggs benedict with smoked salmon, which I also ate that same morning somewhere else (and looking at this makes me think of that taste, big fan of the smoked salmon eggs benedict) (and yes, when I see the word eggs benedict I do think of Dirk Benedict, ‘Face’ from the A-Team who drove the best Corvette). More and more people in bright green with big silly hats, just what St. Patrick would have wanted (actually he did like a big silly hat, he ‘mitre’ worn some himself). I couldn’t draw this all there and then because the day was pressing on (get it), so I did all that brickwork and colouring in later on the train.

Speaking of the train, I did this sketch here on the Amtrak coming down to the city the day before, I guess I should show my work. I have to keep that pen moving.

While this one above was a very quick sketch I made at the Saloon in North Beach on Friday afternoon while watching this band play with my friends James and Lauren, before we went to Specs for some good chat. There’s no more Anchor Steam on tap, more’s the pity, but it’s a great city for a beer and a catch-up.

As I walked back I passed where a lot of the music and partying was happening, a block party just off Grant. It was a paid event behind security so I didn’t go in but I stood by the edge and did some people sketching. I was looking out for interesting football kits, there were some, plus a couple of rugby kits. Back in Irish north west London we used to have some fun St.Patrick’s Day parties as a kid, I grew up on the Irish music back in the 80s and most of what I learned on guitar was from a book of Irish folk songs we picked up in Willesden or Southport or somewhere. If my grown-up self didn’t feel so much of this was a bit cheesy I would probably have really enjoyed getting my Irish shirts on and getting all festive, my Mum would certainly have loved it. So I stood and sketched like a good urban sketcher, or maybe like a plain-clothed officer at a party in 1980s Cricklewood, and laughed that the band went right into ‘Come Out Ye Black And Tans’, which now makes me think of that episode of This Time with Alan Partridge. “Double-O Feckin’ Bollocks!”. I had the old Irish music of my youth in my head now, and felt like getting home and spending the next day singing the Wolfe Tones and Brendan Shine. Time to get back on the Amtrak bus and train to Davis, another good weekend in the city.

the view from the fairmont

February 27, 2025February 27, 2025Leave a comment

For my birthday this year we went away to San Francisco for the weekend, the weather was sunny and super clear (if a bit cold), and we spent the day at the SFMOMA (Museum of Modern Art), which I have not visited for many years and is a great day looking at art (it’s huge). I miss going to huge museums, it is one of the things about London that I loved most. Well, the gift shops anyway. The shop at the SFMOMA is probably the best museum gift shop in the world. After we’d been in the gift shop for a while we drove up to the hotel, which is easily our favourite in the city, the Fairmont on Nob Hill. We’ve only stayed there once before, for our anniversary seven or eight years ago, so it’s a real special treat. The Fairmont is historic and very grand, in a classic sort of way rather than a Vegas sort of way. Presidents have stayed there (remember them?), and famously it is where Tony Bennett first sang about leaving his heart in San Francisco, presumably they didn’t have a lost-and-found back in those days. These days if he sang that, he’d have hundreds of comments online from Fox News viewers making up stories about people stealing your body parts here. Nob Hill is very steep, and it’s a big climb to get up here even in the car. We got to our room, thinking we’d drop our things off and go back out to wander about outside, but immediately we saw the view from the window and it was like BAM we ain’t leaving the room before dinner! See above and below. The view looked across a wide view from Russian Hill on the left to Telegraph Hill on the right, with Alcatraz right in front of us. Squeezing down each end of the window we could make out the Golden Gate Bridge and the Transamerica Pyramid, but I couldn’t squeeze those into my sketches. We relaxed in the room admiring the view and I sketched, as did my son (who’d forgotten his sketchbook but used my iPad). We were up on the twelfth floor, but being on Nob Hill our elevation was really high anyway. There was so much detail. I have dreamed of drawing this view, but there was so much detail there was no way I could do what I did with that sketch from the Hilton I did in 2021, which was a bit lower down (though included the building I was drawing from here). I did my best to keep up with the changing afternoon-evening light, and drew a few smaller sketches as well to show what the light was like. Here is Alcatraz. It always reminds me of the third X-Men movie.

