JFK to PHX to SMF

June 9, 20251 Comment

And so we ended the Spring Break trip to DC (the nation’s capital) and New York (the real capital) (yeah I know, New York isn’t even the capital of New York) (it’s a bit like explaining that Harry Kane was not the captain of Spurs, that being Hugo Lloris, despite being England captain). We flew from JFK in, ahem, first class. Yep, through the magic of airline points we managed to get a deal that got really good seats in first class all the way back home. Well, all the way to Phoenix, and then another short flight but those seats were nice too. These ones however had the little compartment with the massive screen and the lie-flat seats. No cushions or blankets though. It was strange to be seated at an angle on a plane. The attendant was very attentive (yeah don’t put your hand on my shoulder when asking me if I want a drink mate), though I did not know what to order, I felt I had to be fancy, but I just got a wine which I didn’t even finish. I sketched, watched Avengers: Infinity War, tried to sleep a little, basically it was like being on a plane but with more room. My teenager was there to my left watching some movie (Hunger Games maybe), I wish we had had a game of Battleships because that would have been perfect (you probably can’t play Battleships on a plane though). It was only my second time in first class, and mate, it’s hard to go back. But we only get a brief glimpse into life on the other side of the curtain, and then it’s over.

I did people-sketch at the airports, both JFK and PHX. I hate airports as you may know, and sitting around in departure lounges is slightly better than rushing about in corridors or going through security lines. I had done a lot of people sketches with that thick black pen on this trip so this was a good way to pass the time.

And finally, the last leg from Phoenix to Sacramento. It was late afternoon, nearly the evening, and we were all exhausted from the travel. I was watching Withnail and I, another classic. After watching Infinity War this was a change of scenery, but I imagined Uncle Monty and Thanos switching places, putting a new spin on his question “Are you a sponge or an infinity stone?” It was late, I was tired. I sketched to calm the old flying nerves, and slept well when we got home. I hope it’s not as long again until the next time I see New York, but I guess there’s only so much excitement I can take.

across the country, by plane and by train

April 24, 2025Leave a comment

During Spring Break, our family took a trip across the breadth of the country to Washington DC and New York. For a few years now we have been using our Spring Breaks to see more of the USA, alternating between national parks and big cities, and this year we decided to visit ‘Our Nation’s Capital’ (as they call it here) and the ‘Big Apple’ (I don’t know if you’ve heard of that but that’s what they call New York). Of course when we travel I must also sketch, what else am I going to do, watch a movie? I did that too, and read a book (Agatha Christie ‘And Then There Were None’, which I finished on the train to New York). Above, the Southwest flight we took to St. Louis. I’ve not ever been to St. Louis, but we flew right over the big Gateway Arch, which was exciting, and then stopped at the airport to listen to the very different accents while waiting for an overpriced lunch. I can’t pronounce St. Louis, I never know whether to add the ‘s’ sound at the end or not, despite hearing it and being told, when I actually come to say it, my brain forgets and I choose the wrong one. A bit like whenever I need to plug in a USB, *every*single*time* I will plug it in the wrong way round first. This is called the ‘USB Law’, or the ‘St. Louis Principle’. We flew from St. Louis to DC, but I didn’t bother drawing that short flight, and caught up on some Agatha Christie instead.

After a couple of days exploring Washington’s museums and monuments, we caught the Amtrak train from Union Station, finding ourselves cramped into large seats with no legroom, looking out of a small window as the marshy landscape whizzed by. This is an America I have not seen, the East Coast where there are lots of little states and big cities around large estuaries, very far away from our dry sunny California. I love a train, watching the landscape change and wondering what will come next. I finished reading Agatha (the butler did it; only joking) and sketched. We passed through Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and then the skyscrapers started to come into view as we approached New York, my favourite city after London.

Well New York was fun, but it was time to fly back to California. Thanks to the magic of airline points wer were able to fly back in business class, which was luxury with those little compartments, massive screens, lie-flat seats (with no cushions) and metal cutlery. I sat in the compartment next to my 17 year old and watched Avengers Infinity War. I was going to watch Conclave but thought I should save that for when the Pope died, which unfortunately he did just a few days ago. A shame, I liked Pope Francis. The flight took us all the way to Phoenix, Arizona, and I was still excited by all of our wanderings about New York City. Lots of sketches to post soon.

