all gone quiet over there

March 6, 2013Leave a comment

Monsieur Arsene Wenger. Long-time manager of Arsenal, my club’s arch-rivals. Since he arrived at Arsenal in 1996 from Japan, that club (who, for those unfamiliar with English football club geography, are a South London team from Woolwich residing in North London temporarily for the past century or so, a few miles south of native North London team Tottenham Hotspur, my team) went into terminal incline, winning big trophy after big trophy as if some day winning trophies would go out of fashion. Meanwhile, Spurs remained fashionably trophy-free, except for a couple of league cups, the ‘thinking man’s trophy’, and beat Arsenal hands down in the ‘number of managers’ league table. Now Tottenham are flying high as the top London club (check the league table, Chelsea, it does not lie), third in the table, while Arsenal are languishing in a lowly fifth, with only the prospect of a second-leg Champions League tie against Bayern Munich to keep them entertained. “Champions League”, haha – you don’t even have to be a Champion to be in it. It’s like a game at a kid’s party where you tell the kid who came last that “they’re a winner too”. With a fashionably hip seven years without a trophy, and an attitude at the club that 4th place is the same as getting a trophy for the cabinet, Arsene is riding high, being talked about more than ever, and his players are so good that other competing clubs are lining up to buy them.

I actually feel sorry for Arsene Wenger. Despite about fifteen years of living in an undeniably massive Arsenal-shaped shadow, until just a few years ago, I cant deny that he is one of the game’s true legends. He changed Arsenal from being boring-boring 1-0 merchants to one of the most exciting teams in the world. When they did that invincible season, nearly a decade ago, and Thierry Henry was in my mind the best player in the world, it was pretty hard to argue with that. With no trophies for the past seven years, even many Arsenal fans are calling for Monsieur Wenger to call it ‘un jour’. His methods were a revolution in their time, but their time has passed. Ferguson, on the other hand, continues to win, win, win. Arsenal are not competing in the age of the Billionaires, the Chelsea-City nouveaux-riches, but despite banking their money on every turn they are increasingly being seen as the Weakest Link (but then, compare them with how Liverpool have fallen). and as Spurs rise and rise, I should be laughing at them as I go, but I’m finding myself feeling sorry for them. They are not the lottery-winners of your Chelseas and your Citys (and your, um, QPRs), and I do believe that in the long run acting sensibly with football money will pay off, but well, selling your best players to your rivals, that’s just silly. When games go badly on the pitch for Arsenal it is amplified; Wenger was accused of not taking the FA Cup seriously when they were knocked out by lowly opposition, and he angrily retorted that he has won that competition four times, arguing “name me one manager who has won it more” (the answer is Alex Ferguson, by the way, if not counting dead managers in which case there are three others). Last Sunday, Spurs beat Arsenal 2-1 in a big derby game, but if it had gone the other way, we’d have only been a point apart. At a similar time last year they beat us 5-2, and we were something like ten points ahead – and Arsenal ended up catching us, beating us to third place. That is the measure of Wenger, he can still pull it off. I’m sure he would prefer to leave on a high, finish his Arsenal career with one last big trophy, but if he doesn’t (and as devoutly Tottenham and anti-Arsenal as I am, the romantic in me kind of hopes that he does), I hope he isn’t forced out by the impatient salmon-sandwich bunch at the Emirates. If he should go, they’ll soon realize that their club will have lost their greatest figure since Herbert Chapman.

Drawn on a Chinese envelope in uni-ball sign um-151 (brown and red) with white gel pen.

wie vater, so sohn

February 24, 20132 Comments

We were eating lunch, and watching old Batman episodes on YouTube. My son turns to me and says, “can we go and ride our bikes somewhere and do some sketching?” Er, yeah of course! Don’t need to ask me twice. We didn’t ride far, and he drew batmobiles, and there was a chilly breeze so our hoods stayed on. I think this is what he thinks I do when I go out sketching, and he’s not wrong!

the boy bale

February 18, 2013February 18, 20132 Comments

He’s been brilliant lately, hasn’t he? This is Gareth Bale, Tottenham Hotspur’s great young Welsh star, drawn on another Chinese envelope. I have him up between the drawings of Messi and Ronaldo next to my desk, and he is probably in that company. His free kicks lately have been spectacular, Spurs have barely needed a striker with Bale moving about up front. He needs to do something about his barnet though. Young people, eh.

