do the maths

September 19, 20155 Comments

This is my – oh hang on, wait a minute. Today is “International Talk Like A Pirate Day”. Right, I’ll start again.

Yarr, this be the ol’ Mathematical Sciences Buildin’, yaaarrr, this be where I be workin’ each day. Click on the ol’ picture to see it bigger, yarr, or be usin’ a telescope, me old shipmate. So aye, yarr, ye lily-livered-landlubbers, I be drawin’ this oh I can’t keep this up. Talking like a pirate is not easy you know. When I went to the Swashbuckler’s Ball a couple of yarrs ago (did you see what I did there? Did you see that?) someone said I did a really good pirate voice, but I wasn’t doing one, I be just talkin’ normally. Anyway, if for some reason you were unable to translate my piratespeak (and if you weren’t, shame on you. Like the old saying goes, “fail to translate my piratespeak once, shame on me. Fail to translate my piratespeak twice, er, er, I won’t get fooled again.”) Ok, where was I? Ok, so, this is the building where I work. It’s called the Mathematical Sciences Building, or “Math” Sciences Building, as some people call it. Or “Maths Sciences Building” as I sometimes call it. Ok so for those who don’t know, in America they say “Math” but in Britain we say “Maths”. We also say “Mathematics”, and so do Americans, and let me tell you they don’t like it when pretend to assume they say “Mathematic”. They definitely don’t say “Mathematic”. “Mathsematic” is right out, don’t ever say that. Anyway…this is where I work, it was built almost ten years ago and I’ve worked there for most of that time. It’s a nice building, though the elevators are very slow. I drew this to use for work (I like to have a few sketches of the building to use for various things) and I will do a colour version to, but I wanted to highlight our brand new sign which was installed a month or so ago. On either side is a different symbol, one for Mathematics and one for Statistics. It’s been years in the making so it’s very exciting. Many UC Davis buildings have been getting modern new signs, as part of the campus branding process, which has been (for me) very exciting to watch develop over the past decade. So anyway, I haven’t drawn the MSB (that’s what I really call it) for a few years so here we are.

this is ink land

September 13, 201510 Comments

These are my pens. These are not all of my pens. These are some of my pens. I like the Uni-Ball Signo UM-151 pen, and I order them from Jetpens. The one I use the most is on the left, the brown-black version. I go through a lot of these. They don’t run with a watercolour wash (unlike the black one, which does). The coloured ones are fun to have too. For thsoe who don’t know I colour in using watercolour paints. There are a couple of other pens in this picture, one is the Pigma Graphic (a thick-lined version of the Pigma Micron), the white gel Uni-ball Signo (this has a very prominent white gel that shows up on even very dark surfaces, unlike a lot of white gel pens), and the black one is the Pentel 04 which is not quite as nice as the Uni-Ball Signo UM-151 but is still pretty good. Oh, and there’s my trusty H2 pencil. Tools of the trade. Hey if you are interested in what materials I generally use when sketching, I have recently updated my long-in-need-of-updating Materials page. Hope you like it!

the plastic people of the universe

September 8, 201512 Comments

As you may have gathered I like to draw my son’s toys, especially his Lego, but many of his other things too. This is all in a book, a Stillman and Birn Alpha book, and is primarily as a keepsake for the future. When he’s grown up, he’ll be able to look through these and remember his toys, and he’ll probably say “Dad, can I borrow those back now please, Dad why do you have an entire basement full of Lego, Dad you’ve been drawing Lego continuously without sleep for twelve years ” and so on. Well, here are some more.

ABOVE: Ok…we have Ka-Pow (I think), Ultron, Nevula, Morro, Wolverine, Jay the Blue Ninja, Lavel, Sensei Wu, Falcon, a Nindroid, Lloyd the Green Ninja, Wonder Woman, Star-Lord, the Flash, a Sormtrooper, Ant-Man (Scott Lang), Luke Skywalker, Captain america (right there two of my favourite heroes), Skylor the Orange Ninja (but she’s yellow, right? Mustard Yellow at least but my son insists she ‘s the Orange Ninja), Krusty the Klown (that’s mine!), Red Skull, Cyclops and the Emperor. Phew!

ABOVE: So…Kai the Red Ninja in his Airjitsu outfit, Scralet Witch, Han Solo, Taskmaster, Catwoman, Imperial Guard, Iron Man Mark 6, er…the king of the Lion tribe in Chima…Batman, one of the Chima Phoenix tribe, Cole the Black Ninja, Zane the White Ninja (actually maybe the Titanium Ninja by this point), Pepper Potts, Tony Stark, Lasha, Superman, Miles Morales Spider-Man, Master Chen, Wyldstyle, Deadpool, Clone pilot, Storm, Nova Officer.