I drew a couple of quick ones of Coit Tower as well, as the late afternoon turned into sunset, to show the magnificent colours as the light changed. It was last year I think (was it the year before?) that I went up to the top and did that long drawing. I’ve drawn a lot of this city now. I’m not done yet, but the plan was that we’d spend the night in the city, and then next day after my family drove back to Davis I’d go out and do a lot of drawing by myself and get the train home.

Dinner was at the famous Tonga Room, downstairs at the Fairmont, and that was great fun. I love that place. The cocktails ain’t cheap, nor is the food, but they were strong and the food was super filling, I could barely eat half of mine before I was full. No dessert for me. The band floating on the pool played great music, and every half hour the showers came on imitating a thunderstorm. I love the Tonga Room, though I wish the bathroom was not such a walk. The next morning we got room service breakfast, and sat looking out of the window until it was time to leave. Well I sketched of course. The light was very different again in the morning, the shadows creeping in a different direction, getting shorter rather than longer, and it was another clear day. Imagine if it had been foggy. So I drew the view below, mostly of the tall towers of Russian Hill. I’m very lucky to be able to come to this city and to a hotel like this with a view like that and draw it. Ever since I was a kid I loved to look out of a window and draw. I like being down there on the streets among it all, but it’s always special to look at it all from above.

I never spent the day out drawing. I was already sketched out, and feeling pretty tired. It was cold out, and the thought of getting the train back to Davis later on a Sunday evening with work the next day, well I didn’t fancy it, so I rode back in the car. As we waited I popped across the street and did a quick outline of the hotel, drawing it in later with the statue of Tony Bennett singing about leaving internal organs in San Francisco. I started idly wondering why it was called Nob Hill, but it was time to go home. A nice weekend in the city, and a big thanks to my lovely wife for arranging it.

BTW, I realize from looking at the blog post that the small size of the panoramic drawings do absolutely no justice to them whatsoever, but if you click on them it takes you to my Flickr page where you can see them a little bigger.

swensen’s, at hyde and union

August 7, 2024August 6, 2024Leave a comment

This heat though. It’s like being under the boot of a massive invisible giant, whose feet are very very hot. The Central Valley just gets a bit carried away when the temperatures go up. We’re not Phoenix or Vegas or Mercury, but when it’s like this you don’t want to go outside and do anything. Except drive an hour and a half away to a place where temperatures are about 40 degrees or more cooler. Where is this magical place, is there some land of snowy peaks where massive invisible frost giants hold sway? (What is it with all these giants today?) No, it’s in the other direction and it’s called San Francisco, the foggy city between the Bay and the Ocean where Mark Twain famously said “brrrrr”. Interestingly enough, San Francisco does have Giants, and they played at home that day against the Twins, winning 7-1. Nice way to connect my previous metaphors there. We drove down to North Berkeley, jumped on the BART and spent a nice lunchtime around the Embarcadero, before getting a cable car up to Nob Hill. It was so much cooler down there, and we had a fun family day of exploring the city. I was surprised to see you now have to pay to go inside Grace Cathedral, quite a lot as well, so we decided to skip it. I remembered though the two fantastic Christmas concerts I went to more than a decade ago, when I had illustrated the cover of the program. We looked about the Fairmont, we love that hotel (we spent an anniversary there years ago), and decided we’ll definitely do afternoon tea there on a future visit. We then decided to walk down and up hill towards Lombard Street, quite a way but we got our steps in. The cable car going down Hyde was sadly not running that day, but we were exploring. I was happy to find the old Swensen’s Ice cream shop on the corner of Hyde and Union, I had always wanted to draw that, so we rested a while and I sketched it (I added the colour later). This being the last page of my sketchbook, I was glad to have something interesting there. I’m not saying the Varsity and Orange Court Davis are not interesting, but you know, something new. This sketchbook has Davis already, and loads of areas of London, Aix, Nice, Monaco and finally San Francisco. We didn’t get an ice cream (we were actually feeling cold…). After zigzagging down Lombard, and that really steep downward slope after that to North Beach, hard on the knees, to sit in Washington Square and then go and eat pizza, and browse City Lights Books. We covered a bit of ground on this day in the city, as usual, but it was just nice to be out of that Davis heat, for a little while.

