i’m only a droid, and not very knowledgable about such things

February 10, 2012February 10, 20127 Comments

Wow, you MUST think I’m obsessed with fire hydrants, right? Well I am alittle. I can spot differences and everything now though. But I’m no expert, I don’t even really know how they work (it’s basically a tap, right?), and I know the colours on the caps signify some sort of difference in water pressure or something, maybe, but I like to think they’re just fashion choices on the part of the hydrant itself, which is of course a little robot with thoughts of its own. The one on the top left, drawn on the sloping streets of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, is related to R2-D2, but probably more of a ‘Moopet’ version, with a graffiti tattoo and chains. Perhaps those pentagonal bolts are really restraining bolts, like the ones fitted by Jawas. These larger, fat hydrants are common in SF. The green-capped one on the left was on Union Street. I actually sat a little bit off the sidewalk to sketch it from the preferred angle, shielded by a parked car. At one point though a girl came up and asked if she could photograph me sketching. I forget how odd I look when I sketch, all hunched over and tangled up.

going rogue

February 9, 2012February 9, 20122 Comments

This is the Rogue alehouse in North Beach, San Francisco. I have been here before a few times, so stopped in for one of their delicious Rogue Red beers (they have a lot of different beers). Rogue are based in Oregon, and I did find the Rogue in Portland when I was there in 2010. This place was pretty busy; when I came in there were quite a few afternoon barcrawlers drinking copious amounts of Bud Light (seriously, when there is so much decent beer on tap, they drink Bud Light?) and following them down with shots of something or other (mouthwash, presumably). I started drawing, as I do, though I was sat at an awkward angle at the bar, and was right by where everyone was queueing for the bogs.

all creatures great and small

February 9, 2012February 9, 20124 Comments

Don’t be distracted by the scale of the sketches, these vehicles are polar opposites in size. But I don’t really need to tell you that. More from my sketching day around North Beach in San Francisco. I saw the small Smart Car perched on Union Street and given my recent batch of yellow vehicle drawings, I had to sketch it. It’s a little bit like an updated Guido from Cars (incidentally, have you noticed how the sterotyped Italian is still a mainstay of kids cartoons? Guido and Luigi in Cars, Cow Bella from Pajanimals, Bella Lasagne from the old series of Fireman Sam, Mr Carburettor from Rory the Racing Car, Mr Sabatini from Bob the Builder, that Crow from Dangermouse…). The one below was parked on Columbus, almost as a tourist attraction, so many people were stopping to photograph it. It was indeed a thing of beauty, long, sleek, open topped, classic. I had to stop and draw it – I checked the parking meter first though, to see how long I might have. Twenty minutes, good good, but I kept it small. Eventually the owners did come by, two fellows dressed in SF Giants gear (it was FanFest at the ballpark that day), and they were happy to let me keep drawing, in fact they were even letting passers by get into the car to take photos! I showed them some of my other drawings, and they told me I should go to Belmont, where apparently they paint the fire hydrants up like people. That’s a place I have to go to!

fly away peter, fly away paul

February 8, 2012February 8, 20123 Comments

Another one from last Saturday’s solo sketchcrawl around San Francisco. This is the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Washington Square, North Beach. You may have seen it in Dirty Harry briefly. Peter and Paul; I suppose if you’re going to name a church after saints, they’re the big guns really, and here you get two for one. North Beach is the Italian neighbourhood of San Francisco. It was a busy afternoon in Washington Square, lots of people about – there usually are, whenever I sketch down there. This time there was a large crowd of people in red dressed as pirates of some sort, out on some heavy drinking bar-crawling event of some sort. Never really seen the appeal of pirates, comedy or otherwise. Anyway, I enjoyed sketching this, with a uniball signo pen in my Stillman and Birn sketchbook.

san francisco, one morning in february

February 7, 2012February 8, 201214 Comments

First post in a few days, but I’ve got some drawing done… I went to San Francisco on Saturday for a whole day of sketching, because the weather was nice and it was nearly my birthday (in fact it’s today). The first thing I did after arriving at the Ferry Building was head straight up Telegraph Hill. Well no, the first thing I did was buy a walnut brownie, as I always do, but then I went uphill. I wanted to draw a big panorama. the problem is, unless you go up Coit Tower itself (and why would I do a sensible thing like that) the good views are mostly broken by trees. For the sketch of the Golden Gate Bridge above I had to stand on a wall besides quite a steep shrubby slope. But what a view! And no morning fog.

I did much the same for the second one, looking in the other direction. That’s the Bay Bridge, with the Ferry Building in front of it, and the financial district overshadowing it. These were drawn in my Stillman and Birn sketchbook, the one I got from the Lisbon Symposium, but only just started using. It was very nice too. Watercolouring will take a little getting used to after so long with the watercolour moleskine (you can’t lay it on quite as thick) but it’s pretty nice with the pens, so far. These were done with a micron 01. More SF sketches to come…

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…

if there’s a bright centre to the universe…

September 13, 2011September 15, 2011Leave a comment

Last weekend, we went on a family trip to the ballgame. It was both mine and my son’s first San Francisco Giants game, though my wife and her mom (big Giants fans) had been earlier in the season, when things had been going a little better for the Giants. This game however was crucial – playing the Arizona Diamondbacks, who were leading in the division, and being several games behind we really needed to win. But that didn’t matter – it was Star Wars day, and the Force would be with us!

