Tag: USk: some urban sketchers

the e street strummer

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12-string guitarist, E st

He stands outside Chipotle and Peet’s Coffee n E Street, busking on his twelve-string at lunchtimes when I am there, sounding like Dylan, Nelson, Haggard; his music is very nice. He has one of those harmonicas you can play while guitaring; no cymbals at the knees though. Very distinctive with his long white hair, moustache, sunglasses; he has a long feather in his hat. One of the characters of Davis.  He was singing a song about watercoloured wine while I was drawing this, munching on my burrito. It was cold outside; November is really kicking in. The Fall Colours have just exploded all around us, the trees have suddenly turned the colour of flames, and there’s no way I’ll keep up with them.

between a rock and a hard place

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central bar, hard rock Las Vegas

The Central Bar at the Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas. Stopped there first on my overnight trip to Sin City. Not much sinning going on, but lots of beer and some great Bavarian food at the Hofbrauhaus afterwards, and excellent company too. My idea to come here first, but then I remembered I’m actually off guitars at the moment. This bar kinda looks like the inside of the TARDIS. That pink light turned yellow from time to time, and then blue, sometimes green as well, though that may have just been through the bottom of the beer bottle. Those people there, playing video blackjack or whatever it was, at the bar. This was the only sketch I did in Vegas, I wasn’t there for long enough. Came back 24 hours later, much the wiser.

plane sailing

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SMFI took an overnighter to Vegas, to see my Best Man; last time we’d been there together was for my wedding. He plays poker there now, so I flew down for some chat and some beer. Having seen so many other urban sketchers drawing in the airport, on their various trips around the globe, I thought I’d finally get a sketch in (on this one occasion when I’m not chasing my nearly-two-year old son around the departure lounge; oh that will be fun on our trip to London). This is a Southwest plane at Sacramento airport (SMF).

 

every leaf speaks bliss to me

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a house and tree on 4th and D

November in Davis means warm and cool sunny afternoons, with turning leaves and long, lazy shadows. Alright, what I’m saying is we have nicer weather than back home in London, where it rains and is cold. But now the clocks have gone back, it also gets dark earlier, so less time for sketching. I don’t really have the time anyway, so here is another one scrambled in during lunchtime yesterday. A building (I think it’s owned by Allstate) on the corner of 4th and D, with a tree outside it.

Oh, was it Guy Fawkes Night back in England? I had forgotten to remember.

a year of urban sketching

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A year ago today, the Urban Sketchers super-blog was born, the brainchild of Spanish-born Seattle artist and journalist Gabi Campanario. Happy Birthday USk! We have grown into one of the increasingly popular destinations for those rediscovering their own artistic nature, a message that if you are disposed to record the world as little pictures in little books (as I am), you are P1010070certainly not alone. There are hundreds, thousands, maybe one day millions of us. As one of the founding members (my San Francisco sketchbook was the first banner) I’ve been very proud and humbled to appear among some of the real luminaries of the sketching world, from whom I continue to learn every day. As the USk correspondent for Davis, California, today I posted my 100th post! A nice milestone to reach.

You can follow USk on Twitter, on Facebook and of course at the Flickr group. Here is the Birthday Press Release.

But Urban Sketchers is not resting. The next step is becoming a non-profit organization, “dedicated to promoting the artistic, storytelling and educational value of location drawing“,  and raising money to award scholarships to help artists. This is very exciting. There may be a book. There may be annual international meet-ups of urban sketching artists – I had better start saving!

So now seems the perfect time to spread my message, inspired last night by Eddie Argos of Art Brut telling everyone to go home right now and form a band (and don’t play Rock Band and Guitar Hero) , I am telling you all to get a pen (or pencil), get a sketchbook (or any paper), go outside (or inside) and just DRAW. Draw anything, anything you want. Look out of your window, draw that. It doesn’t matter if it’s any good, it comes from you and that’s the important thing. I tried to draw at the gig last night and my sketches were rubbish, no really they were bad, but I’ll always think of where I was when I did them. It’s a record of where and who you are. One day, you might forget.

So just go out and DRAW! It really is brilliant fun.

to market, to market

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farmers market, davis

The last page of Moleskine #4. I might draw something in the back cover though. This is the Davis Farmers Market in Central Park (not that one), a popular market, to which I rarely go. However we as a family decided to head down there yesterday, to sample fruit, eat chocolate croissant, and (in the case of my son) run about in the crunchy brown leaves. It was a lot of fun. I stuck around after my son went home for his nap, and drew the market itself.

I have the next watercolour Moley waiting patiently in the wings. Click on the pictures below to see all of the drawings from each of the four watercolour Moleys from the past two and a half years.

sketchcrawl 23 pages 1 and 2 Moleskine 4 (Feb 2009 – Oct 2009)
seeing triple Moleskine 3 (July 08 – Feb 09)
in the sunshine Moleskine 2 (Nov 2007 – July 2008)
pete's sketching kit Moleskine 1 (June 2007 – Oct 2007)

froggie’s

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froggies

Froggies, on 2nd and G in Davis. Hadn’t been here in quite some time, so came here on Thursday night for a quick beer and a long sketch. Actually I took my time drinking the beer and drew faster instead. Froggies is alright; the serving staff are friendly, and the beer is good and not expensive. They do really nice food too. But I’m generally not a regular; the acoustics are bad in here, it’s a little too sports-bar in it’s character, I don’t know; can’t quite explain it. It gets a bit packed with young students on the nights when there are DJs, and can be a bit uncomfortable. I like it a lot more than the Grad (Davis’s big sports bar), though, and even the G Street Pub (which is certainly more pub-like, but appears to have been modelled directly on the worst possible late-80s Camden Town dive, particularly in the toilets). Froggies is better than those places. I prefer Little Prague though. Ah, the bars of Davis. So anyway, I fancied popping in here to do a slightly less brown pub drawing. And look, I even drew some people. 

My oldest friend Tel, who now lives in Korea, loves this place. He last came here in 2006.

agony and eggstasy

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yin and yang

Another of Robert Arneson’s Eggheads series; it’s outside Turner Wright Hall, and is called ‘Yin and Yang’. God knows which is meant to be which though.  I’ve drawn it before in fact, a couple of years ago, from a different angle:

eggsecution 

Also posted at Urban Sketchers. By the way, that super-blog extraordinaire is nearly a year old…

stout hearted

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stout brothers, santa rosa

For one reason or other, not been easy for me to sketch lately, but I found myself in downtown Santa Rosa on Saturday afternoon, doing a little shopping, a little reading, and I stopped into the Stout Brothers pub to do a little writing, and perhaps a little drawing. I had a couple of beers and a big glass of water (I’m trying to drink more water these days), and drew the bar. I really did need a wee, but didn’t want anyone to nick my seat, and lose me my vantagepoint. So I held on until I finished. I’m sure you don’t need to know that, but hey, these are the realities of being a modern urban sketcher.