Tag: sepia

high tide, mid-afternoon

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highgate high street

A second in a possible trilogy of Highgate drawings. This is the top of Highgate Hill, that’s the little village store there. Old brick is good. A world away from here, but only just, you know, over there.

I might not join the global sketchcrawl tomorrow. I need to; I haven’t been drawing much lately, and I might be out of the groove, or just taking a rest. Been busy. You always wonder if one day it’ll all just stop, that you’ll not pick up a pen and draw things, that the sketchbook will end up being a collection of blank, unfillable pages. If this habit is just that, a selfish frivolity. You always wonder, after some non-drawing days, if that’s actually today.

Mauer im Kopf.

to view a voiceless ghost

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pond square, highgate

They say Pond Square is haunted. Who are they? Well, lots of people and ‘ghosts of london’ books, but not the estate agents I imagine. It’s possibly haunted by a pond, but I have never seen it (there hasn’t been a pond here for more than a century and a half). I love this little nook of old Highgate village. I used to walk through here in the wee small hours on the way home after getting off the late bus up the hill from Camden Town (with a beer-sopping bag of chips and pepsi max). Give me Highgate and its Hill any day.

Copic multiliner and watercolour.

and the band begins to play

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More sketches from San Francisco. I trotted into Washington Square, at the heart of North Beach, where nearby there were many bars and cafes, and all around me there were green-t-shirted revellers galloping (for want of a better word) from pub to pub in honour of St. Patrick’s Day. I sat and drew the church of Saints Peter and Paul. 

washington square

I saw an unpleasant sight. One of the gallopers in green, a rather plump lady, had some embarassing sweatmarks on her shirt. Not just coming from under the armpits, but around the whole bra area. A hoop of dark sweat around a lurid green t-shirt. It was a pretty cold day, I might add. I recomposed, and walked down a street where some interesting jazz or whatever (cool old men with trumpets and a big double bass, and an oboe and stuff) wafted out of an old looking pub, the Savoy Tivoli. savoy tivoli jazz bandIt was pretty cool, so I went in and got a drink and attempted to capture the scene, failing spectacularly; however, I was trying different pens and a different style, and I don’t normally draw musicians, so funny enough I quite like the results, unmannered though they are. 

There weren’t as many St.Patrick’s drinkers in there, but plenty more everywhere else. America really goes mad for it, more so even than in Irish north London which is my background. It’s ironic; years ago, St.Patrick’s day was the one day in Ireland when pubs were closed (presumably, people go out drinking because they think that’s all the Irish do or something). It’s funny how in America, people get very sensitive on tv and in advertising with the word ‘Christmas’, or even ‘Easter’, yet nobody bats an eyelid at exclamations celebrating the religious day of a famous saint. And all this ‘luck of the Irish’ stuff you see everywhere? I don’t get it, over the years the Irish have been one of the unluckiest peoples in history (living next to the English didn’t help much); possibly all of the four-leaf clovers plastered everywhere means that people don’t realise it’s the three-leafed shamrock that symbolises Ireland. And another irony: St.Patrick’s colour was actually blue.

I did my bit though; got myself a nice big green margarita, shortly after sketching my last urban scene of the day, a cable-car waiting on California St. Back to my typical old way of sketching. More to come.

a cable car on california

under the brown fog of a winter dawn

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Bit of a misnomer that title, this being actually a sunny lunchtime sketch (and being about Davis and not London), but it’s from the Waste Land and it’s therefore cool, and sprang to mind when I was finished.
holding water

And it is winter, or at least what they call winter here. This is the tall UC Davis Water Tower (and environs).

Speaking of which, today is Pancake Day, but this year I didn’t make any pancakes. My little plastic lemon squeezer thing (yes, just like the old jif lemons but not called as such here) is out of date, by a month (bit stupid, I bought it for last year’s pancakes and then it goes and expires in less than a year, it’s like when you buy mince pies that end up expiring on December 24th, yes you know what I’m talking about, marks and spencer). It put me off.

