The Art and Habit of Travel Sketching (with Rita Sabler)

August 17, 2016August 25, 20163 Comments

There were many interesting and varied talks that you could attend at #uskmanchester2016. Yes, I just used a hashtag in a sentence. Now if were saying that out loud I wouldn’t say the word “hashtag” but then that is why the written medium is capable of things that the spoken medium just isn’t, and vice-versa, and then there is the drawn medium. One thing I like about sketching at talks and presentations is that you can use it not only to document the visual of the event, but also take notes on the text. There is the issue of course that you must be careful what you write down, as that then potentially defines the speaker’s points in possibly unintended ways – take a sentence out of context, written down in a hurry, and sure they did say that, but it may not be what their talk was about. So whenever I have drawn presenters, I have been aware of this and tried to write down the thoughts and phrases that seem most to encapsulate it, though it’s impossible to catch it all.

I only managed to attend one talk in Manchester, having been off sketching the streets all the other times, taking advantage of the non-rain, but I wasn’t going to miss this one, “The Art and Habit of Travel Sketching“, by my friend from Portland, Rita Sabler. I first met Rita at the first symposium in Portland, learning that she was a UC Davis alumna, and have followed her sketching work ever since. She has a really cool and vibrant style, with a lot of travelling under her belt as well. In this talk she showed us some of her amazing travel sketches and shared her experiences around the world, both the good and the sometimes scary. She offered tips and advice on travel sketching, and spoke in general about the act of keeping a sketchbook, and the unexpected interactions it can bring. I wrote down some of what she was saying – click on the image above to get a better view – and some of my favourite takeaways were:

Sketching your surroundings, you become “at once the observer and the participant”
If sketching people in bars, pick the people who have the fullest glass – they will stay there longest!
If people notice you sketching them, smile!

I really enjoyed the talk, and everybody else that was there enjoyed it as well – and it was a full house. I was surprised that more people were not sketching though! I did spot a few others with sketchbooks out. Here was Rita afterwards, holding my book:

You can see more of Rita’s work on her website www.portlandsketcher.com, or on her Flickr page. You can also see three awesome chapters written by Rita in my book, Creative Sketching Workshop!

london’s ancient highway

August 4, 2016August 4, 20165 Comments

For the first sketch back in London I wanted to draw this stretch of the River Thames again, looking out towards Waterloo Bridge. Last time I sat on Hungerford Bridge (a little bit further toward the middle, drawn to include the then-brand-new Shard) the skyline looked different. New skyscrapers keep popping up, all in fun zany shapes like some ten-year-old invented a futuristic robotopolis. They all have funny names too, the Gherkin, the Cheesegrater, the Walkie-Talkie, the Spaghetti Western, the Cordless Kettle, the Balrog, the Gelfling’s Prophecy, all very silly names. Ok some of those may not exist yet. The oldest structure in this sketch is actually Cleopatra’s Needle, on the left there, at about 3500 years old (placed here in the 19th century). Its twin is in New York, you can apparently use it to teleport between the two cities but they don’t like to tell anyone (see previous posts for feelings about Translatlantic travel). Ancient Egyptians used to smirk at the silly nickname too, also making fun of Thoth’s Sewing Machine, Rameses’s Hat-Stand and Mark Antony’s Hypodermic Syringe, and so on. Anyway, I sat on my uncomfortable little stool (now retired) and sketched for two hours straight, as London in the Summertime started up around me, tourists, day-outers, amblers all looked around and marveled at the view. Now if the proposed mess of a project the Garden Bridge gets built this view will be spoiled. I believe the Bridge would go just beyond Waterloo bridge, but with trees poking out of the top of it the views down river would be compromised somewhat. Not a fan. Might be useful elsewhere, but not there. It’s a folly of Boris and Lumley. We’ll see if it actually gets built. If it does, expect more cranes, more changing views, and more sketches along the ever-changing, ever-constant river. I do love this river.

