Tag: pipes

formed a band, we formed a band, look at us, we formed a band

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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.

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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.

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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.  

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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.

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Just four more to go… today’s the last day…

the red lion

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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.

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More to come…

ceci n’est pas une pipe

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More old pipes for the NaNoDrawMo project. These incredible old pipes and tanks are outside the music building on campus (or rather, the one next to the music building, called ‘Temporary Building 159’). I think it’s going to be demolished or redeveloped, so I’ve meant to sketch these rusty pipes for a long time.  

Below, a very useful pipe outside Chemistry, and next to it, three rusty pipes which just stick out of the ground doing I’m not sure what. This is a very metal pipe month. These are exercises in observation though.

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enter the dragon

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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

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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.nanodrawmo 30

is it a bird? is it a plane? no, it’s…a pipe

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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.  

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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.

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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.

on a steel horse i ride

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Continuing the hydrants, gauges and pipes theme – I will fill an entire sketchbook with these, by the way – for NaNoDrawMo, some of those big big pipes you see all over the place in Davis. They remind me of animals, some elephants, others, horses, others rhinos. Or metal camels. nanodrawmo 9

I feel like a zoologist, but for metal pipes. All of them go into the ground and lead somewhere else. A map of the world by its pipes only would be an interesting map, rather like a drawing of a person only by their veins and arteries.

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we must not look at goblin men

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Expect to see a lot more fire hydrants, sprinkler gauges, gas pipes and other important functional metal poles that stick out of the ground on this site for the next month. I’ve decided to take up the challenge of “NaNoDrawMo“, which like its more famous father NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is an offshoot for drawing only. The task is 50 drawings in one month, November. I decided that it might be nice to theme my drawings for this project, and sketch only things in my hydrants/gas pipes/etc category. Here are the first eight, all from UC Davis.

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I particularly like #3, an unusual one, rather like the White Worm poking its way out of the ground. Do you remember that film, Lair of the White Worm? Hugh Grant swashing some buckle, Peter Capaldi before he learnt to swear, Catherine Oxenburg being all Countryfile, plus of course Amanda Donohoe slinking about; naturally my teenage self loved it. Now I draw fire hydrants.

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As I’ve remarked before, they remind me of little gnomes, or dwarves, or goblins, with their funny coloured hats. Or droids. The hydrants on campus tend to be white with blue trim. It’s likely that I’ll draw many which look identical, but I think they all have character. Well, most of them. Well, some of them. Maybe.

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And then there are these two fellows, in red. Up Periscope on the left looks like a character from Button Moon, while on the right that is I think a Sprinkler Gauge. Actually, I have no idea whatsoever. Sprinkler Gauge? They may not even exist. I just guessed at the name. Either way, it’s behind the library. Many more to draw yet – and I’m planning on filling a whole book, a small Cachet watercolour book, which rips my nibs up but loves paint. NaNoDrawMo? November is already looking that much shorter.

and the mechanical wonder

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3rd st gas/water pipes

I’m a little obsessed with these pipes I see outside buildings. I think they’re for water, or perhaps gas, or perhaps both. I’m not a plumber, nor a gas-man. They could be filled with Dr.Pepper for all I know. I like how they look, so I sat in the shade outside Ace Houseware and drew them.

It reminds me a little bit of the game ‘Mouse-Trap’. There’s probably a little cage and a tiny man diving into a bathtub right above this. I wonder if the people that put these together chuckled to themselves with the same thought.

ordinary people that are like you and me

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august 2010 in davisfire hydrant

Back in Davis… Actually these were drawn straight after Portland, but just before Monterey, but I’m getting round to scanning my drawings. Quite the backlog built up…

You may have noticed, I have a thing for fire hydrants. I may even put together a special compendium (now don’t be silly). Most people ignore them. But as a Brit kid who read Richard Scarry and other such American picture-books, fire hydrants have always seemed exciting and exotic. Well, ‘exciting’ makes me sound like a trainspotter (I prefer drainspotting), but I still love seeing them dotted about towns and cities. Did you know (and I’m not talking to Americans, who obviously do know) that you can’t park your car in front of one? The fire department could have it removed. I like their shape too – some appear to be wearing hard-hats, some (like the one below, at UC Davis) look like those stocks they used to put crooks in back in ‘the old days’ to have tomatoes and abuse hurled at them. Now they just get parts on celebrity reality shows.

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The other sketch above is of gas pipes, sticking out the back of a building on 2nd Street. It was in Portland where we (the European sketchers) were talking about how cool they looked, and Gerard Michel drew an excellent picture of some. I was eager to sketch them in Davis (having done so before, a good while ago). I think this all falls into ‘everyday objects we take for granted’, but if you’re illustrating your city, you can’t miss them out.