I climbed up Filbert Steps, which lead up from near the Embarcadero right up the steepest side of Telegraph Hill, San Francisco. I think the last time I came up these steps was in about 2007, and they are quite a climb. Partly a steep concrete stair, and partly old wooden steps, it feels like they lead through some time in the distant past, through overgrown foliage and past little private gardens perched accidentally on the edge of one of the world’s great views. It feels like this shouldn’t exist in this relentlessly modernizing cityscape, but here is a hidden community of people who, well they can’t get their cars up here, and they definitely don’t mind steps. I passed by a bright pink house covered in foliage, and remembered drawing that before a very long time ago, in my old WH Smith sketchbook. That was on a San Francisco sketching day when I brought two sketchbooks, the Smiths one I had gotten from England, and the new watercolour Moleskine I was trying out, to see if I liked it (it definitely caught on with me). Here is that pink house, drawn sixteen years ago.

But I was headed for the top. I wanted to draw from high up, and Telegraph Hill is the place to do that. When I reached the top, I stood at the base of the magnificent firehose-shaped Coit Tower and realized that I had never actually been up it. I bet the views were amazing. So I paid the ten bucks, and took the stairs (the elevators were not working), my feet excited by climbing more steps. It’s wider than the Monument in London, which I’d climbed weak-kneed a couple of months before, and you pass those lovely murals on the way up, The views from the top were more than incredible. I was finally doing something new in the city, climbing Coit Tower, and I can’t believe I never bothered before. Lots of tourists were taking photos of the amazing fog-free views, so I got my sketchbook out and started drawing the scene above (at the top of this post; click on it for a closer-up view). I was up there for almost an hour drawing that, doing a much better job than when I was up at the Monument, but still overwhelmed by all the details that I had to puzzle out. The TransAmerica Pyramid loomed large, with the bigger newer Salesforce Tower in the distance behind it. The green Sentinel Building on Columbus, a favourite subject of mine over the years (see if you can spot it in my sketch), looked like a small childrens’ toy next to the TransAmerica Pyramid. I left a whole part of the view unfinished, thinking I might just add it in later, but I decided not to in the end, and now when people ask I pretend it was fog. I was pretty happy with my work up there. I talked for a bit with the guide there, who it turned out was from Norfolk, and then headed back down the stairs. Achievement Unlocked: I drew from the top of Coit Tower.

It was such a nice day and the views from Telegraph Hill were so stunning that I had to sketch another, looking out towards Golden Gate Bridge, which was in fact shrouded with fog. I’ve drawn this view before, this time I sketched in pencil. I had to stay in the shade was much as I could, not easy. The colours were so attractive to me. Still, I was getting hungry for some lunch now so I walked down the other side of the very steep hill towards North Beach. I stopped off at North Beach Pizza on Grant St, they do lovely pizzas. They also had bottles of Anchor Steam beer, and I remembered my mission. However it was a bit early for me. People in there were talking about the sudden demise of the city’s favourite local brew, and the woman behind the counter said they had gone and bought several hundred bottles the day they heard. Some of the other customers there decided they would go down to the Anchor Steam brewery that day, for one last time. I ate my big slice of pizza (a whole pizza looked a bit too big for me) down in Washington Square, where I also did a little sketching in my Fabriano book. That’s Coit Tower there on the left. It was built in 1933, and dedicated to the city’s firemen who had died in the big fires there, most notably the firestorm after the 1906 earthquake. I also sketched a couple of people who were Tango dancing (or maybe Salsa dancing, I don’t really know my flavours of dancing, could have been Fanta dancing for all I know). It may have been a dance lesson, I don’t know, but they ended up in my sketchbook. I remembered that I also gave a lesson on this very spot several years ago, when I taught a workshop on Perspective, standing outside the big church of St. Peter and St. Paul, making big shapes with my arms to define perspective lines, probably looking like a preacher.

I love North Beach a lot. I went and got a big cream horn from Mara’s Italian Pastries (wasn’t cheap, was delicious) and sat on my little sketching stool to draw the view below. It was the first time I’d sat on my sketching stool that day, I had brought it with me and carried it around, but typically I stand to sketch these days. I’m glad I did though, I was able to rest my legs for a while. There were a lot of people about, sketchable people too, but I like this view down Columbus, towards that big TransAmerica Pyramid again. The SalesForce Tower is there too, poking about in the background like a new rich kid trying to be cool. I mean, look at this view, that sixty-odd bucks trip on the train down here is worth it for that, not to mention the view from Coit Tower. I do count myself lucky that I ended up in California. London’s great, it’s the best, but I get to come down here from time to time, to this neighbourhood, to see things that haven’t changed amid all the changes, and still find new things to love.

But I wanted that Anchor Steam beer. It was mid-afternoon by now, and I’d done a lot of work already, so time to literally drop anchor somewhere…