a thousand stories in san francisco

August 16, 20212 Comments

In June I spent an overnighter in the city, San Francisco, staying at the Hilton on a really high up floor, as you’ll recall, I drew from the window next to the elevator while news about Christian Eriksen was still fresh, and I drew the Nob Hill view in great detail. I have always wanted to do a longer panoramic of this view, but rather than go back down there I decided to get a big piece of paper and draw that view once again but this time with the area to the right included, from various pictures I took that morning. So one Sunday evening and late Monday afternoon I drew this, and this will be my piece for the Pence Gallery’s 2021 Art Auction. I decided to leave it uncoloured, unlike the original, and I think that would look good on any wall. Well maybe not any wall, it might look out of place on the Great Wall of China, for example, or on Bob Wall from Enter the Dragon, or on Wall’s Ice Cream, or maybe I’m wrong and it would look great on all those things. Part of this view shows San Francisco’s famous Chinatown, as it leads up towards Nob Hill, and looking out to the left at Sutro Tower, and to the right beyond the wide road of Broadway is Russian Hill. Every block in San Francisco is worth exploring. Every window, a story. Ok, “every window tells a story”, that is a great thing to say when looking out over a cityscape, you should say it to someone next time you are looking over a city, particularly at night, I dunno, it sounds like it’s quite a deep thoughtful thing to say. “Every window tells a story, every story, a universe,” etc. But then you say, “not a very good story,” so you don’t sound like you’re being a nob. “I mean, most stories aren’t very interesting,” you say next. “Most stories are actually not worth telling. We should mind our own business about most stories. Actually stop looking through all those windows, nosy bugger.” That’s what you should say next. It’s true though, about stories. Some are brilliant, most are kind of “ok, skip to the end”. I recently got a subscription to a well-known audiobook provider, and frankly, the past couple of books I’m struggling to finish. I love a good story. The one I’m listening to right now would probably be better if I had just looked at the book, although the storytelling is a bit blah. The narrator however is terrible. When reading the story itself he is ok, reading in a precise actorly tone, but when he does the voices of the characters it’s like he thinks he’s in a 1970s production of “Oliver!”, being completely unable to read any female voice without going into a strange high-pitched fake cockney flower girl voice, “eeeer woss yorr gime?” type thing. I’m deliberately not telling you the name of the book or the narrator. So maybe I will skip audiobooks for a bit and go back to reading paper. My eyes are going a bit though, those mid-forties have caught up with me. As my glasses get stronger for seeing far away, I find I can’t read or see up close as well, so I need to take my specs off and bring the book nearer to me. Same with the sketchbook, or in this case, the big piece of paper. When drawing from life I relied on what I could see with my eyes, and it was a bit easier; drawing from a photo on my ipad screen and then leaning into the paper with my glasses off to see the detail, bit trickier. Yet I completed this all in one evening and an afternoon. The scale is actually the same as in my sketchbook, it just looks a lot bigger because it’s twice as long, and inside a 10×20 inch frame. I really like it, it would look good on any wall. Well, most walls.

my wandering days aren’t over

June 29, 2021Leave a comment

It was my first trip down to San Francisco in almost two years, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go. I didn’t have a plan. Sometimes when I come to the city to sketch I know which general direction I will head in and follow my nose, but on the whole I play it safe. I might have planned this trip a little better, plotted out a route of old favourite spots plus a couple of places I’ve never been, but as it turned out I just decided wandering would be enough. Wandering and sketching, but also just wandering. When I was a teenager I would wander, I would sometimes get on a bus on a Saturday morning from Burnt Oak headed to Harrow or Hendon wherever, find a library or a bookshop to sit in all day reading, or get a travelcard and jump on a tube down into central London, and just explore an area until it got dark, no particular plan, and where I went was where I went, then come home for dinner. I would follow my nose. I wasn’t sketching as much out and about when I was a teenager, just occasionally, but not making it my main reason for going anywhere. These days I don’t get to wander quite as often, so when I do I usually feel like I have to have a collection of sketches by the end of the day to make it worth the effort of all that wandering.