And finally the last leg, Phoenix to Sacramento, after a couple of hours in a lounge at PHX. We had the bigger seats for this leg as well, and while I did sketch a bit I relaxed and watched another old film, Withnail and I. I’ve not seen it in years. We made it back to Davis tired and in need of a cup of tea and a long sleep, more adventures around the country. I’ll post all my sketches soon.

flying there and flying back, again

December 30, 20243 Comments

Two more times up in the sky, going to London and back to San Francisco. The first flight was more comfortable, better legroom and an empty seat next to me, though I still struggled to get decent sleep. I always have to sketch on the flight, it does calm me, and gives me something to do. The entertainment system is good, though I rarely watch things on it, other than the flight map. I do watch stuff on my iPad, mostly I listen to my iPod, podcasts, audiobooks, music. I was re-listening to Fellowship of the Ring on the flight over. I hate these long flights, but they have to be done, since I can’t teleport. These days, I land at Heathrow and get the Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road, before taking the Northern Line up to Burnt Oak, it’s a long journey all in all. The flight back (below) I was really crammed in, a full flight with very little legroom. I chose to sit in the middle (nobody moving past me to get up, like at the window seat) but it really felt squashed. On this flight though I was able to bring back my old guitar from London, and it didn’t cost me any extra, and just went into the overhead bins above other people’s bags (it’s pretty thin). I still had to draw, and in fact these flights back are also an opportunity to catch up on the sketches I didn’t get finished during the trip. So I spent a lot of time drawing, squashing in my elbows. It was a long flight, I was thinking about all I’d done, people I’d seen, people I’d not been able to see. It was nice spending a bit more time with my Mum. Unfortunately my Dad was in hospital for most of the time I was back, wasn’t doing too well, so I’m glad I was able to be there, it’s difficult being so far away. I started watching a film called ‘Hampstead’ which my Mum had started watching a couple of days before, and it looked ok, but actually was really dull so I turned it off. I don’t remember what else I watched, some Drive to Survive. I started reading a new book I’d bought, written by an old friend from university whose book signing I’d been to. My bag was full of mince pies and other food goodies for Christmas; I could have brought so much more back if I had the room. Anyway, bookends to another trip back home.

flying there and flying back

December 9, 2024December 9, 2024Leave a comment

A couple more in-flight sketches. At this point it’s just routine to draw these, that whole perspective practice, but for me it’s really more to do with calming my nerves in the airplane. Not so much the nerves about flying, more the anxiety of travel and of airports in particular. I hate airports probably more than anything. I mean, not more than fascism or mass murder or rampant plutocracy, but airports are pretty anxiety inducing. Once I’m on the plane, then I have to overcome the fact of being stuffed into a metal tube with a load of other people and being blasted across the planet, but I’m still in awe of the technology frankly. I’m spoilt by that one time I flew first class, from LA to Paris in 2019 like a movie star. Gotta love the points. Above are two sketches from either side of our trip to Kauai, the first was on Hawaiian Airlines out of Oakland, the second on Southwest Airlines out of Lihue. In the back of the seat on Hawaiian was a little sheet that said “hana-hou!” and on southwest there was the same but it said “hi, there”. On one, I sat on the left, on the other I sat on the right. As George Lucas might say, it’s like poetry, it rhymes.

