and the band begins to play

March 19, 2009March 19, 20091 Comment

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.

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. It 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.

how many roads must a man walk down

March 17, 2009March 17, 20093 Comments

I ambled and jaywalked into North Beach. That view down Columbus of the TransAm Pyramid, my final destination, a big triangular monolith on the horizon, calling me like a dark lord’s tower, but i would not draw it, for i was on another quest, to be as relaxed as possible about wandering up and down hills and streets and slamming in as many sketches as possible.

I feel I put too much pressure on myself sometimes. After drawing ‘Bimbo’s’ below (mainly for the powerlines, and the name, not the building), and stopping by LaRocca’s across the street to add the wash, I just had to climb Russian Hill; it was just ‘there’. At the top of Lombard I stopped and drew the view out to Coit Tower (above), doing it little justice, but after the slog of the climb it didn’t really demand penance, just adoration. Oh ok, it wasn’t really a slog as such, I just felt it later on.

The thing about Lombard Street is that they say it’s the crookedest street in the world, but surely Wall street is crookeder? The tourists didn’t care. Cable cars rattling by behind me. Weekenders standing out of their sunroofs camcording while zigzagging carefully downslopes. There’s me meanwhile, sat there using a micron 0.1 and a newly discovered micron 1, for things in the foreground. And occasionally a camera too, just to fit in with the crowd.

kind of a strange old hermit

March 6, 2009March 7, 2009Leave a comment

What is it? It’s an odd sculpture, living on the UC Davis campus. It may well be a doorway, a portal into another dimension; I’m not going to walk through it, in case I can’t get home again. It might be pi’s physical manifestation, or the place where Aslan rose again. It could be the winning goal. I drew it at lunchtime, in today’s lovely weather. It feels like Spring is in the air.

reflections of

March 3, 2009March 4, 20092 Comments

RAIN! Much needed. And it gave me a chance to draw a big puddle.

Oh, time to comment on the weekend’s match. Football. The Carling Cup Final. I didn’t really expect Spurs to win, but we won it last year, and you never know. So to lose it on penalties was pretty hard to bear. I didn’t see it; it was all just text updates online, early in the morning. Even so, I hid in the kitchen, unable to watch, as is normal for penalty shoot-outs. This of course means no European football for Tottenham next year. I’m so glad Redknapp decided that playing in the UEFA cup wasn’t worth it. He sacrificed it this year for the slim chance of getting in next year. He has bowed out of the UEFA Cup twice this season now, with two clubs. That’s the spirit! That’s real ambition! Well, at least we have the relegation battle to look forward to.

Meanwhile, in Davis, I am drawing puddles.

this is not america

February 28, 2009March 1, 20094 Comments

I’ve always wanted to draw this building, the Cooper House, on the corner of 4th and F in Davis, so today I finally did. Now I don’t have to ever again.

In that article this week I was quoted saying that Davis looked like America and that I was drawing it to show people back home; I said something about it being all picket fences. I think to date I’ve drawn one picket fence, two years ago. Well, there was a mini one here, and I guess this ragged collection of sticks is a technical picket fence (and I drew it a second time to be sure), but they are still notable in their absence. There are actually fewer pickets than, um, er, help me out here, something about strikes. The point I’m making is, um, Davis really isn’t a picket fence type of town. Actually there are more two-level apartment complexes than anything else, housing students and scholars and all the other folk. Perhaps they don’t like pickets here. Perhaps they cause a fence (oh please, come on). Anyway, I think even without the fence, this drawing says ‘America’ to some degree. Don’t ask me, I’m British.

ain’t no sunshine

February 13, 2009February 13, 2009Leave a comment

Hey, it can’t be sunny all the time in Davis.

Storms have been rolling in, and I’ve watched them roll away again. More storms to come. While the rain stopped I was outside during lunch today capturing part of the Silo complex, but then drips and drops started falling from the sky. I ducked beneath a shelter to finish the pen and write some notes on the colours (‘cos you know, not like I’ve sketched here before or anything), and did the wash at home. This is page 1 of moleskine 4, it’s so nice starting a new book.

daylight falls upon the path

January 30, 2009May 27, 2010Leave a comment

lunchtime sketch by the hog barn It feels like ages since I did drawings of Davis, I have been drawing so many other places lately. More than a month in fact. So I thought I’d make up for it. It was very sunny this week. Well, during the daytime obviously, I mean at night it was dark. It was pretty cold too but is getting progressively warmer; these Californian Januarys, eh! So I got out each lunchtime and sketched.

On Wednesday I sketched near the Silo, by the newly renovated Hog Barn (or Pig House, or whatever it is called; presumably it was renovated after the big bad wolf blew it down or something). No hogs here now though. There are cows not far from here though. Davis is well known for its cows. Scientists do experiments on them. Some of them have windows in their stomachs (please, no jokes about beef curtains, this is a family site).

I had a hole in my shoe once. I used to tell people it was a window to my sole.

On Thursday I went downtown, and drew a house I’ve drawn before, I believe it is some sort of dentist’s surgery on E Street. I drew it in sepia about a year and a half ago. Theres’ that tree look, in the foreground as usual, and it managed to keep itself within the frame this time.