Which side of the force was less clear. Stormtroopers escorted the umpires out, mascot Lou Seal dressed as a jedi and waved about a lightsabre, and the opening crawl on the big screen set the scene, hoping that the Giants would beat Arizona and ‘restore freedom to the galaxy’. I love Star Wars, so I loved all this. And maxibig-da-force – the first pitch to the Giants resulted in a home run straight away from Cody Ross, and the ballpark went wild. AT&T Park is a great place. Set right by San Francisco Bay, it’s one of the great stadia of the world. Behind the seat, in the ‘breezeway’ (I think I have my terminology correct, my reference is a Curious George book) are rows and rows of beverage stands and souvenir shops and beer and garlic fries and t-shirts and TVs showing the action.

"imperial troops have entered the base! imperial troops have ---"

My three year old son is a big baseball fan, though we’re on about the same page in our understanding of all the terms. It’s a simple enough game, someone throws the ball and you hit it and run, complicated by all the subtleties and statistics and terms. There’s a lot of standing around and not-much-happening, but to the baseball fan it’s tense stuff, and while there’s ample time to get up and walk around and get your garlic fries, you really don’t want to miss that three-run-homer or that spectacular catch. It’s typical to compare a big sport to the big sport you follow, but baseball is a completely different type of game to football (and I know little enough about cricket, though I kept calling the pitcher the ‘bowler’, and shouting ‘howzat!’ every time someone caught the ball). No comparison there may be to footy, but being a Giants fan is a lot like being a Spurs fan. Last year we were World Series champions/beating both Inter and AC Milan, this year we’re losing by baseball scores. It’s a frustrating life, made more so by success.

There’s my son Luke above left, and my brother in law Kris on the right, the biggest Giants fan I know. He in fact took me to my only other baseball game, at the Oakland A’s, back in 2002, the first time I came to America and the first time I tasted garlic fries. I wore a Spurs shirt that day, but here I wore a Giants top. I did however spot a guy in an Arsenal shirt (he stood out a bit); after the previous week’s 8-2 drubbing by Man United, baseball scores probably felt a little light to him. Hey, you can’t let an 8-2 Arsenal defeat go without comment, can you? (And after Spurs lost 5-1 to Man City, it was pretty much the only thing that could cheer me up!)

first page of moleskine #9 under way... top of the ninth, you might say

Decorating the breezeway walls were framed examples of old Giants kits. As a football kit fan I’m hugely excited by baseball jerseys, since they are so classic, and (usually) so unchanging. This one is from the early 60s, and the differences to today’s tops are very subtle. This aspect of the sport adds to its classic Americana feel. Baseball loves its heritage, and the Giants especially, with statues of its great players dotted around the area. Below is Willie McCovey, beside McCovey Cove, where many home runs do splash (it’s not like Henman Hill). I can’t pretend to know much about these guys, but I will say this – what an amazing view, with the Bay Bridge in the background, and baseball players really do look like lightsabre-wielding Jedi, don’t they?

The Force alas was not with us. The Arizona D-Backs (seriously, the fans sing that?) won the game, and will probably win the division. As Vader might say, “NOOOOOO!!!!!” (and don’t EVEN get me started there…) But we had a great day out, and Luke ran the bases after the game, and I got some nice sketching in, and it was a great family day out, so in a way we did win, from a certain point of view.

realm of the giants

June 30, 2011Leave a comment

Another drawing on Moleskine sketchbook paper with my lovely uni-ball signo um-151 pen. This is AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, current World Series champions. I didn’t go to a game, my wife did (and they won!), but she took photos for me to do some drawing from.

ladies first

May 20, 2011May 20, 2011Leave a comment

Another drawing of San Francisco’s Painted Ladies in Alamo Square (from a photo and previous sketch), this time with some paint speckled in the background. This drawing is available to buy on my Etsy store.

life is never dull, in your dreams

April 22, 2011April 21, 20112 Comments

I left the Mission district with ages to spare (BART being a lot quicker than I thought, for some reason) and hung out by the Embarcadero for a while, watching the sunlight fade, and sipping an Anchor Steam beer on the outside terrace of the Americana hotel. Proper San Francisco beer for the end of the day. I sketched the Fery Building, glowing in the evening sun, and as the lights went on on the Bay Bridge I sat by the water’s edge and used the white gel pen to capture it.

On the Amtrak train coming home, I read the comics I’d bought and flicked through the day’s sketches. there was time for one more; so I looked at my reflection in the window and sketched that.