sketchcrawl 20 (part 3)

October 29, 2008October 28, 20085 Comments

And so on to 24th Street, and to the more colourful latin-american part of town. I loved it down there and was itching to draw some spanish-language shopfront. I chose a barber-shop (yep, drawn barber-shops in SF before) which i could have simplified, but i did have lots of kids and adults wearing chivas etc football shirts looking over my shoulder exclaiming excitedly in spanish so I felt i should keep adding details. I enjoyed drawing this one. The one below, I finally got a powerline in there. Several other sketchcrawlers were at this intersection – one even spoke to me, and happened to be from England – and there were also two large cops on two large motorbikes hodden behind opposite corners, bursting out sirens screaming every time someone jumped a stop sign (presumably that was the reason, unless it was something more serious). Decided to colour this elsewhere, over a well-deserved fat tire in a little Irish bar called napper tandy’s, full of fairly well-watered and friendly Irish people. Decided on sepia in the end, give it a different flavour.

Sketchcrawl ended at Muddy’s, a cafe with pretty much nothing on the menu that I wanted (this is why I prefer these things to end at a pub, at least they have beer, but that’s just me being a Londoner; I don’t drink coffee, so all those different flavour beans mean nothing to me). There were a LOT of other sketchcrawlers there, sharing their sketchbooks – though I usually like this bit, I was a little intimidated. I did sit and swap books with a few people, all great work, some people just doing one or two pictures, others filling pages and pages with quality work. I was given some nice compliments. But I got too shy to go mingling, and slinked off for a very messy mission burrito, before heading off to catch the amtrak bus over the bridge, and the train back to Davis, tired and exhausted.

I really enjoyed this Sketchcrawl. They’re always different. I guess the next one is in January some time – we’ll see! Hope you enjoyed my little trip through the Mission District.

sketchcrawl 20 (part 2)

October 28, 2008October 27, 20082 Comments

Saturday’s sketchcrawl in SF’s Mission District continued; I drew the view down 22nd St looking towards that large insectoid alien invader tower thing. I do know what it is called, but it is funnier if I call it that. You may notice, there are no power lines in this picture, what was I thinking? Was I going to spend a day drawing in the Mission without sketching my beloved powerlines? Surely not. But I had a checklist: powerlines, victorian houses, spanish-language shopfronts, and sutro tower with a hill full of buildings. Otherwise I may as well just stay in Davis and draw trees. I got the drawing of a building with a tree in the foreground done, that’s an old chestnut for me, plus the purple pen outing and the view from the train, I am becoming predictable. Can I resist drawing a framed picture with a tree or lamp-post escaping the frame? No I can’t, and there it is above. Below, a grand old Victorian on Guerrero, the sort of place you would just love to live. I enjoy drawing these. I gave this picture a very green tint to it.

After this, I strolled down to 24th to look at murals and sketch some more. Part 3 coming tomorrow…

sketchcrawl 20 (part 1)

October 27, 2008October 27, 20082 Comments

Saturday October 25th was Worldwide Sketchcrawl #20; I journeyed down to San Francisco to join the group of about sixty sketchcrawlers in the Mission District (you know I love it there). This was my eighth participation in the Sketchcrawl, and my second in San Francisco (the others being Davis twice, Berkeley twice, Sacramento and London). For me, the sketchcrawl is another excuse to go out and draw, maybe try some new things, to see how much I can do in the time given, but more importantly to see how other sketchers work. The many different ways of interpreting the same scenes are inspirational. Plus I get to check out other people’s pens.

I got the early Amtrak from Davis; it was going to be a very sunny day, even in the city. As always, I got the moleskine out to draw the view from the train through the Valley as it crossed the Delta into the Bay. I noted the times I sketched, along with a lyric from whatever happened to be on the headphones at the time. I got off the 14 bus at Mission District and within a block trod in some dogpoo – not a good start. Thankfully I was able to clean it off easily. Having lived in France and Belgium, I am normally hyper-aware of dogpoo, but living in the US has thrown me off, still this was the first time in many years and was probably an omen for a good day (the last time I trod in dogpoo was on the way to my second date with my future wife). But enough of the social history of dogpoo (that is another blog entry entirely, perhaps on another blog), and back to the 20th worldwide sketchcrawl.