a plate full of pancakes at the original pantry

April 10, 2024April 10, 20242 Comments

I had a lie in on the Sunday; well I woke up very early (even after the time change) to watch Spurs v Villa through the corner of my eye, but I fell back asleep when it looked like it wasn’t going anywhere (actually we ended up winning 4-0, best performance of the season). I needed the kip anyway, and was still feeling a little full from the pre-bedtime burrito I bought at the food truck across from the hotel. So it was pushing lunchtime when I finally went out into the world. I thought I might do some drawing around downtown LA before heading to Riverside, but my main goal was to eat at The Original Pantry. I first saw this place way back in 2010 when I sketched it but didn’t eat there; I came back in 2017 with my mate from England, but the line was so long we decided to go to Denny’s (and waited even longer just for our food), so I’ve wanted to come back for ages. The Original Pantry opened its doors a hundred years ago in 1924 and boasts to have never closed its doors since its open 24 hours a day (I don’t know about during the pandemic). It’s a proper classic little diner with excellent food and beloved by locals. I absolutely didn’t mind waiting in line because I knew I’d be hungrier by the time I got in, and I could sketch the line while I was out there. Their website does say they want peoples’ stories from being in line. So I stood and whipped out my little Fabriano sketchbook to draw my wait (see below). However, I hadn’t been there for more than about three minutes, when one of the staff came out to check the size of each party going in. Since I was by myself, they already had a seat at the counter for me so I was led past the long line, some of whom were saying “oh man you’re lucky!” to me (I resisted the urge to say “see ya later suckers!” but I did feel excited at being called in to eat). My seat at the counter was close to the very hot cookers, but there were other locals eating there and reading their papers, it felt pretty awesome. I didn’t fancy a big lunch, but I ordered a plate of their famous pancakes, and wow that was a big plate of pancakes. I couldn’t even finish it, it was so filling. My stomach (and my soul) well satisfied, I got up and went back outside, and finished off the sketch of the line that I had started (below), before heading across the street to draw the full scene (above). That sketch above took me about an hour, but it was nice standing on the corner of the street in downtown LA, it’s a bit different from Davis.

The last time I stood there sketching was in 2010, my wife and I were visiting Los Angeles for our anniversary, though she had a work event in DTLA that day so I spent the day exploring. The hydrant drawn in that old sketch is now different, and I stood at a slightly different spot of the corner. It’s not actually the corner of Figueroa and 9th (9th is the street on the other side of the main road) but at the junction of Figueroa and James M. Wood Boulevard (the stretch of 9th was named for local labor leader James M. Wood in 1997). Anyway I wanted to show this sketch here again, I always liked it.

Eating pancakes wans;t all I did that day. My hotel stay also gave me entry to the Grammy Museum a bit further down the road. I didn’t have a load of time before I needed to catch my train but I figured it would be fun to look around, and it was. The only sketch I made in there was of Michael Jackson’s jacket from Thriller, because we used watch and dance to that video so much when we were kids. I enjoyed the hip hop sections too, there was a lot of history there. It’s not a very big museum but was worth seeing, but I had a train to catch to I headed off to Union Station.

I had hoped to arrive a little earlier and spend some time sketching Union Station, but as it was I was able to take my time, and a very helpful young volunteer showed me the right ticket machine and the way to the platform, he was a university student who apparently helps at the station because he is so into trains; I understand, me too. I’ve been thinking a lot about taking a great train journey lately, one of those that goes across the country taking several days, with time to sit and think and read and get into adventures. Well maybe not adventures. Would I get bored? Probably, but I’d be moving towards somewhere. A couple of those long distance trains stop in Davis (the Coastal Starlight and the California Zephyr) so who knows, some day. As it was, I took a 1.5 hour regional train across the LA metropolitan area and into what’s called the ‘Inland Empire’, to the city of Riverside. And of course I sketched on the train.

pause at the airport

April 2, 2024Leave a comment

I’ve been travel-busy lately, so let’s start posting some sketches. I was at Sacramento airport, waiting for a delayed Friday early evening flight down to Los Angeles, where I’d be spending the weekend before a work trip to Riverside. As I had a bit of time I sat and had a pint at the airport bar, sketching the view opposite which included a newsstand sponsored by Sactown Magazine (see my previous post about my own appearance in Sactown). At this point the new edition featuring my sketches wasn’t on sale, but it was there on the way back a few days later along with the screen displaying pages. I don’t like airports (have I mentioned? Like a million times), but I don’t mind SMF, I’ve been through here enough times and it’s small, so it feels so familiar. Eventually I was able to board. My plan for Los Angeles was to do the following: (1) visit the Scum and Villainy Cantina in Hollywood, great place; (2) spend all Saturday drawing dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum; and (3) eat breakfast at the Original Pantry. I did all of those things (though the breakfast was more at lunchtime; a well-deserved lie-in!) and there’s sketches aplenty to come. After that, I was going to the UC-AMP Conference in Riverside and staying at the historic Mission Inn Hotel, and there are lots of sketches from there. As it is, cheers from the airport.

sacramento to kahului (and back)

January 9, 2024January 9, 2024Leave a comment

We flew over the Pacific to the Hawaiian island of Maui just after Christmas, for our festive tropical new year break. That was amazing. We did have to get up super early in the morning to get to the airport and catch our 7am plane, which we did (though Sacramento airport was very busy), and had dramatic skies as the sun was coming up. We flew on a Boeing 737-Max-8, blissfully unaware of the problems that the Max-9 would have a week later when part of one came off shortly after take-off. Yeah let’s not think about that scary situation. As Superman says, flying is still the safest way to travel. Easy for him to say. Still the view was beautiful. I always have to do a bit of drawing when I fly, it helps me relax. Looking out of the window I tried to capture the colours and textures of the sky in my little Fabriano Venezia book.