Here’s the sketch I did on the same bridge in 2012:

saturday summer sketchcrawl

July 12, 201611 Comments

This is the Davis Farmer’s Market, a sketch that I did while standing up for the best part of two hours, occasionally talking to people. It was busy, though by the time I was finished all the people had gone and the market stalls had all but packed up. This was the longest sketch I did as part of the “Let’s Draw Davis” sketchcrawl on Saturday, the return of the sketching meetups I used to organize monthly for a few years until my weekend days got just too busy. It was really nice to get out there and sketch with others again, see some old familiar faces, and meet some new sketchers too. We started off at Central Park, and I did some quick people-sketching in my Fabriano sketchbook, using pencil and watercolour. There was an even going on speaking up against oil trains, those big hulking freight trains that carry oil dangerously through residential areas (such as Davis). It was interesting to listen to, I support their cause and I sketched some of the speakers.

Look at me sketching people eh. Below, some of the other sketchers. In the first sketch, of Sonja in the purple hat, I showed off my favourite tip for drawing people, draw a massive hat and avoid the face at all costs. No I’m only kidding, but it looks like that’s what I’m doing! I’m quite pleased with this sketch though, I like the way it turned out, full of character, showing the sketcher busy at work. The other sketchers drawn below are Kim, Sam and Peter, three different seated poses, three different angles.

I used three sketchbooks on this sketchcrawl because I enjoy carrying loads of stuff around with me. No, Seawhite #4 was at a close (the Farmer’s Market sketch was the last double-page spread, though the penultimate sketch – I actually finished it next day sketching the Euro final). I enjoy the Seawhite of Brighton sketchbooks now, after seeing what other sketchers did with them when out in France last year, and I was pleased to see another sketcher, Peter, also using a Seawhite. I opened a new sketchbook, the Stillman and Birn ‘Alpha’ landscape, my third one of this particular model (though I have a few other sizes of the Alpha, it’s my favourite paper I think). I drew the newspaper boxes outside Peet’s Coffee in E Street, while my legs started to hurt from all the stand-up sketching. I need to use my stool a little bit more (but I do like having the elevated view of standing up).

And then the remaining sketchers met up at the end to look at each others sketchbooks, which is always nice. We got a lot of very nice sketches done that day. Here is a photo I took of everyone holding up their books. By the way, we didn’t lay them all out on the floor and stare at them from six feet up like too many sketchcrawls do these days (pick them up! Pass them around!). Some of the sketchers that didn’t make it to the end did come and find me before they went and I got to see what they had done, and a few others met me at De Vere’s afterwards having not been at the E Street Plaza end point, so overall it was a very nice day full of sketching in Davis. I do plan to restart Let’s Draw Davis on a monthly basis, but not until October, to coincide with my sketchbook exhibit at the UC Davis Design Museum. In the meantime, Davis sketchers, keep up the good sketching work!

theatre of the ab third

June 11, 20162 Comments

This is Third Street. Of course, I know that you know that, because I’ve drawn this before, and you definitely remember, of course. Continuing my theme of drawing the streets of Davis as panoramas but in numerical order, having just done 1st and 2nd, now here is 3rd. I saw “X-Men Apocalypse” lately and Jean Grey said something about “Return of the Jedi” being bad because everyone knows the third movie is always the worst (referring to X-Men: The Last Stand) yet following it up by actually being in a movie (namely “X-Men Apocalypse”) that is not fit to wipe the Ewok’s Feet of “Jedi”. But I’m not going to go into my feelings about comic-book movies (go and see “Civil War” it is amazing! Black Panther is the best!) rather I will talk about my process when drawing a panorama.

