that ol’ man river, he must know something

November 16, 2010November 16, 20105 Comments

On Saturday afternoon I went down to old town Sacramento, sketched me some fire hydrants, but that ain’t all I sketched. After meeting with the SF Bay Urban Sketchers, who had just been to the new Crocker Art Gallery, we all stood by the Sacramento River and sketched the big golden yellow Tower Bridge. I have sketched this before (a sketch which made an appearance on Fox 40 News of all places last year), but it was a while ago, and I came to sketch this one with memories of sketching a similar (though less yellow) bridge in Portland in the summer. This is the River City, and an old-time sailboat passed by as I sketched, the golden Tower Bridge’s mid-section rising and dropping as she passed.

We strolled through Old Sac sketching a little more. Despite all the grand old cowboy era buildings, I like this little theatre and did a small sketch, drawn to those long diagonals and the long shadows.

This is also railroad land, and the railroad museum is just around the corner from here. I was just here a couple of days before with my wife and toddler son, and I promised him I would come back and draw a bridge and a train. I had liked the look of this little yellow diesel engine, so here it is.

A nice break from the fire hydrants…

all the world’s a stage

May 27, 2010May 27, 20109 Comments

The Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center, at UC Davis, is a huge performing arts venue. It’s a pretty spectacular looking building, but I’ve not been inside to check out any performances. One day I will. It’s on the same square at the edge of campus as this building and this building.Years ago, when I did a degree in drama at Queen Mary in London, I took an enjoyable course in places of performance (taught by Dr. Schoch, who would call me ‘Scully’), studying theatre spaces through the centuries, how they allow audiences to relate to the plays or shows, the urban semiotics of the building and how it fits in with its community. Visited at Shakespeare’s Globe, looked at Greek theatres, explored East-End music-halls; it was interesting stuff. I was personally into theatres-in-the-round, and by extension football stadia – I subsequently wrote a piece about the old (and soon to be demolished) Wembley Stadium, but from what I remember it was a fairly tired and so-last-century piece of writing. In my defence, it was the last century at the time, and I probably was tired. I did learn a lot though, reading Marvin Carlson and co, and in fact I still think of what that course taught me when I’m out sketching urban buildings here and there, because I’m always thinking about how each building is a performace unto itself, speaking to and defining its environment, and how each sketch puts that building or that scene into centre stage. Just in case you’re wondering about what goes through my head when deciding how to compose a picture.

Oh yeah… I have changed the layout theme of my sketchblog. New header, wider space for pictures, different colours, and easier to find those categorized things (though some much-needed reorganization still to be done). I like it. It’s long overdue.

grusinia on my mind

August 11, 2008August 11, 20081 Comment

NATO went into Kosovo in 1999, bombing targets (such as bridges) not only in the region but all over Serbia. Serbia, Russia’s traditional ally. Russia could do only so much. They sent troops down, but not to oppose NATO. Why did the US led forces need to go in? The risk of imminent genocide, not wanting to stand by and watch a repeat of what had happened in Bosnia.

I couldn’t begin to understand what’s actually going on between Georgia and Russia, how strongly the Russians feel about the South Ossetians, how strongly Georgia feels about not wishing to disintegrate further, or be under the sway once more of the bear to the north. Caucasus troubles run deep, and are far less well understood in the West than the Balkan troubles. It was interesting however to read that one side is accusing the other of genocide, while the other is counter-accusing them of ethnic cleansing. The threat of which, as we all know, apparently justifies invasion.

The picture: funny enough, I had this book slotted down the pocket of my bag since I bought it in a second-hand bookshop in the Castro a couple of weeks back. Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle (der Kaukasische Kreidekreis). One of my favourite (if not, my favourite) plays, one I have performed in German at university, back in the spring of 1999, at the same time that Kosovo was being torn apart. I co-directed a chaotic, ramshackle and very Brechtian version, in which I got to play the fantastic role of Azdak the judge. In those days I had a Beard to defeat all others. We had almost no set, and so I drew backgrounds of Grusinian buildings with Georgian graffiti over them, backdrops of hanged men, and great mountains, all on transparent cels using only four colours of pen, projecting them onto a white screen behind the actors using a bog-standard (and noisy) classroom overhead projector. For those actors who were gotten rid of for not coming to rehearsal, I recreated their characters in cartoon form and had them projected next to the real actors, even getting involved in dialogue. It was largely shambolic, but I have good memories of the other cast members, and it was great fun. And I think Brecht would have approved.