Here’s the older version. I don’t mind drawing things I’ve drawn before. In a city this small it’s bound to happen.

And on Friday, to complete the triptych, I drew a frat house on First Street. Ths is right on the edge of campus. Most of the fraternity and sorority houses are.

Before I moved to an American college town I had no idea what frats were. All those greek letters, old boy’s clubs I guessed. Some frats are aparently older than the US itself. I met some American frat boys when I lived in France, I’d heard of their legendary alcoholic exploits (ah, no more than a typical night in any binge-drinking high-street town in England). They all start recruiting in the fall, having their ‘rush’ events and their ‘hazing’, and how the sororities have all these functions every night for a month whereby the wannabe entrants have to wear a different outfit each night or they are like so-out-omigod-who-does-she-think-she-is.

Yeah I’m glad we never had those sorts of things when I was at university. We had the student union bar, and some nights, oh dear, it was not pretty.

Roll on the weekend.

as the present now will later be past

January 18, 2009January 18, 2009Leave a comment

Time travel doesn’t exist; it cannot exist. Don’t let any quantum physyicist tell you otherwise. And yet, in fact I did manage to travel through time, when I got on a train to Charleroi, my home between ’99 and ’00. I live on the other side of the world now, and was stepping back to take a look around at a life I used to lead. Now that is time travel.

Nothing had changed. Well, not nothing exactly; the shops were now open on Sundays, and there was a new little mini-supermarket right by to where I used to live (which would have been really handy back when I lived there), but otherwise, Charleroi was still the same: unpolished, post-industrial, and very familiar. This is not a tourist town; Bruges it aint, and all the better for 100_3487 it. We had a classic Carolo night out; went to my usual places, rubbed shoulders with locals, had Kwak and Charles Quint at la Cuve à Bière (where the people are all the same as before), chatted drunkenly in the smoky Irish Times, staggered up to the excellent popular all-night friterie Chez Robert for a mitraillette de dinde (I am astonished I could still find it after all this time), and then a couple of Fanta Citrons in the morning for the hangover. The freezing cold sun helped too. While waiting for a train, I drew the picture above on tha banks of the murky Sambre (or at least most of it; the ink in my micron pen started complaining about the cold, so I finished it later). We walked about town, I wandered about in my memories and took plenty of photos, and drew La Vigie, the tall building where I used to live on the 13th floor when I taught at the U.T.

It was a fleeting visit, really (there’s not that much reason to stick around in Charleroi in the cold). Who knows when I’ll ever be back. I’m really glad I went though, and visited the increasingly-distant past, but it was even nicer to get back to the future.

la vie est belge

January 16, 2009January 17, 20093 Comments

A few days after Christmas, a friend and I went over to Belgium, where I used to live what feels like a lifetime (but was less than ten years) ago. I spent a year in Charleroi between 1999 and 2000, my time there culminating with the now infamous visit of the chair-throwing England fans. It was a year that has shaped a lot of my imagination, though I did little but eat frites drowned in sauce, drink and learn about beer at la cuve à bière, and play the guitar (writing songs about this, about that). That is, however, the life. We took the early Eurostar to Brussels, and walked around the busy post-noel streets, surprised to find that there was no rain whatsoever – I nearly didn’t recognise it in the sunshine. I like Brussels. I drew at the Grand Place, crowded, touristy, disgustingly ornate, but necessary for a budding urban sketcher to draw. I wasn’t going to seek out the urban grit – we were going to Charleroi later that evening, and there would be plenty of that.

I stopped in a shop I loved when I was living there: Grasshopper, an amazing store that sells all sorts of toys and books. I wanted to buy some French board books for my baby son (decided not to go with teaching him Flemish just yet). However, while I was sketching, I must have put them down and forgotten about them (very unlike me*). I went back to the store and bought some more, and asked if anybody had returned them. Non, they told me, ils sont bye-byes. Yeah, cheers. So, we took a very modern double-decker train south to the city of Charleroi, and while Roshan napped in the hotel, I ventured out into the freezing dark evening to do some night-time pre-pub sketching, and drew Le Luxembourg, a place which although very pretty, I have never actually entered. While drawing, I kept my eyes on the shadows for, er, shadowy people, happy to be back in my old town.

*I do tend to lose things in Brussels, though. I lost my favourite top here once, in 1999. I wrote a song about that too. It was white with thin black hoops. If you find it, let me know; it might still fit.

soho continued

January 10, 2009May 27, 20105 Comments

Part 2 of Soho sketching day. This is Broadwick Street, and that is the Blue Posts pub, which I also sketched in ’07. In the distance, Centre Point. There I am, to the left, drawing this very scene. My nephew and I chatted while I drew, then went to art shops, foreign language bookshops, football shirts shops; I lamented the lameness of Carnaby Street, navigated through short-cuts and alleys, reminisced about nights out I can barely remember. I do see Soho as a city with a city, and one with tiny neighbourhoods of its own, and I could draw it endlessly, but the end of the afternoon came quickly, and so we got the tube back up the Northern Line, my tired nephew sleeping much of the way back (and giving me a chance to attempt some tube-train sketching; here is the result…)