schoolboy’s own stuff

February 9, 20132 Comments

Paul Gascoigne, as I will always think of him. For those who read my blog and don’t know the names of every footballer I mention (and I mention a few), Paul Gascoigne – aka “Gazza” – was a player from the late 1980s to early 2000s, who had perhaps his greatest playing period while a young cheeky lad in the white shirts of Tottenham, scoring a bullet of a free-kick against Arsenal in the FA Cup Semi-Final in 1991. As an England player he was perhaps the most ‘gifted’ player of his generation, playing with unrivaled passion yet a tinge of tragedy, famously crying on the pitch after receiving a yellow card (undeservedly) in the 1990 World Cup semi-final against West Germany, meaning he would have missed the final, if England had been any good at penalties. He became a national hero and an international icon. His golden spell at Tottenham ended with an FA Cup medal in 1991, though he never finished that match, having been so hyped up that he attempted to kick a hole in the chest of one player (laughed off by the Gazza-loving ref) before seriously injuring himself trying to remove the legs of Nottingham Forest’s Cary Charles. That injury put him out for a year, after which he was transferred to Lazio, and so on and so on. You can look up his history in Wikipedia or something. While he had a few moments of wonder, such as his amazing goal against Scotland at Euro 96, Gazza never quite reached the heights we knew he was capable of. Injury, personal issues, drinking, (cf Chris Evans and Jimmy Five-Bellies), famously being left out of the 98 World Cup squad, he never could live up to the hype of being Gazza. For me and so many other Tottenham fans, that free kick against Arsenal was the defining moment (and for me, all the more fun as I watched the match with my Arsenal-supporting dad). At his best there was nobody in the country even close.
Gazza has had a lot of trouble in his life since his glory days, alcoholism, domestic troubles, mental health issues. And now last week he was admitted into a treatment centre in the US, having suffered another setback in his health. It’s unlikely he will ever be free of his demons, but I’ll always think of him like this, young, cheeky and brilliant.

arty party

January 28, 2013January 28, 20131 Comment

Last Friday, at the end of a ridiculously busy week, I went over to the Davis Art Center (helpfully located a few minutes from my house) for their latest “Arty Party”, organized by Shelly Gilbride and Ariana Rundqvist. It’s the second one, and there will be more so check out the Davis Art Center’s website (http://www.davisartcenter.org) for details. I sat down and started sketching people (something I enjoy more and more), starting with this couple Alex and Jon Bieda. While I sketched, well-known Davis artist Heidi Bekebrede, who was also sat at the table, sang the “Davis song”, a song about Davis which I think anyone who has lived here will certainly get (you can see a video of the song here on Youtube). Very cool to have it sung in person by its singer. I was going to sketch more people, but they all started drifting off, and Friday night was catching up with me, so I spent the rest of the evening talking urban sketching, Boal and art projects.

friday knight

January 5, 20132 Comments

After a very busy first few days of 2013 (with busier days to come), I decided to pop downtown to check out some comics at Bizarro World and pop into De Vere’s on E Street for a couple of beers. It was a busy night as usual, but I settled into a comfy couch in the little area with all the books and games and read Frank Miller’s ‘Batman: Year One’, which I had heard was good (and it really is). We’re very Batman in our family right now, my living room floor is a scattered mess of Batman toys. Inspired, I did a bit of pub sketching too – I have previously only sketched the bar area so wanted to catch a bit more of this pub. Going for some depth in this one, tricky angle but I like how it turned out. It was pretty busy – there was a group of about ten young folks sat around a tiny table to my left playing some sort of game with what looked like tarot cards. Other similarly-sized groups were playing Jenga or other pub games. I did try a bit of people sketching, before getting back to my Batman.

the way we used to be

November 29, 2012November 30, 20124 Comments

While I’ll be posting the remaining set of NaNoDrawMo pieces altogether shortly, I thought you might like to see #50, the final one. It’s a self-portrait, although admittedly a few years have passed between the photo being taken and the drawing being drawn. I have had a haircut since then, and wear glasses, and I’m sure those dungarees don’t fit any more. No this is me aged about three, demonstrating why I keep my hair short (so as not to look like a diagram of the Atlantic Summer Hurricane Season). Hair is a bright red, eyes a bright blue, cheeks a bright pink; nothing’s changed there! I’m still as sweet. I still remember this face though, having to stand on the chair to see it in the mirror. This face makes me think of the Mr.Men theme music, by far my favourite show when I was a little one. Drawn in uniball signo um-151 pen (two sizes, 0.28 and 0.38) in a big Moleskine.

yo-ho-ho!