It’s nearly six hours from Sacramento to Kahului, the main airport on Maui. Maui is a beautiful place, though it has suffered a lot in 2023 with devastating fires, namely the terrifying disaster than befell the historic capital Lahaina. I sketched there in 2019, when we visited on New Year’s Eve. While the buildings were destroyed, the historic Banyan Tree has survived, albeit terribly damaged. We were going to stay in Wailea, where we stayed on that previous trip, on the south-western part of Maui. We flew out with Southwest, and on the way we were able to watch the Tottenham game against Brighton & Hove Albion. Should win that right? We lost 4-2, and we were 4-0 down when we landed, so there was a little bit more Norf London Language than usual on this flight. (We made up for it by beating Bournemouth a few days later, but seriously, we were ravaged by injuries and suspensions).

I have a few Maui sketches to post, I wasn’t going to do a lot of sketching what with being in the ocean and the pool and playing my ukulele by the sea, but you know I can’t help myself. I’ll post those later. Below is the sketch from the flight home, this was the flight on the 737-Max-8 (I can’t remember what the plane was going out there, it wasn’t a Max-8 or 9), and they have a handy little tray that pops down where you can clamp in your phone or iPad to watch things on there, a very handy feature. It would still get sucked out if the window fell off though. I don’t think I watched much, a couple of episodes of ‘Marvel’s What If’, mostly just listened to podcasts and sketched, this time in that brown fountain pen. Buy the time we got home it was raining hard in the Sacramento valley, and a lot colder than the mid-80s of Maui. Happy New Year!

the train to scotland

August 3, 2023Leave a comment

I love a train journey, especially a long one in a comfy seat with a table and a nice view over the countryside. It’s exciting, more exciting than a car trip, less annoying than flying, and don’t get me started on coach travel (which isn’t so bad actually, I’ve not done it in a while, but historically I’ve had mixed bags there). Anyway, one journey I was really looking forward to was Kings Cross to Edinburgh. The last time I took this journey was in 1999 with my friend Simon on our way up to Scotland, where we’d join our university’s theatre company at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival after spending a couple of days with his uncle outside Glasgow. This time it was me, my wife and my son on an eight-day adventure around Scotland, this being the first time back since that trip at the end of the 20th century. That was a really long time ago now. Well the countryside hasn’t changed that much, it’s still a lovely view over rolling English countryside, gradually getting lovelier the further north you go, passing by Durham which looks wonderful from the train (though my son and I were playing MarioKart at the time), going right through Newcastle and its bridges over the Tyne, past Lindisfarne off the coast, imagining the Viking raids all those centuries ago, circling around the lovely Berwick upon Tweed, which could be thought of as a little bit of Scotland in England (the football team does play in the Scottish league), and up that dramatic coastline towards Edinburgh itself. I think it’s one of the great train journeys of Britain. The train we were on was terminating at Inverness; that was our final destination as well, but after a week of seeing as much of Scotland as we could fit in. First though, three nights in Edinburgh. Our train journey was pretty pleasant, there was an older guy sat in one of the seats next to me who saw my Spurs top and he was a Tottenham fan, and told me a lot of stories about watching Spurs in the 70s and 80s and watching Ossie Ardiles, of course Ossie was my hero and I loved watching him as a kid myself, down at the Lane. A little later there was an American family with several kids and they were debating over whether the little light above the seat was red or orange, spending quite a long time on the topic, getting other passengers opinions (yeah we really don’t do that in the UK; I was going to say it looked yellow), but I did notice the dad really looking at my Spurs shirt, though he didn’t say anything. A few days later, we actually saw the same family up on Calton Hill, they recognized us, and he did say to me “I remember you were in the Tatt’num jersey!” I considered asking if they settled their argument on whether the small light was orange or red yet. And so, we arrived in Edinburgh, and walked to our apartment where we would spend the next three nights. We were right off the Royal Mile, and it was a walk uphill from the station. On the way, we passed the Old St.Paul’s church on Jeffrey Street, which was (I had almost forgotten) the location of our plays with the QMW theatre company in 1999. A number of barely-remembered memories came dribbling back. Many people whose names I’ve largely forgotten. It was 24 years ago after all, literally more than half my lifetime ago. I did the lighting and sound for three shows, I think it was three, along with Simon. Midsummer Nights Dream was the main one, plus a shorter piece I think was called Fat, by our friend Cuan (good bloke), and then another one which I have completely forgotten, except they used part of this song by Air over and over, and my job there was to turn on the music, and turn it off again, I think about four times in total. It was the only time I did Edinburgh with my uni, it was fun albeit quite drunken at times, there was another theatre company at the same venue who were performing a bizarre version of Ubu Roi, already a bizarre play, which I really loved and consequently got really into the original French version. I remember going out with the cast from that play on a fairly crazy evening. I do have some good memories from that trip, even if so many of them are distant and foggy now. 1999…