There were a lot of people with sketchbooks at Que Tal on Guerrero, the meeting point. I was pleased to see the cafe sold Barry’s tea, my favourite, but I just had a bagel and went out into the street to start the sketching along with everybody else. Sketchcrawl’s founder Enrico Casarosa was there, with copies of his new book the Venice Chronicles. I began with a building opposite, on the corner of Guerrero and 22nd. The sun was casting dramatic shadows. Oh look, there’s a tree in the foreground (for a change). A lot of sketchers were drawing people, while I’m usually fixated with architecture, but I did too, using the micron purple pen that crawls out of my pencil case every few months or so. I recognised some of the faces from previous crawls, but my natural shyness meant I just buried myself into my moleskine and got down to business. But the great thing about other sketchers is that they don’t mind being sketched, so you never have to pretend you’re not sketching them. It’s quite liberating.

Part 2 will come tomorrow; in the meantime check out everyone else’s SF ‘crawl posts at sketchcrawl.com.

let it B street

October 24, 2008October 24, 20082 Comments

After getting my new glasses earlier this week, I decided to spend ten minutes doing a very quick drawing. I kinda lost the ‘very-quick-drawing’ thing for a bit there, in favour of the ‘very-detailed-never-time-to-finish’ style of sketching, so it was nice to give myself ten minutes to do something quick. First thing I see. With a failing micron .03 pen too. This is the corner of B and 2nd (and no, there is no apostrophe in that bakers square sign). And it actually took eight minutes.

überlingen am bodensee

October 20, 2008October 20, 20085 Comments

Überlingen am Bodensee. I came here in 1996 to stay for a year, but liked it so much I stayed for nearly a month. That was a funny episode in my life. Whatever possessed me to up sticks and suddenly move to Germany? Where I knew nobody, with practically no money nor idea of what I was doing, going off to save the world I think it was. I’d always wanted to live in Germany. I had gone to work with mentally disabled children at the local Heimsonderschule, several miles out of town (on my one day off a week I’d hike or hitch into town, look around the record shop and the bookstore – I love German bookstores – then trudge back again). For one reason or other I decided it was the wrong move, though, and trudged back to England.

I no longer recall that much about Überlingen; I did revisit briefly in 1998 while on my five-week tour of Europe, and took the photo from which I drew this picture, but didn’t stay long. It also made headlines after two passenger planes collided ouside the town, a few years ago. I have been to Bodensee (or Lake Constance, on the Swiss/Austrian/German border) several times, first of all when I was 15, on a school work experience trip to Vorarlberg. “Schnupperlehre”, I think the experience was called.

I do remember hitching into town, though. The walk was pleasant enough, going past pear orchards and rolling sunflower meadows, but long; a lift would be nice. I often hitchhiked while strawberry picking in Denmark – pretty much everybody I knew there did, not just into town or back to the farm, but often across Europe. I was told one trick of hitchhiking, to stand nearby to where a car has broken down. They may just be waiting for the AA to show up, but you’re more likely to get offered a lift by some kind passing audi. When it’s raining, you’re happy for such advice, even if you feel a little guilty about it. But local people would always offer to give you a ride: the first evening I arrived in Überlingen, I was checking out the map at the station as the sky grew ever darker, when a family asked if I needed a lift to wherever I needed to go. Oh, no that’s ok, danke, ich gehe zu Fuss. “Nein, nein, es ist zu weit!” they insisted, laughing hearty German laughs (after discovering how far it was and how dark the countryside was at night, I bashfully agreed). They even invited me to dinner at their house the following week (I regret not going). It seems so long ago. The idea of hitchhiking anywhere now seems so mental to me, perhaps it’s living in America where, and I thank you media, hitchhiking equals certain death possibly involving machetes and being buried in the desert.

pissing down with rain on a boring wednesday

August 17, 20089 Comments

This week’s Illustration Friday theme is ‘detach‘. Here then is my entry: a picture of Burnt Oak tube station.