November 12, 20122 Comments

Yarrr! Or is it Arrr? I never did learn to speak Pirate. I did get a big dose of Pirate while in Portland though, and what fun it was. On the Sunday evening I attended ‘Dr.Sketchy’s Anti-Art School‘, the Portland branch of the national Dr.Sketchy’s thing that is popping up all over the country. I had never been to a figure drawing meet before, and this one was a lot of fun, featuring Portland’s ‘premier pirate group’, PDXYAR. It was so much fun! The pirates really were very elaborately dressed (and just as elaborately undressed) and stood in a variety of poses lasting between two and twenty minutes each – not an easy task, but one they performed incredibly well.

As I say, I had a blast. It was so liberating to mess around with quick figure drawing, just focusing on the gestures as much as possible. The pirates had so much personality, and a decent array of weaponry.

I tried a few sketches on the pad of grey paper I had picked up at Muse art shop on Hawthorne. It was different; I think it might be more effective for pastel work, but I’m having fun with it.

And I even won a prize! A PDXYAR beerglass (with a beer in it) and rum shot glass. I shall treasure them. I guess I’ll have to get me some rum. I chatted to some of the pirates afterwards, a great bunch of lads and lasses (one was even from north Davis!), and I became convinced I wanted to be a pirate too. I went home to the hotel with my head lost in thoughts of sailing the seven seas, parrots on my shoulder, avasting ye landlubbers, cutlasses swashing buckles and so on. I do have a pirate-like name, Captain Scully, yar. Well ok, maybe I won’t make it as a pirate, but next time I’m in Portland I’ll certainly try to sketch them again, I dare say with a bottle of rum. Yar!!!

You can check out PDXYAR at http://pdxyar.org. Yar! If you’re in Portland, try to catch them at the Swashbuckler’s Ball on November 17. Yar! You can see other drawings done by my fellow sketchers that night at the Dr.Sketchy’s/PDXYAR Facebook event page.

meet the portlands

November 8, 2012November 8, 201260 Comments

One of the reasons I wanted to go back to Portland was to sketch with the Portland Urban Sketchers, partly because I have at least met several of them before, and partly because I love their work on USk PDX. We met at Floyd’s Coffee in Old Town, and I got a breakfast burrito and sketched People. I traditionally only sketch People when those People are also Sketchers – it’s like it’s ‘alright’. Still, I need the practise, and I’ve been doing a lot more of it lately. Anyway, it was good to catch up with some familiar faces – Linda, Alanna, Kalina, Vicky, Pascale – and meet some more, such as Greg (who I actually drew in Lisbon but never met), Deb, Andrea, Marta, Marco, Cassie, Angelika, Gary (hope I’ve not missed anyone out!) – and of course, to watch them sketch. One thing I know about myself is that I don’t tend to sketch quite as much when I am talking, but when I meet other sketchers I do love to talk. About pens, mostly. And Magneto.

After Floyd’s I took a brief interlude to sketch in the rain (see the sketch at the bottom, drawn by Skidmore Fountain in very wet conditions), before rejoining the group at Old Town Pizza, an interesting old place full of things to look at at draw. It was a fun afternoon with lots of conversation, and I am glad to have gone. A shame we couldn’t have all sketched outside, but the rain really was pouring, and it was nice and friendly inside.

Here’s to the next time!

widescreen e-street

October 23, 2012October 23, 20122 Comments

On Sunday, about seventeen sketchers of Davis (and surrounding areas) got together again for another urban sketch crawl, this time downtown at the E St Plaza. I must admit I didn’t do quite so much ‘crawling’ this time, and spent most of the day in the same spot, sketching people in the morning (see below) and spending over a couple of hours in the afternoon stood up drawing the above panorama, a two-page spread in my Moleskine. You can see a larger version on my Flickr site, and below is a detail. This was drawn in uni-ball signo um-151 pen.

I wanted to sketch the sketchers, needing to practise some people drawing. Amazingly I was able to get a quick sketch of my four-year-old son, when he stood still for a few minutes to draw a rocketship (mostly it was all about the sprinting about). On the right is Syd, another of the sketchers.

And here are two more sketchers, Emily and Scott.

Next Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl will be in November, date to be announced soon…