leafy mysteries

November 1, 2008November 6, 20082 Comments

Until they think warm days will never cease
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells

(John Keats, To Autumn)

Drew this house – before the rains came, obviously – in Old North Davis, and it’s my first entry on the brand new Urban Sketchers website which officially launches today. Check it out! And, I am so honoured, the banner flag on the site for launch day is a photo of my own sketchbook, in SF.

Historic North Davis… a couple of blocks just north of 5th street, downtown, where the houses are old and the streets lined with trees and old america. It’s a historic area because it’s old, not because of any great historical event. Unless you count the 2000-01 tree stand-off against PG&E, where some residents, er, stood off against PG&E cutting down trees. Hey, fair play to them. PG&E don’t live there. Don’t mess with Davis. And if they cut down the trees, I’d have nothing to put in the foreground of my drawings, would I.

I think it was Ali G who said, “you may take our trees, but you will never take our freedom!”

hitched in hitchin

October 31, 2008October 30, 20084 Comments

It’s Hallowe’en…this is supposed to be the most haunted building in Hertfordshire ( that’s England, folks, just north of the part of London I’m from). It’s the Sun Hotel in Hitchin, and today my friend James is marrying his fiancee Lianne at this very place (many congratulations dudes!); unfortunately I can’t go (what with being on the other side of the world) so I drew this for them.

Happy Hallowe’en!

sketchcrawl 20 (part 3)

October 29, 2008October 28, 20085 Comments

And so on to 24th Street, and to the more colourful latin-american part of town. I loved it down there and was itching to draw some spanish-language shopfront. I chose a barber-shop (yep, drawn barber-shops in SF before) which i could have simplified, but i did have lots of kids and adults wearing chivas etc football shirts looking over my shoulder exclaiming excitedly in spanish so I felt i should keep adding details. I enjoyed drawing this one. The one below, I finally got a powerline in there. Several other sketchcrawlers were at this intersection – one even spoke to me, and happened to be from England – and there were also two large cops on two large motorbikes hodden behind opposite corners, bursting out sirens screaming every time someone jumped a stop sign (presumably that was the reason, unless it was something more serious). Decided to colour this elsewhere, over a well-deserved fat tire in a little Irish bar called napper tandy’s, full of fairly well-watered and friendly Irish people. Decided on sepia in the end, give it a different flavour.

Sketchcrawl ended at Muddy’s, a cafe with pretty much nothing on the menu that I wanted (this is why I prefer these things to end at a pub, at least they have beer, but that’s just me being a Londoner; I don’t drink coffee, so all those different flavour beans mean nothing to me). There were a LOT of other sketchcrawlers there, sharing their sketchbooks – though I usually like this bit, I was a little intimidated. I did sit and swap books with a few people, all great work, some people just doing one or two pictures, others filling pages and pages with quality work. I was given some nice compliments. But I got too shy to go mingling, and slinked off for a very messy mission burrito, before heading off to catch the amtrak bus over the bridge, and the train back to Davis, tired and exhausted.

I really enjoyed this Sketchcrawl. They’re always different. I guess the next one is in January some time – we’ll see! Hope you enjoyed my little trip through the Mission District.

sketchcrawl 20 (part 2)

October 28, 2008October 27, 20082 Comments

Saturday’s sketchcrawl in SF’s Mission District continued; I drew the view down 22nd St looking towards that large insectoid alien invader tower thing. I do know what it is called, but it is funnier if I call it that. You may notice, there are no power lines in this picture, what was I thinking? Was I going to spend a day drawing in the Mission without sketching my beloved powerlines? Surely not. But I had a checklist: powerlines, victorian houses, spanish-language shopfronts, and sutro tower with a hill full of buildings. Otherwise I may as well just stay in Davis and draw trees. I got the drawing of a building with a tree in the foreground done, that’s an old chestnut for me, plus the purple pen outing and the view from the train, I am becoming predictable. Can I resist drawing a framed picture with a tree or lamp-post escaping the frame? No I can’t, and there it is above. Below, a grand old Victorian on Guerrero, the sort of place you would just love to live. I enjoy drawing these. I gave this picture a very green tint to it.

After this, I strolled down to 24th to look at murals and sketch some more. Part 3 coming tomorrow…

sketchcrawl 20 (part 1)

October 27, 2008October 27, 20082 Comments

Saturday October 25th was Worldwide Sketchcrawl #20; I journeyed down to San Francisco to join the group of about sixty sketchcrawlers in the Mission District (you know I love it there). This was my eighth participation in the Sketchcrawl, and my second in San Francisco (the others being Davis twice, Berkeley twice, Sacramento and London). For me, the sketchcrawl is another excuse to go out and draw, maybe try some new things, to see how much I can do in the time given, but more importantly to see how other sketchers work. The many different ways of interpreting the same scenes are inspirational. Plus I get to check out other people’s pens.