It was the day after the hottest day of the year, and this time it was overcast, but still very hot, and very, very muggy. Sweat dripped from my brow, but I toiled on, I just had to draw 3rd Street, it is the next chapter, ok it may not be as good as 1st Street or 2nd Street but it has its own qualities, it’s doing its own thing. So, when I do a panorama, I first use a pencil to block out where the road will be, and then main lines of perspective, as they curve left and right. When standing with sweat dripping onto the page you do the best you can. Actually the first thing I do is wander about until I hit just the right spot, usually the spot in the shade, one with the least foliage in the way of what I’m drawing. Then when I’ve blocked in a few lines in pencil (not too many, mind, no point drawing the whole thing twice), I do the actual drawing with the pen, usually ignoring some or sometimes all of my guidelines, holding my sketchbook in that awkward looking way that I do. I was sent a tweet recently on the Twitter, which said “are you the urban sketcher who holds his pen in a strange way?” Is this a thing now, is that my thing? Is this how I am known now? I’m kidding – that’s always how I’ve been known, ever since I was in primary school, it’s nothing new. People would ask me, “you hold your pen in a funny way, are you left handed? “Only if you can’t tell left and right I am,” I would reply, before running away very fast. At school they tried to change me, telling me as my hands got bigger I would never write or draw as fast as my classmates, and I would suffer academically. I wish I could go back in time and thank the teacher who effectively set me that challenge, but I wouldn’t thank them, I’d say hey, I’m Pete, remember me, my funny hands are bigger now, let’s have a writing and drawing race, see who is fastest! No, no I wouldn’t say that. I’d be all respectful and reserved and shy. I do wish they had told me back then that I also hold my book funny s well, I only discovered that a few years ago, when I first saw photos of me out and about urban sketching. I sometimes draw upside down as well when I get to the far right of the page, easiest to hold, plus I like subverting the far right, bloody fascists.

Anyway, the next step is to draw the whole thing. I don’t really do the thing where I draw outlines of everything and fill in the gaps, rather I draw small details from point one. If there is signage I draw that first, because I enjoy it the most. Cars…occupational hazard. If there are cars parked I will avoid drawing them until I absolutely have to. For example one was parked in front of the middle house for ages, but it left so I quickly drew in the bits previously obscured. No other car ended up parking there (oh there’s nowhere to park downtown on a Saturday, boo, um actually yes there bloody is) meaning I could draw to my leisure. The building to the left had lots of “No on A!” election signs. I don’t see why they don’t like A, it is the first letter of the alphabet, without it there would carnage, etc etc and so on. So then comes the paint. If I have time I will do it all on site, and with a panorama it takes that bit longer. Often though I will use the extra time getting the drawing right, doing some of the colour on site, and finishing off the rest at home (or a nearby pub which has tables and beer). For this I coloured in a few main details and then did the obvious stuff (trees, road, rooftops) later on. Then I scanned it, scanning both sides and using Photoshop to stitch them together. Then I save it in both 300dpi (for printing) and 72dpi (for posting online – smaller file size, easier to appear on the website, gets all pixelated when people try to print it out themselves – ha ha). Then, I post the sketch to Flickr, which is a good place to host your drawings, as you can organize them into handy folders – a nice online portfolio. I’ve used it for nearly ten years now. Then I post it on my blog, and – this is important – I like to keep the writing to a normal, readable size which makes total sense and doesn’t ramble off in all sorts of nonsensical directions. And then I spend about three hours thinking up a title which might come from a song lyric or a famous poetic quote, I add the tags, I press publish, and I go to bed listening to the Football Weekly podcast and playing Scrabble on my iPod. This, my dear sketching friends, is the whole process. And if you have read this far, I thank you for your staying power, and urge you to pick up a pen and go out and draw your city streets too. It’s fun!

(Coming next – 4th street, aka “The 4th Awakens”)

if there was a sequel would you love me as an equal

June 2, 20168 Comments

On the second day of the Long Weekend, in the morning while my son went to a birthday party, I cycled downtown for some pre-lunchtime sketching. Another panoramic two-page spread, as you do. I decided to return to First Street, which is a block away from the similarly named Second Street (I know, makes no sense). Here, outside the Natsoulas Gallery, a huge cat is being erected, covered in mosaic tiles, next to the already installed colourful dog on the corner. While sketching, a guy working on the structure came over and chatted with me about art (he draws stuff as well) (hello by the way if you’re reading this). This is turning into a most colourful corner. On the other page, the fraternity house of Theta Xi (no, sorry, no jokes about taxis today). This is a bit like a sequel (or a prequel, technically, being First Street) to the sketch from the day before. I should do a panorama of Third Street to keep it up, like. Maybe I will wait 30 years and then sell my sketchbook for billions to Disney and they can get J J Abrams to sketch it, but as much in the style of the Second Street sketch as possible, with a fire hydrant and a bit of lens flare, forgetting that First Street with its giant cats and midichlorians even exists. Or maybe not. It’s getting hotter, hotter, hotter. This weekend is going to be a scorcher. Time to get out of Davis…