It is nice not being in Edinburgh during the Fringe though. The Royal Mile then was a cacophony of people, jugglers, students dressed in silly costumes handing out flyers to their low-budget plays (I was one of them, though I wasn’t acting or performing), and tourists. It was still busy this time, but a lot more mellow than that. The Royal Mile is mostly tartan souvenir shops, whisky shops, and cashmere shops. But there’s a lot of history here, and we really enjoyed being around those tall old stone Edinburgh buildings. Now that I am for all sense and purposes an American, I did wonder if I had to start calling it “Edin-borrow”, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I did however insist that we had to eat haggis. Now I don’t eat it myself because it’s meaty, but they have a vegetarian version now. At the restaurant where we ate dinner, down on the curving Victoria Street, we tried it, my wife getting the original style. I think she liked it, though it was very rich and she couldn’t finish it. I liked mine, though I preferred the Neeps and Tatties that went with it. Oh I do love my Neeps and Tatties. Neeps I supposed were Turnips, though actually what they call turnips in Scotland are more like what they call Rutubaga in America, and Swede in England; English turnips are actually something as bit different. I actually learned this from a podcast I started listening to called “Stories of Scotland”, hosted by Annie and Jenny, and I probably listened to about forty of their episodes while on this trip, and many more since. It’s all Scottish folklore, history, geography, geology and traditions. So, we had our haggis, that’s done now. I brought out my little sketchbook on that first evening’s walkabout, just doing a couple of quick sketches as we stopped. The one below is at Parliament Square, which is on the Royal Mile very close to St. Giles Cathedral, and I recognized this area as the part where The Vision and Wanda Maximoff battled against Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight in Avengers Infinity War (I love that film), before crashing down into Waverley St Station, and getting rescued by Captain America, Falcon and Black Widow. So, a bit like the Royal Mile during the Fringe, then.

“cause I just wanna fly”

July 29, 2023July 28, 2023Leave a comment

Ok, I’ll start posting the sketches from my recent trip to England and Scotland (“Britain” as we call it, for the time being anyway). Let’s start with the bookend airplane sketches. You would think that I would be incredibly bored of drawing these views by now, and you’d be right, I am bored of drawing these views. Yet I still draw them, because when I fly I need something to relax me, and that is drawing my surroundings. I could watch some stupid film on the seat-back monitor, and get interrupted by the captain who wants to tell us very slowly that we can buy some useless duty-free rubbish from the flight attendants if we want, or maybe to not tell us about a pocket of upcoming turbulence that will make the plane suddenly plummet god-knows-how-many-hundreds-of-feet downwards towards Greenland (that happened on our flight back, and I’m still feeling it). I mostly just watch the map, to see where we are. I always download some things on my iPad to watch, mostly Get Back, but I don’t like to dive into watching something early on knowing that the flight crew will be serving us some marginally edible food an hour or so into the flight and I might miss out if I engrossed in watching my screen with headphones on. So I draw, it helps me calm my nerves a little. I do listen to a lot of podcasts while on the plane, and audiobooks. I don’t actually mind flying, I just hate the airport experience, and if we are all cramped into a plane with no space, I hate that too. The sketch above was done on the way over on my iPad, we flew via Seattle for some reason, late at night, and I think I only managed an hour of sleep at best, total, we were so cramped. On these flights, I only recline my seat a little, as to go back the whole way is not very considerate to those seated behind you, who then cannot move much. Still when we landed we were excited about getting to London, seeing family again.