On this particular Saturday morning, when I was on a solo overnight trip to San Francisco to wander and sketch, I watched the Denmark-Finland game in my hotel room on the 23rd floor, and was pretty shocked by what happened to Christian Eriksen. He has been one of my favourite players for years, all those seasons at Tottenham, so to see him almost die on the field on live TV was very disturbing. His picture is still on my son’s wall, along with others from that great Tottenham team that nearly made it (but not quite). The game was called off before half time (though they restarted later that day), and after a while on the phone to my wife who was watching it too, I went down the end of the hallway and sketched the view across the city to gather my thoughts a bit. There is a lot of detail to cover. I’ve always wanted to just look over the San Francisco cityscape and pick out the puzzle. You really have to observe. Putting one thing slightly out of place or making a building that bit too narrow in relation to the other ones around it can mess everything else up. It’s therapeutic though. I stood and sketched this rather than sat at the desk in my room which would have been comfier, but I did have to check out of the room before I finished so I wanted to give myself more time for the details. I did colour it in later though on the train back. The blank area in the corner, that wasn’t because there was something in the way, I just never got to that part of the city, but I did draw the skyline above it, so it looks like a panhandle. This isn’t “the” Panhandle though, which is up near Haight, this is Nob Hill, as it rises out of Chinatown, which is a pretty big area of the city. That’s where I headed next, after dropping off my card key, I went across to Portsmouth Square Gardens.

I’d never actually walked through Portsmouth Square before, so this fulfilled the ‘something new’ check box. It’s not super exciting, but it was pretty interesting as a place for people from the neighbourhood to hang out on a sunny Saturday lunchtime. I remember one of the Worldwide Sketchcrawls being held here in Portsmouth Square many years ago, but I didn’t go on that one, so I’m not sure why I brought it up, other than it’s always made me wonder about coming sketching here. There were so many interesting people here though that I mostly just did some quick people sketching. It feels like a very long time since I have come to a public place and done quickfire people sketching. Most people were Chinese, of all ages, but mainly older people. Some were sat on benches feeding birds, or talking occasionally to each other, or gathered in groups playing a very involved card game around a bench, there were several such groups. Everyone wore masks, no exceptions. I did too. I drew some of the rooftops above us, and also a statue called the ‘Goddess of Democracy’, a replica of the one from Tiananmen Square in Beijing, placed here in 1989 during the events there that year. I listened to a passing tour guide as I drew, referencing that it’s difficult for people to reference that event online there, that they would use terms like the “35th of May”. I didn’t listen in on much else of the tour, but there were several walking tour groups parading through here. Portsmouth Square is one of the most historic spots in the city, as this was the first public square in the original Mexican settlement of Yerba Buena. The name of the plaza comes from the USS Portsmouth, the ship of Captain Montgomery who took Yerba Buena for the United States and raised the flag here in 1846. The city was renamed San Francisco a year later. A year after that the prospector Sam Brannan held up his nuggets of gold here and told everyone there was a lot of it in the American River, so off they rushed towards Sacramento. After the 1906 Earthquake, Portsmouth Square became a place of refuge for those displaced from their homes. These days it’s sometimes called the “Heart of Chinatown”.

I walked through Chinatown, mostly looking for the perfect spot to draw, where I wasn’t going to be in the way of anyone walking past, not in the sunlight which was pretty strong. It was colourful, and I’d intended on doing a colourful lively sketch, but in the end I stood on the corner of Sacramento and Grant and drew the sketch below, with little bits of colour popping out. Along the street some drummers were playing while some performers did some balancing acts, it looked like they were having a great old time. San Francisco’s Chinatown is generally considered the oldest outside Asia, even the largest. Certainly in the context of California, the most historic. Apparently it is “the most densely populated urban area west of Manhattan” with most residents being monolingual speakers of Mandarin or Cantonese. The area dates back to the first Chinese immigrants to the city in 1850. I would love to dive deeper into this area’s history, what little I’ve read about is dripping with story.

I was hungry, but I didn’t stop for Chinese food, because I headed down Grant to that French place, Cafe De La Presse, and at outside there while an voice of unknown location belted out live opera in Italian, echoing across each building. Refreshed from lunch, I made the mistake of going through the Union Square area, rather than somewhere more interesting. I popped into the Nike store and went all the way to the very top floor, to the furthest point at the back where they were hiding the soccer shirts, just to discover that they didn’t have the new Tottenham shirt. Oh they had Chelsea and Liverpool but not Spurs. Right, fine. I went down to Market Street, not entirely sure where I was headed next. I had no intention of drawing Market Street, it’s just not that interesting, and what I like about it I have drawn before. It’s an uncomfortable place at times, Market. This is the problem with wandering though, you sometimes end up somewhere and feel a bit stuck. I thought about getting on a bus to Lower Haight, or a Muni up to the Inner Sunset, but I didn’t have change and couldn’t be bothered figuring out how things are done now. I did have a BART pass though, so I just went down into the subway and jumped on the first train and headed towards the Mission.