why the panoramic face?

June 1, 20165 Comments

Long weekend here in America, which meant longer drawings. Ok, a horse with an injured tail walks into a bar. “Why the long weekend?” asks the barman. No, no it was a bank, he walks into a bank on a holiday. “Why the long weekend?” asks the bank clerk. Maybe not an injured tail, maybe his tail was all overgrown rendering it useless for whatever tails usually are for, hence not being as strong as his front end, for example. So a horse with a less strong, very hairy tail walks into a bank, while on holiday, and the bank clerk says to him, he goes “why the long weekend?” Maybe there’s nothing wrong with his tail at all, maybe he had just been in a race, and had originally been one of the front-runners (that’s a horse racing term) but towards the end he had started to tail off (that’s another one), finally just ambling over the line, not even trotting, just going really slowly, like he had no energy, maybe he was already thinking of his holidays on the beach, before finally he walked into a bar, I mean a bank, and the bank clerk who had been watching the race on the TV, he asks him “why the long, weak end?”. Or maybe, maybe the horse is Bryan Singer and the race is X-Men Apocalypse and I am the bank clerk and maybe I asked exactly that question after seeing that very movie, which I in fact did, not long after finishing this drawing that you see here. (You see I was going somewhere with all of that, I wasn’t just ambling on, or trotting). This is Second Street (though in my opinion, it’s first), Davis. I sat on the corner of F Street (which in my opinion is more of a B+) and drew this familiar scene. In the middle there, the Varsity Theatre, historic centre of the Davis downtown, right opposite the Avid Reader bookstore. I sat drawing for a couple of hours, drawing furiosuly with my uni-ball signo UM-151 brown-black pen, and doing some of the water color on site and the rest at home; pizza dinner awaited me. And then, X-Men. While it was not a bad film (it was not quite Batman v Superman level of “what-the”, there was no “Clark Kent gets into the bath with his shoes on” moment), and it had some good moments and good call-backs to the previous films, it really suffered in its storytelling. I know that sounds ironic given that I spent five minutes trying to tell a joke about a horse at the start of this post but my budget is a little lower. I just felt the narrative started to fall apart somewhere around the middle of the film. It doesn’t stand up to the other X-films. A few good bits – well X-Men The Last Stand had good bits too but overall gets a terrible rap (deservedly if we’re honest). Even “X-Men Origins – Wolverine” was a good idea, though Logan’s (spoiler alert) cameo in this is (spoiler spoiler spoiler) totally unnecessary, inconsequential and utterly shoehorned into the film (you might say it spoiled the movie). Still, Magneto saying “Who the fuck are you?” to Apocalypse was fun. Everyone knows I love Magneto. As I say though, the ending of the film was long and weak, and since it could be said (not by me, but I’m about to say it so I suppose it is by me) that Fox is flogging a dead horse, then that brings us nicely back to “Why did the chicken cross the road? To stop the rights going back to Marvel.”