ABOVE: Finally…Yellowjacket, a Chima lion, a knight, a Sandtrooper, Aquaman, Lloyd (Ninjago Season 5), Kai (Ninjago Season 1), an Ogre, Magneto (white gloves era, probably when headmaster of the Xavier School), a Skeleton, Modok, a Battle Droid, Nya as the Water Ninja, an X-Wing pilot, a Season 5 Ninjago Ghost, Rocket Raccoon, Thor, Lex Luthor, a Knight, a Chitauri and…snow-suit Batman. Because what makes more sense than Batman wearing white and light grey.

Have you seen the Lego movie? It’s brilliant, it’s awesome, and I love that guy at the end, I presume he is the hero, the dad character who has that big Lego city. He’s living the dream. We do between us now have a lot of Lego, so when I say I am drawing his Lego, I really mean “and mine too”. But right now, Lego mini-figures are the number one play-thing. We get the big sets, but really it’s all about the figures that come with them more than the big vehicles. Right now, Ninjago and Chima rule the roost. Marvel, DC and Star Wars get in there but I don’t let him mix them up (just to wind me up, he puts Venom’s face into Taskmaster’s hood). Now I have drawn a bunch before, but I felt it was time to draw some more. And then some more, and then some more because I just can’t stop. I can’t Lego of the pen (really Pete, really???). Of course I should have drawn them as the majority really are, ie all taken apart and scattered across the floor, but I’m a puritanical President Business wannabe aren’t I, so I drew them as nature intended. Or at least as best I could gather them up. And there are loads more. Let me tell you something though – this took AGES. Absolutely ages. I’m not kidding. Half the time was spent looking through all the Lego for the right figures! Matching up the ones that were in pieces, trying to make sure there was a fair amount of female representation (not easy in Lego-world) (and I’ve noticed that female figures all have these little curves painted into their midfriffs). Finding the right weapons (I’m sure I got a few wrong, my son’ll be the first to tell me). Drawing them all one by one, and then colouring them in with watercolour, oh man that was a long process, I never want to do this again. I will of course, when there are more to add to the “draw-all-my-son’s-things” log. But it was hard work my friend, hard work.

chair today, gone tomorrow

September 5, 20151 Comment

One of our long-term and much beloved professors retired recently, and so has been relocating from his office. Professor Samaniego had a few really old and interesting chairs, sat on by many students over the decades, which I have been talking about sketching for years, and now they are finally leaving I had one last chance to draw this one, which is probably my favourite. It’s an old seat from a theatre, a very posh theatre too by the look of it. It has the letters “GR” cast in iron on the decoration, and beneath the seat is a rack specially for storing top hats. I wonder what performances this chair witnessed over the years. With the wooden slats beneath it, it looks like it is a chair on skis. I didn’t have room for it in my office, unfortunately, so it will be living with my boss. Au revoir, nice old chair!

on a street

September 3, 2015September 3, 20152 Comments

This is on A Street, in Davis. Sorry, not ‘a street’, but “A” Street. It’s named after the letter “A”, in recognition of all the Amazing words A has given us, like “Aardvark”, “Apple”, “A”, “An”, “And”, “Abba”, all the A words. I sketched this at lunchtime today, the weather was ever so slightly cooler and more bearable, and I didn’t want to eat food. If I had been hungry this might have made me hungrier, for this is on the corner of A Street and Rice Lane. Rice Lane, of course, named after Rice, the food, in recognition of all the Amazing foods rice has given us, like “Rice Krispies”, “Rice Pudding”, “Rice”, “Things with Rice”, all the Rice foods. This is on the border of the UC Davis campus, where the smokers are banished now that the campus is 100% smoke-free. They come here and sit on the curb outside peoples’ houses. There’s one right across the street there. That curb was always red, it hasn’t been especially painted for the smokers, the ‘shame step’. You don’t see many smokers here in Davis, though, not like in London. Now I have sketched this very spot before back in March 2008; see below. Apart from the tree in the foreground (there’s a smoker hiding behind it), spot the difference.

every. thing. awesome.