This second sketch is on the flight back (we were flying through LAX this time), when we were similarly squeezed in, and I was feeling pretty sick. About ten minutes into the flight, the young fellow in the seat in front decided that he needed to recline his seat the entire way. Not only did this give me zero room to be able to lean forward and get things from under my seat – physically impossible, and I’m of average height – but also made it impossible to see the seat-back screen which does not adjust any more, and impossible to put anything on my tray taller than a small plastic cup (not my bottle, certainly not my iPad), and if I wanted to read my magazine I would have to hold it close to my face (which let’s face it I have to do anyway these days, my eyesight is so bad). His girlfriend in the seta next to him only reclined half the way and my son (who is now almost as tall as me) had no problem. So I politely asked the guy if he would mind not reclining the whole way, but may just 50%? Nope, he didn’t want to do that. This was ten minutes out of Heathrow, we hadn’t eaten yet and the lights were definitely not turned off for sleepy-time mode. “It’s just I have no room if you put your seat back the whole way.” “You can put your seat back too,” he said. “But I don’t need to; it disrupts the person sat behind me, and it still doesn’t give me any more room to lean forward to get things from under the seat.” “It’s the same for everyone,” he said, refusing to budge or acknowledge my point, adding “the person in front of me has their seat back,” which I could see was not in fact true. “Mate this ain’t a game of dominoes,” I said. “It’s not ‘the same for everyone’ because people generally respect the other people around them. I’m not saying don’t recline at all, but just halfway.” It was like the guy was on my lap. I’m not actually sure why they make the seats in these economy areas recline as much as they do, using seats from a time when there was much more legroom. Airlines have tried to squeeze passengers more and more in recent years, no wonder there is so much air-rage. On other economy flights they either don’t recline at all or just a little. Either way, be respectful innit. I feel like flight attendants should announce at the start of the flight that passengers should be considerate of their fellow cattle, their fellow battery hens. As I tried to move to get my bag, I’m sure my legs must have knocked the seat in front a few times, which I try not to do but dude, really. Eventually though, he relented, and moved his seat forward a bit more, with some quiet grumbling, and in a way that was very much like he was deciding that he was more comfortable further forward, nothing to do with me. So I had a bit more room to breathe, which was good because I was still sick, and very much losing my voice. I started a sketch early on this flight, and you can see that we were still only over Scotland by the time his seat went forward again, and I could put my lukewarm Pepsi Max on the seat (British airports – it might be nice if you occasionally refrigerated your cold drinks, thanks very much). I might have had eleven hours of that. I drew this in my little Fabriano Venezia sketchbook. We eventually got to LAX after what felt like a series of Andor (slow and painful and full of boring characters, and still not actually at our destination when the whole thing was over), and flew on to Sacramento after a long walk along not that busy road with the very narrow sidewalk that runs a ring through the middle of the airport. I will say though the immigration guy when I landed in LA was very friendly. We landed at Sacramento and got one of the worst Ubers ever, a smelly car driven by this stoner dude drinking a Big Gulp who played awful music and kept telling me about his trip to London in like 1999 and how he never saw any green space at all, “London has like no parks” (even after this journey I’m like, mate you clearly weren’t in London if you saw no parks or trees). I could still barely hear after the planes had messed up my ears, and I just wanted to see the cats, get to my bedroom, fall asleep. But even as we went up our pathway dragging our suitcases and sweating in the shock of the Davis heat, I could barely hear the Uber driver calling me from his car, and I was nearly in the house when I noticed him. What did he want, had we left something? No, apparently we hadn’t closed the door the whole way getting out of the car, in my exhaustion from that horribly long journey I hadn’t noticed. Rather than just get out and close it himself and drive on, he just sat there drinking his Big Gulp and waiting for me to come back, and open and close the door again more firmly, which I did. Honestly, I really just wanted to not be around people for a good while.