Each area of San Francisco has its historic culture. North Beach is the Italian area, Chinatown is Asian, The Castro is historically associated with the gay community, the Haight is the Hippies; and everywhere is the expensive real estate developers and gentrifiers pricing all these communities out. Historically, the Mission is a mostly Hispanic part of San Francisco, and there are lots of murals celebrating the Latin American community. Since I first came down there the area has been changing, going more upmarket and trendy, but it still has a lot of character. The large Mission Burrito was invented here. I had a massive burrito, about the size of a Greyhound bus, after I was done sketching. I wandered, coming across the colourful Clarion Alley, a narrow street of political murals between Mission and Valencia. I was going to sketch there but it was getting late. Plus, some bits smelled quite strongly of wee. I did sketch on 16th by the Roxie, whose distinctive sign was much harder to see than I remember, due to the growth of the trees around it. I remember years ago photographing this (not having had time to draw it evidently; come back another time I probably told myself)and there being no foliage around it, or very very little, but not now, those trees have grown. Still I stood beneath and got an okay view, and again despite it being quite a colourful scene I only added the red bits. It was busy in the Mission, most of the bars had full-up outside seating/standing areas, it would have been quite a nice afternoon to stand outside with a pint and people watch, but my legs were tired, really tired, and I wanted to get to Mission Dolores Park. In Covid times as in normal times, the park was packed, as you’d expect on a hot Saturday afternoon in June, with most people being young trendy types. Unlike in Chinatown, very few people were masked. Well it’s not required now, but I kept mine on anyway because I sometimes sing to myself when sketching, and I can pretend it was someone else if anyone looks. Not that that would be a problem here, several people had their music on for others to hear. I actually listened to a podcast about the X-Men (not the usual one, but a different one, this one talking in depth about Nightcrawler) and drew the skyline. It was a pretty pleasant way to spend the rest of the day before heading back to Davis. A lot has changed in this skyline since I moved here to California. It was a clear day, no fog at all, and I really enjoyed my little bit of time back in the city. I wish it were a little bit more normal (maybe a bit more space in the street and not so many outside seating huts, making things feel claustrophobic and yet remote; not so easy for a weary wanderer to just pop into a dark cool bar to refresh during a day’s heavy sketching), but the world is evolving, and I’m happy to have finally gone and had a look at some of it.

You might like to see a whole Flickr album of my San Francisco sketches going back to 2006 or 2007, when I first started coming down here to wander about. It’s interesting to see how the city and my style of sketching has changed in all that time. Here it is: https://www.flickr.com/photos/petescully/albums/72157602126887832.

the scenery of san francisco

September 22, 2016September 23, 20162 Comments

Recently, for our anniversary, my wife and I took a couple of days down in the City. That is San Francisco to you. We stayed at the Fairmont Hotel, which is an old San Francisco spot of legend up on Nob Hill – it was here that Tony Bennett first complained to lost and found about losing a vital organ, through the medium of Croon. I’ve always wondered, is that song supposed to be a metaphor, or did he actually leave his actual heart lying around? And his other city based songs, is Chicago really just a tantrum-throwing two-year-old? I don’t know, Tony. I love San Francisco though, it’s honestly one of my favourite places in the world to be. I did leave a shirt there once, hanging in the closet in the Hyatt. Above, Crissy Field, out near the Presidio. We went to the Walt Disney Family Museum, very interesting.

Our room had absolutely stunning views over the City. As the sun went down, before getting ready for dinner, I sketched a couple of the views – the peak of the TransAm Pyramid, golden in the sunset light, and Coit Tower, up on top of Telegraph Hill. I wish I were rich, I would just live in San Francisco for ever and ever and ever. It’s a city that is pricing people out though, so I don’t think drawing a few pictures and writing a few books is going to get me to San Francisco. When Tony Bennett sang that song, he was actually talking about having to farm out his own organs just to cover the rent. Ah, perhaps it’s for the best. One of the things I love about San Francisco is getting to visit it – it is so utterly different from Davis in every way, it’s always a nice change of scenery.

I have sketched this big old church before, Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill. I did their Christmas Concert program a few years ago. Since we were staying so close I wanted to get a Sunday morning sketch of it in. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I drew in my new purple Leuchtturm sketchbook that I got in Manchester.