August 28, 2015August 30, 20154 Comments

If you’ve been following any of my posts lately you may have seen that we like a bit of Lego, chez Scully. Last weekend we wet to Legoland, where everything actually is awesome. It was our second trip to Legoland California (and we went to Legoland Windsor last year too), and you might think that, well Pete loves sketching, he loves Lego, he loves sketching Lego, perfect yes? Well this was the only sketch I did, I was having too much Lego fun! It’s a great place for a seven year old (I’m not seven by the way, I’m pushing forty). We stayed a night at the Legoland Hotel, in a knight-themed room, and spent a lot of money in the Big Shop. What was nice about this trip was we spent the afternoons either at the hotel pool or at the really fun Chima water-park. Legoland is small enough that you can fit a lot in all in the morning, and it wasn’t particularly crowded, which was a surprise for the summertime. Last year at Windsor we waited almost an hour and a half just to get in! Here in Carlsbad there were very few long lines for rides (unlike at Disneyland), and we could just go back to the hotel for a rest if we wanted. The Star Wars section is better this year, with a huge Death Star and a bit where my son and I built little spaceships. Yes, everything was awesome. We will be back.

those magnificent lego men and their flying machines

August 28, 20157 Comments

I hope you like Lego, because you’re just going to keep seeing more of it on this sketchblog. Denmark’s Greatest Invention. Occasional bane of my bare feet on the carpet. I’ve been busy Lego-sketching, especially mini-figures, so many mini-figures. You’ll get to see those once I’ve coloured them in. That won’t take too long. In the past week I have also been to Legoland, where you might imagine I did a lot of sketching. You might imagine it would be the perfect sketch-paradise for someone like me. Well in fact I only managed one sketch because Legoland is so much fun! More on that another time. This was done before the trip, and is one of my son’s newer Lego sets, the Ninjago Season 5 ‘Ronin REX’. You have no idea the anxious wait for the season 5 Ninjago stuff to come out (my son’s anxious wait, not mine, but yes mine too). It was agonizing, and all the more so because when I had been in England in June I had seen all of these and didn’t buy any to bring home, figuring they would probably be out in the US already (same reason I am still new-Tottenham-shirt-less). Two months he waited, saving his money (I say his money, I gave it to him). In the meantime the show came out, and then finally the toys were in the shops. He really wanted this particular set, which has one of those Airjitzu things actually built into it, and he even entered a competition to win it, just in case (I told him that if he does win, we’ll keep the second one in its box and sell it in a few years time for three times the original price). This is the flying vehicle of the Han-Solo-esque scoundrel character Ronin, introduced in season 5, and I must say that the shape of the ship (and the colour scheme of Ronin) really reminds me of Slave 1, Boba Fett’s ship. I drew this in the book of my son’s things, which is becoming ever more Lego-heavy. As it should!

you terrestrial gastropod molluscs and your guns

August 21, 2015August 21, 20151 Comment

This is another of my son’s toys. It is called a Slug-Terra Blaster, or something like that. It is what they use in the TV show “Slug-Terra”, which he really likes. It’s actually not a bad cartoon, but the premise of it is that they are in some sort of underground world where slugs are not only intrinsic to the society somehow but are used as weapons. Well, they fight on behalf of their owners, a bit like Pokemon I suppose, I don’t know. All the slugs have different abilities, some get really close to their owners, and then they get blasted out of these things, and then it’s all zap, pow and ka-blam. Oh there are evil slugs too. Now these slugs are all different colours and have names, but this isn’t a society of slugs, the people are all either humans (I think), trolls (maybe), or weird mole-folk (I really have no idea). One of those has a comedy Mediterranean accent. Or are the evil slugs zombies? Or wraiths? I don’t actually pay much attention. So you can imagine my son’s excitement when we spotted these at Toys R Us (I always wonder how that store got its name, did they got through a lot of other stupid combinations before settling on that one, “Toys Am We” “Us Is Toys”, “Toys Er America”, “Help”) (I used to call it “Toys Ya Us” because that backwards R looks like a Russian “Ya” (я). This was during the Cold War as well so I’m surprised people didn’t think it was some sort of Russian spy agency, I mean it all fits in the name…Cold War conspiracy theory at slightly higher prices than other stores, I like it!). So, this doesn’t works like a toy gun with a trigger (we’re not really into the toy gun thing, all the Nerf rubbish. Fingers and saying “pew! pew! pew! is fine though). Instead, it has a spring mechanism inside, you pull back the handle, let go and the little slug comes out. He has another blue one which looks cooler than this but I didn’t draw it, so you’ll have to imagine how cool it is (or watch the show! If you watch the show maybe you can help explain it to me).