Also posted at urban sketchers. That extraordinary site is growing and growing…

president barack obama

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president obama

Ladies and Gentlemen, the 44th President of the United States, new leader of the Free World, Barack Obama. President Obama. No more George W Bush. Did you hear that? NO MORE GEORGE W BUSH!! Off you pop. No more Cheney. But thanks, by the way, thanks for the wonderful state you’ve left the world and the country in. Not your problem, leave it for the next guy.  

Finally, someone intelligent running America. Though of course, he had to take his oath of inauguration twice, because he kind of fluffed it up the first time. Was I the only one who thought, when he paused right after the words “I will execute”, that he was about to slip up and say… “George W Bush”?

sketchcrawl 21, santa rosa

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I wasn’t intending on doing the 21st sketchcrawl, but i managed to go out sketching in the afternoon while visiting in santa rosa, and did a few drawings around 4th street. A mini sketchcrawl. I also wanted to try out my new REI sketching stool. It was very comfy.
santa rosa
4th st, looking upFunny thing, but whenever I sketch in Santa Rosa I’m never that happy with the shading or the colours. I don’t know what it is. It is different there, very different from Davis. Different trees, different light, different air. More ‘pacific’. It is also the first place I ever went to in America. I did a couple of quick drawings in sepia, before going back to colour. The second one is of Snoopy; Charles Schultz lived in Santa Rosa, this was his town. All over town there are now these statue things of Snoopy. It’s a bit like when towns in Europe used to have those those statuesque cows everywhere, all painted differently. I remember Zurich and Berlin also have bears.

snoopyAfter drawing Snoopy, I walked down to Traverso’s, next to the Transit Mall. It is an Italian deli place, full of excellent cheeses and wines and biscotti and stuff. I remember a while ago I spoke to the guy who works there, maybe traverso himself, and spoke football. Calcio. He tld me all his family support Roma, but he supports Lazio. Or it may have been the other way round. Anyway, I did overhear some talk about Beckham playing for AC Milan while in there sampling cheese. I like Traverso’s. Not massively happy with the drawing though.

I finished off by supping a red top beer at the 3rd St Aleworks. Speaking of red tops, a guy and his girlfriend sat down next to me, and he took off his jacket to “show his colours”, revealing an Ars*nal shirt, complete with Fabr*gas on the back. I had to roll my eyes. Dear oh dear.

Anyway, so this was my mini-sketchcrawl. Next one (#22) is in April, so I hear… 
traverso's

where other broken people go

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Still not finished with these sketches from London! A few weeks ago, I went out early on the Saturday morning before Christmas with my nephew anthony for a sketchcrawl around the narrow and interesting streets of Soho. It was perfect sketching weather, not too cold; did I mention that it never rained the entire time I was back in London? The entire time? In December?

in the middle of soho square

It’s true. Back when I visited in Summer, it rained on every single day. I was actually preparing for rain-soaked sketching. “On a rainy night in Soho,” that might have been the title. It wasn’t even cold. So we began in Soho Square, and I did the picture above. Weekend before Christmas, steps away from the busiest shopping street in Britain, and it was calm, not busy. I grew to love Soho years ago, I learnt all its alleys and short cuts, appreciated all its quirks. In the mid-nineties, the post-club 4am stop was Bar Italia, on Frith Street (it was Italians who brought me there), the only time I ever drank a cappucinno (I am not a coffee drinker), and it hasn’t changed. Pulp sang a song about it once. There it is below, sketched as we sat in Caffe Nero (I always thought it said Caffe Nerd) opposite having soup (I know, I should have gone to Bar Italia rather than a chain cafe, but I wanted to draw the cool place; besides, going there in daylight hours without the echo of heavy music still ringing in my ears just seemed kinda wrong).
bar italia

That clock is wrong by the way. And John Logie Baird used to live there. He probably couldn’t hear the telly for all the noise outside.

Part 2 to come…