After that, we went to ZineFest, and that was kinda fun. Actually probably enjoyed it more in previous years, I found fewer gems this time around, though I still spent on a few zines. I tended to buy some of the really random ones. We got the Muni back down to Union Square for a little bit of shopping; I bought some underpants at Uni-Qlo, I really like their underpants. I realize you don’t need to know that, but I’m just saying for those of you who also wear underpants (a good deal of you, I suspect), that Uni-Qlo do make really comfy ones. While my wife continued shopping, I sketched Tad’s Broiled Steaks outside, an old eatery on Powell Street. Always wanted to sketch this place, though I don’t of course eat steak. And there you are, San Francisco again. I want to go back!

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/

how sweet the sound

December 17, 20114 Comments

This year, I was given the honour of illustrating the Christmas Concert Series brochure of Grace Cathedral, in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighbourhood. Last Sunday, with my Mum who was visiting from London, I went down to San Francisco and attended their show ‘A Cathedral Christmas’, performed by the purple-clad Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys. It was a surreal experience seeing so many people clutching copies of a drawing that I had done! My Mum, as mums naturally do, pointed out to a few people, “he did that!” After being introduced to the Dean of the Cathedral, we took our seats and listened to the amazing concert, and what a location! Immediately I got my sketchbook out – it’s not every day I get to attempt a cathedral from the inside. I intend to go back and practise some more! I drew during all the traditional Christmas music, including some pieces by Handel (I’m no expert on this sort of thing, but it was pretty good; I also learnt from my Mum that Handel lived in Edgware for a bit, so we were near-neighbours, a couple of centuries apart) (Good job he never went to Edgware School though, with a name like that he’d have had a pretty obvious nickname).

Many thanks to Bruce and Abby for this wonderful opportunity, and for inviting me to the show. Here’s the Grace Cathedral website: http://www.gracecathedral.org/. And here are the remaining concerts they have this Christmas season, click here. If you’re in San Francisco, I recommend it!

And Merry Christmas everyone! Just another week now, and last week I chopped down my first Christmas Tree (well I say ‘chopped’, I mean ‘sawed’) – there it is in the background of my photo above…

up hill, down hill

February 12, 2011February 11, 20111 Comment

The cable car from Fisherman’s Wharf up to Nob hill cost me five bucks. Five dollars! (You don’t put bourbon in it or nothing?) So I turned the ticket into a piece of art. Well, I sketched on it. Not easy when you don’t have Pritt Stick on you to glue it down. I held it to the paper with my thumb as I sketched (harder than you might think, given it was a really windy day on top of a pretty windy hill), but I liked the image of the cable car so it became part of the sketch. this is the view down California, from Powell. I have sketched this spot before a few years ago in another odd fashion (I don’t seem to ever draw this view normally).

Down the hill we go, to Chinatown. It was Chinese New Year and there were lots of dragons and parades and celebrations going on down there. That was hours before I went, though, so it was much quieter while I sketched. I don’t come to Chinatown often (you go there lots when you’re new to San Francisco, but now I see it as a bit too touristy and cramped – hah, that’s rich after sketching at Pier 39). I like all the colours though, and there is always something to draw. Plus it’s historic, and you can’t beat historic. (Actually ‘cool’ sometimes beats ‘historic’, but this isn’t Top Trumps). This is my favourite spot, on the corner of California and Grant, by the Old St. Mary’s Cathedral.

And so I went shopping, and went home on the train, and had a nice cold beer while waiting to turn 35.

amazing grace, how sweet the sound

February 11, 2011February 11, 20114 Comments

At the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco sits Grace Cathedral. Nob Hill is an interesting neighbourhood – full of big grand hotels and spectacular views, many years ago this windswept hill was too steep for regular San Franciscans to bother reaching, a place for hermits and rich mansion builders to live away from the rabble of the Barbary Coast. The cable car made it more easily accessible and it was by cable car that I made it up hill to sketch Grace Cathedral. I like this big cathedral. It has a labyrinth inside (it’s just drawn on the floor though, not with hedges or minotaurs, and the answers are at the back). That’s right – a Maze in Grace…

I then sat in Huntington Park, in front of the cathedral, and noticed other people out drawing in sketchbooks. The weather was amazing, warm, golden sunlight everywhere, and people were out taking advantage. I sketched a smallish house which I found quite interesting looking.