Hope you had a nice Memorial Day weekend.

walker hall and shields library

March 14, 2016March 14, 2016Leave a comment

Another two-page panorama; click on the image for a closer view. This is the view of Walker Hall on the left and Shields Library on the right. We’ve had some wetter weather here lately, hence the overcast sky. I managed to avoid the big wind and rain storms while sketching. I had to do this over the course of a few lunchtimes (the second and third sessions were shorter otherwise just two). This area is scheduled for redevelopment over the next couple of years when Walker Hall becomes the new Graduate and Professional Student Center (or similar name). I saw the plans, it looks very interesting, so I will of course chart its development via the medium of sketchbook, gives me something else to do over the next couple of years. Shields Library will stay the same of course, but the promenade leading up to it will be a little more open. The front of Walker Hall will not change but the back will be quite different.Those trees are expected to have leaves on them as well which will look great once they are done. Also, the sky will be blue by then which should look quite nice.

all these things into position

February 6, 20165 Comments

More campus construction…this is the International Center, on the north end of campus, and it is almost ready. I have sketched it once before (in this post), but I have been cycling past this spot for years. By the way, click on the image to see it embiggened slightly. This was sketched in the watercolour Moleskine (#14 of those sketchbooks I have used). I like this view, as the perspective points us all the way to Russell. It was breezy, but the weather is getting pretty mild now. The last few days of my thirties are winding down.

october or not-tober, that is the question

October 5, 20153 Comments

Orange you glad it’s the weekend? Actually it’s Monday now so very much not the weekend, very much Monday. But it was still the weekend when I drew this, and what a nice time to have a weekend, at the end of a ridiculously busy week. Those are the best. On Sunday I had actually nothing to do, nothing that couldn’t wait, so I spent the afternoon downtown with my sketchbook. The night before there had been a tremendous thunderstorm over Davis, one which had knocked our power out for a couple of hours. There was so much lightning that we didn’t really need candles. The rain was much needed though, and gave everything a fresh autumnal feel the next day. It was bright and breezy, still warm but not hot like it has been, and I decided to return to Orange Court, a good spot for practicing perspective. That by the way was the reason behind the ‘Orange’ joke. Straight ahead of me is Sophia’s Thai Kitchen, let’s face it one of my favourite spots in Davis. Their food is amazing. I was sat on the decking in the shade beneath a tree, and there were loads of little green bugs and ants crawling and flitting all around me. I did most of the colour there on site, but those bugs got the better of me so I retreated to a comfy seat in De Vere’s Irish pub, a block away, to finish off the rest. I have been doing precious little proper urban sketching lately, but this month I will start ramping it up again. “Inktober”? I’m not going for faddy fads, though I might do one of the lesser known ones, this month is full of them. “Thinktober” I could do though, where you spend all month thinking about doing stuff but don’t actually do them. “Octobler”, where you just eat Toblerone. “Mocktober” where you make fun of everything. “Etctober”, and so on.

beer we go

October 5, 2015October 5, 20152 Comments

I am back! I have been busy. I have more busy to be busy about but that is coming. In the meantime here is a sketch I did a couple of weeks ago at the University of Beer on 3rd Street in Davis. I had just sold a couple of sketches at the Pence Gallery’s annual Art Auction (hooray! Thanks for buying them!) and was in the middle of a very busy period of history, so an evening at the pub trying a few new different beers was in order. Not my greatest bar sketch but I enjoyed drawing it. It was a strange night in downtown Davis though. The evening before a man was tragically killed in an altercation at another bar about a block away, which has since prompted the City Council to impose a 45-day moratorium on all new bar and restaurant development / expansion. The downtown Davis area has been becoming a lot busier at night in recent years, but Davis as a city is growing, and becoming more of a destination. Being before the UC Davis school year officially began, it wasn’t particularly busy on this Saturday night so was quite a pleasant evening, which I followed by the long walk home. I’m not a fan of the walk through the too-dark streets of Old North Davis, which are poorly lit because ‘residential’ but I always think a better lit street is a lot safer than one where you can’t see the person about to jump you. They say, “well we want to be able to see the stars” but forgive me if I’m wrong, the streets between fifth and eighth aren’t full of budding astronomers every night. Oak Street is the worst, the road I cycle up after work, in the winter months when it’s dark early it is complete pitch darkness. Ah well, at least on this night as I strolled back to my bed I had the internal glow of four and a half craft beers to light my way. This was the first spread of a new sketchbook, another Seawhite of Brighton one, which I’m hoping to fill quickly…