Well we got our wish because next day we all got progressively sick, and so we tested and sure enough, Covid had finally got us. So we stayed home all week, not seeing anyone, ordering food in, and tried to recover from our vacation. July 4th fireworks came and went, I nearly joined the cats hiding under the sofa. But even if the air travel itself was stressful (and that includes flying from Inverness into Luton, my least favourite airport, and the post-midnight Uber ride from there back to London), our trip overall was fun, and we saw some amazing places, many of which I sketched. So I’ll post all those next. Despite all of this travel fun, I actually can’t wait to go and visit somewhere else. But as I’ve said before, it’s always nice to finally get back home, even if it’s to 100+ degree weather.

my name is Sue, how do you do

May 5, 2023May 4, 2023Leave a comment

A great sketcher once said (and it was Lapin, by the way) that every sketchbook needs two things – a dinosaur, and an old car. Sketchbook #45 has those things now, after we visited the Field Museum in Chicago, an incredible collection which is chock full of dinosaurs. (I already drew an old car at the California Automobile Museum in Sacramento) I missed out on going to the Urban Sketching Symposium in Chicago in 2017 (I had just been promoted, and felt it would be a good idea to stick around and learn stuff in that first month on the job), so I missed Lapin’s workshop “Groarrr!” which took place at the Field Museum, drawing Sue, the enormous Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton that is the highlight of the collection, as well as being pretty much the most complete T-Rex skeleton in the world. Plus it’s called Sue, so I had Johnny Cash in my head the whole time. “My name is Sue! How do you do! Now you gonn’ die!” I also briefly had the theme tune to The Sooty Show in my head, thinking of the silent cheekiness of Sooty, the mischievous squeak of Sweep, and the bossy voice of Soo, the only one who could use real words, if you don’t count Matthew who was a real human and now a hand puppet, or at least so we are led to believe (did you ever see his legs?). People who didn’t grow up in Britain will have no idea what I’m talking about, but I did imagine Sue the T-Rex talking in that voice, saying “izzy wizzy let’s get busy”. Never mind all of these pop culture ramblings, it has been a busy week. If you want to learn some actual stuff about Sue the T-Rex, you can visit the Field Museum website: https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/sue-t-rex. We don’t know if Sue was a boy dinosaur or a girl dinosaur (insert an Ian Malcolm quote from Jurassic Park here) but they were named after Sue Hendrickson, who discovered the dinosaur in 1990 in South Dakota. The light in there kept going dark, for mood and storytelling, which made sketching a little tricky.

The first dinosaur I drew though was the nemesis of the T-Rex, the heroic Triceratops. I always imagine Triceratops as a Captain America type figure, fighting the big meat-eaters for hours, looking up and saying “I can do this all day”. In the books Triceratops would always be locked in battle with the Tyrannosaur, its large parrot beak, rock solid neck shield, and the horns of both a rhino and a yak, like who designed this creature, a four year old? Triceratops is nevertheless a design classic, really hard to beat. Parasaurolophus and Styracosaurus have pretty amazing heads, but Triceratops is beautiful. I sat on a bench with my son and drew the whole thing, a good spot to rest the legs after looking at so many dinosaurs already.

I did this sketch above while they were resting again a bit later, watching a school orchestra play some music from the movies (not Jurassic Park) in the main hall of the museum. Hanging above in the foreground is a model of the enormous flying prehistoric beast Quetzalcoatlus, which I’m not going to say is an ugly dinosaur, but is no Triceratops. It’s no Pteranodon either. It was gigantic though, you would not want this thing pecking away at your plane’s cockpit (spoiler alert for one of the Jurassic World movies, which was not very good). I should point out, Jurassic Park is one of my favourite films of all time, and I adored the book as well. It is for me nothing short of a perfect film. I quite liked the follow ups, the Lost World and Jurassic Park 3, though now I think about it Jurassic Park 3 was not actually very good. Jurassic World…well, I’ll say it was enjoyable, I guess. A nice idea, but not a re-watcher, and the characters were completely irritating. The follow up, Jurassic World Volcano Wars I think it was called, was utterly diabolical, and there was nothing whatsoever of interest, but I did watch it on a small airplane screen so no huge loss. The last one, Jurassic World Dumpster Divers or something, we actually went to a movie theatre and paid actual dollars to see, and the universe is never giving me back that five and a half hours or however long it was. It was advertised as having the original three back in it, and back in it they indeed were, and Jurassic Park it was not. Jurassic World Dominion made Jurassic Park 3 look like The Godfather Part 2. I’m not going to say it was the worst film I have ever seen (because I have watched The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Hour Long Sequels) but you know when you like apples and you eat all the different apples, but you eat one apple that tastes so disgusting and makes you want to vomit, that while it doesn’t put you off eating apples completely, it does make you much less likely to want to eat an apple afterwards, to the point where you just give up eating apples and eat cereal instead. Well that was the last Jurassic World film and movies in general for me. But you know, you should watch it, don’t take my word for it.