I think the reason is that, each time I go back home, I feel more and more detached from the place I grew up. How much further detached from it will I become; am I even really detached, or is it all just imaginary? This is Burnt Oak station. Second from last stop on the Northern Line. Not a particularly nice place to hang about of an evening, you might say (or daytime either). It’s on Watling Avenue (previously seen here). I’d come out of the station, look up the hill to see if my bus was coming, and if not, I’d walk home (only one bus stop away up Orange Hill). A favourite hang-out for dodgy kids with nothing to do.

And it rains there. It doesn’t rain here.

sunshine poured like wine

August 17, 20083 Comments

Was in Santa Rosa this weekend (weather much much cooler there, probably didn’t need to wear shorts); managed to slip away to do some sketchbook filling. This is Stanroy’s music center, it’s been there for a long time (thirty years or more). I remember coming here the first time I ever came to America, in 2002, and getting surprised at how much cheaper guitars were than in the UK.

Thankfully no children accidentally wandering into the picture (unless there was a kid inside having a clarinet lesson or something). I did the shadows darker than I’d meant to (because I normally undervalue them), but they were pretty much like this.

all on a misty morning

August 1, 2008August 1, 2008Leave a comment

SF trip, part 4: After a fairly good sleep, I got up on sunday morning and found the nearest place on Polk that sold enormously sticky custard-filled pastries, and came across a little shop called “You Say Tomato”, which specializes in British (and Irish) foods. And to my delight, they had a can of Lilt!

Yes, Lilt, the pineapple and grapefruit fizzy drink, you can’t get it over here and it’s the perfect sunday morning (when you think you might get a hangover) beverage. They had other stuff, Tizer, Irn-Bru, and I purposely didn’t take too much of a look around in case I was waylaid by loads of cadbury’s chocolates, but I saw a man carrying five or six cans of Heinz Baked Beans: pretty obvious he was British. I found an interesting corner and drew the picture above while drinking my Lilt, carefully removing all of the cars to give the impression that SF has more parking than it really does.

Unlike the day before, Sunday was pretty cool and very foggy, which was a welcome change. I got on the bus and was changing at fillmore, in the bit with all the cute little shops and cafes, when I saw this movie theatre below, and decided to draw that too, in extremely muted sepia tinted colours. And I never did get that hangover.

street of ink

June 29, 20082 Comments

Sleep-training the baby is not fun, especially if the baby stubbornly refuses to sleep. During that process, going in and checking on him every ten minutes (as per the book), I got the Copic pen out last night and drew lots of little lines, that eventually ended up looking a lot like Fleet Street in London (my favourite street); there’s the church of St. Dunstan in the West, there’s the Royal Courts of Justice, there are offices of newspapers past and present (well, not many present any more), there are the clocks I was watching closely.

shake, ache

June 14, 2008June 14, 20082 Comments

it was a nice shake though, chocolate and peanut butter. But I couldn’t walk it off.

Went to see Indiana Jones* this afternoon (note to self: wearing shorts and t-shirt in a freezing air-conditioned movie theatre is not necessarily a good idea), and then since I was downtown and it wasn’t as roasting as I’d expected, I decided to draw. I didn’t have my little stool, and I didn’t want to sit on the floor, and was feeling less than inspired by things to draw downtown that didn’t involve sitting in the sun or on the sidewalk. So I found a shady bench on E street and drew a completely uniniteresting sight. With cars! I never draw cars.

Lots of graduating people out today, with their folks.