where the streets have a slightly different name

August 19, 2015August 19, 20159 Comments

This is the midtown Sacramento pub called ‘Streets’. Click on the image to see it in closer detail. This pub was formerly known as the ‘Streets of London’, but they decided to drop the ‘of London’ part presumably in an effort to appear more inclusive to the other metropolitan centers of the UK and indeed the more rural counties. They could have gone further and called it ‘Lanes’ or ‘Highways and Byways’. They have an actual National Express Coach-stop sign outside the pub, and still have a number of British-themed (specifically London-themed) objects in the pub, but not as much as they used to. When I first came here back in 2006 or whenever it was, they had football shirts and scarves hanging from the ceiling. Those are sadly long gone (and you know how much I love football shirts). Otherwise though the pub really hasn’t changed a lot. One TV ahead of me was showing the Giants baseball, another was showing French football (which these days just means ‘PSG and someone else’, you know how much I don’t like seeing PSG). It’s been a long time since I was in here last, but I have wanted to do a panorama sketch of its brick walls and cozy layout for ages. I hadn’t planned on it; we spent the morning in Arden Fair mall, mostly at the Lego store (and you know how much we love Lego). I then took the opportunity to go to midtown Sacramento, to look at all the goodies in the University Art store on J Street. I picked up a ‘Cathedrals of the World’ colouring-in book (and you know how much I love drawings of the Cathedrals of the World). I then wandered about looking for something new to sketch, but by now it was hot, very hot. Very very hot. I considered sketching the historic Governor’s Mansion (which I last drew in, um, 2007) but could not find the right angle, what with all the big trees in the way (stupid trees, providing shade from the oppressively hot sun and the air we breathe). Maybe I will come back in winter.

By this point, the searing heat was giving me a headache, and I had to cool off urgently. So I went back over to Big Brother Comics on J Street, bought the latest issue of ‘Thors’ (one of the very fun and inventive books from Marvel’s ongoing ‘Secret Wars’ event; the ‘Thors’ are like the cops of Battleworld, and this plays like a classic cop drama, but, you know, with more hammers and lightning), and popped into the Streets of London pub to cool off and read. Sorry, ‘Streets’. No more humming Ralph McTell. After finishing ‘Thors’, I thought, ah what the hell (sorry, what the ‘hel’, Thor joke) and started to sketch a panorama. I sketched quickly and drank my two beers slowly (one after the other, not slowly at the same time). It wasn’t particularly busy, but the staff were friendly and the atmosphere nice. At one point a large party of Sunday pubcrawlers came in, had a pint, and left. I remember this being a thing the last few times I have been at this pub. There are a bevvy of boozers in midtown now, and I imagine an afternoon pub-crawl with all your friends on a hot Sunday in mid-August would be quite a lot of fun, but you don’t get to spend long enough in any place to enjoy it before the fastest drinker in your crowd claps his hand loudly and orders you to move on (that’s what happened here). They do have these pedal-powered contraptions now that groups of people ride on, all pedaling, drinking water, being directed from pub to pub, while yelling ‘wooh’ and ‘yeah’. The pub returned to quiet Sunday afternoon peace very quickly, but I had to get the bus home to Davis. I finished off adding all the paint the next day. Another pub sketch checked off the list!

enter the bladecopter

August 14, 2015August 14, 20152 Comments

More Lego, drawn in the book of my son’s stuff. This is the Ninjago Blade-Copter (the what, i hear you ask?), a recent addition from the season before the most recent season of Ninjago. You have to live in this world. So, in season 4 of Ninjago, the ninjas travel to an island to take part in a martial arts tournament organized by the mysterious Chen (who normally runs a noodle shop), where the other participants are all masters of their own various elements (such as the element of ‘sound’). The tournament however turns out to be a cover for a more nefarious scheme (stealing the elemental powers of each ninja). It’s a solid season with lots of characters and makes a lot of fun references. As I drew this last night, ironically, probably the biggest influence of all came on the TV: Bruce Lee’s classic Enter the Dragon. I am a big fan of this movie, and can probably quote all the words if I have to. And do the facial expressions of the hapless guards. If you ever see, I will prove it. Just don’t ask me to do any of the kung fu moves, I’m a tad out of shape. In Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee fights in a tournament on an island organized by the mysterious ‘Han’, but the tournament turns out to be a cover for a more nefarious scheme (recruiting fighters to his drug and crime empire). There are a few more parallels (one of the Lego sets is called ‘Enter the Serpent’; the scene where Chen punishes everyone because certain people have been sneaking around the palace at night; the scene where Chen tries recruiting Jay while showing him his collection of weaponry from the past, just like when Han tries recruiting Mr Roper), and in a previous season the ninjas learn the style of ‘fighting without fighting’, a direct reference to Bruce Lee’s chat with the bully Parsons on the boat. Look, you have to live in this world, ok. Master Chen is a pretty silly and whimsical villain though, but Mr Han is a classic supervillain of the highest order. He has a classic supervillain face; he lives in a palace surrounded by utterly useless guards; he is missing a hand (he keeps the skeletal remains in a glass case) but has a series of dangerous attachments such as the one with four-knives (for added “snikt”). Truly, as Mr Williams says, he comes right out of a comic book.

I drew this using a black Pentel pen, which I swear didn’t used to run much with a wash, but actually runs all over the place. Back to Microns for black lines I think. I use the non-running brown uni-ball signo um-151 pen mostly these days (the black variety runs bad). It’s on the Stillman and Birn Alpha paper.