I could have spent all day in the Field Museum, learning and sketching, but we moved along, and headed for the Nutella Cafe. We decided to skip the Art Institute, due to Museum Fatigue, though my wife did go there on our final morning in Chicago and the pictures she took of all the very famous artworks made me wish I had actually gone. Next time! Instead, on our last morning I stayed at the hotel with my son, before heading out to do one last sketch, down at Michigan and Wacker. It’s a bit of an unfinished sketch, but I decided this time not to bother going in later and drawing all those windows, because you know, you get the idea. Tribune Tower (on the right) is an architectural masterpiece, containing stones from famous buildings from all over the world, which is actually a bit weird but ok.

Right, Top Five things I would like to do next time I’m in Chicago:

Listen to The Blues. I never got to go to any of Chicago’s famous Blues clubs, like Kingston Mines, or one of the other ones. I will admit, I’m not exactly a massive Blues afficionado. I like it, but not as much as I want to like it. But Blues in Chicago? That I want to see. I want to be somewhere in Chicago watching some old Blues player carve riffs out of a big Gretsch, taking in the whole atmosphere, so that all I want to do is get home and play Blues riffs until my fingers hurt.
Art Institute. As mentioned, I decided to sketch in the street instead of actually see some great art. That might have been a mistake, or maybe I was just saying to myself, no I’ll do that next time. They have Van Goghs, Picassos, they have that American Gothic painting, and Nighthawks by Hopper! My mate Roshan had that as a poster.
Watch some Improv. I never got to to go any of Chicago’s famous Improv clubs, like The Second City, or one of the other ones. I will admit, I’m not exactly a massive Improv afficionado. I like it, but not as much as I want to like it. But Improv in Chicago? That I want to see. I want to be somewhere in Chicago watching some old Improv actor carve witty lines out of a big Suggestion, taking in the whole atmosphere, so that all I want to do is get home and improvise until my fingers hurt.
Have a different Deep Dish Pizza. I really liked the one at Pizzeria Uno, as described in a previous post, but I would like to try some other places, maybe get some local suggestions.
Wrigley Field. I never got to to go any of Chicago’s famous baseball parks, like Wrigley Field, or one of the other ones. I will admit, I’m not exactly a massive baseball afficionado. (Okay, I’m not doing that again.) I do like a ballpark, but even I know Wrigley Field is pretty special and historic, and there’s nothing more American than going to an ancient baseball stadium,, taking in the whole atmosphere, so that all I want to do is get home and swing a baseball bat until my fingers hurt (I literally never want to do that after watching baseball).

There is one other thing I’d do next time, that’s get in touch with some of the Chicago Urban Sketchers I know, such as Don Colley, who is pretty amazing. I thought about contacting some to see if they wanted to go and sketch an old bar some night, but this was a family trip and I knew I’d be cream-crackered too. I am tempted by the Chicago Sketch Seminar this July, although it’s very soon after another trip I’m taking, and I’m sure I’d be too tired. But it does look really fun.

Ok, so we then went to the airport, where we waited for hours and hours for our plane to deign to take off. We spent so long at that damned airport, and I hate airports at the best of times. So I sketched people again, in my little red sketchbook. That was pretty boring. We played a lot of Super Mario Kart 8 on the Switch, I had bought a new Switch Lite before the trip as the battery in the old one was utterly dead. We were exhausted, and it was going to be a long flight if we ever got on a plane. I don’t know why Southwest was delayed so much, but it wasn’t Tornadoes, they all happened the night before. Anyway, get on a plane we eventually did, so I had to do one last in-flight sketch. Until next time Chicago! I always fantasized about doing that thing where you take the Amtrak train for several days across the country, watching America on ground level as it gradually changes, waking up in far-flung cities or small-town America, but after spending four hours in Midway airport and getting bored out of my head, I think spending three days in a train seat might be enough to make me just get a plane back. But Chicago was damn cool, and I’ll be back.