I got the early Amtrak from Davis; it was going to be a very sunny day, even in the city. As always, I got the moleskine out to draw the view from the train through the Valley as it crossed the Delta into the Bay. I noted the times I sketched, along with a lyric from whatever happened to be on the headphones at the time. I got off the 14 bus at Mission District and within a block trod in some dogpoo – not a good start. Thankfully I was able to clean it off easily. Having lived in France and Belgium, I am normally hyper-aware of dogpoo, but living in the US has thrown me off, still this was the first time in many years and was probably an omen for a good day (the last time I trod in dogpoo was on the way to my second date with my future wife). But enough of the social history of dogpoo (that is another blog entry entirely, perhaps on another blog), and back to the 20th worldwide sketchcrawl.

There were a lot of people with sketchbooks at Que Tal on Guerrero, the meeting point. I was pleased to see the cafe sold Barry’s tea, my favourite, but I just had a bagel and went out into the street to start the sketching along with everybody else. Sketchcrawl’s founder Enrico Casarosa was there, with copies of his new book the Venice Chronicles. I began with a building opposite, on the corner of Guerrero and 22nd. The sun was casting dramatic shadows. Oh look, there’s a tree in the foreground (for a change). A lot of sketchers were drawing people, while I’m usually fixated with architecture, but I did too, using the micron purple pen that crawls out of my pencil case every few months or so. I recognised some of the faces from previous crawls, but my natural shyness meant I just buried myself into my moleskine and got down to business. But the great thing about other sketchers is that they don’t mind being sketched, so you never have to pretend you’re not sketching them. It’s quite liberating.

Part 2 will come tomorrow; in the meantime check out everyone else’s SF ‘crawl posts at sketchcrawl.com.

überlingen am bodensee

October 20, 2008October 20, 20085 Comments

Überlingen am Bodensee. I came here in 1996 to stay for a year, but liked it so much I stayed for nearly a month. That was a funny episode in my life. Whatever possessed me to up sticks and suddenly move to Germany? Where I knew nobody, with practically no money nor idea of what I was doing, going off to save the world I think it was. I’d always wanted to live in Germany. I had gone to work with mentally disabled children at the local Heimsonderschule, several miles out of town (on my one day off a week I’d hike or hitch into town, look around the record shop and the bookstore – I love German bookstores – then trudge back again). For one reason or other I decided it was the wrong move, though, and trudged back to England.

I no longer recall that much about Überlingen; I did revisit briefly in 1998 while on my five-week tour of Europe, and took the photo from which I drew this picture, but didn’t stay long. It also made headlines after two passenger planes collided ouside the town, a few years ago. I have been to Bodensee (or Lake Constance, on the Swiss/Austrian/German border) several times, first of all when I was 15, on a school work experience trip to Vorarlberg. “Schnupperlehre”, I think the experience was called.

I do remember hitching into town, though. The walk was pleasant enough, going past pear orchards and rolling sunflower meadows, but long; a lift would be nice. I often hitchhiked while strawberry picking in Denmark – pretty much everybody I knew there did, not just into town or back to the farm, but often across Europe. I was told one trick of hitchhiking, to stand nearby to where a car has broken down. They may just be waiting for the AA to show up, but you’re more likely to get offered a lift by some kind passing audi. When it’s raining, you’re happy for such advice, even if you feel a little guilty about it. But local people would always offer to give you a ride: the first evening I arrived in Überlingen, I was checking out the map at the station as the sky grew ever darker, when a family asked if I needed a lift to wherever I needed to go. Oh, no that’s ok, danke, ich gehe zu Fuss. “Nein, nein, es ist zu weit!” they insisted, laughing hearty German laughs (after discovering how far it was and how dark the countryside was at night, I bashfully agreed). They even invited me to dinner at their house the following week (I regret not going). It seems so long ago. The idea of hitchhiking anywhere now seems so mental to me, perhaps it’s living in America where, and I thank you media, hitchhiking equals certain death possibly involving machetes and being buried in the desert.

le petit

October 19, 20082 Comments

Over eight and a half months old, baby luke is becoming little boy luke, and is getting himself around and into all sorts of mischief: what i didn’t draw here were his surroundings, a pile of dvds he just pulled off the shelf. Life is about to become a whole load of fun. He already loves to tear magazines apart. My sketchbooks will be hidden far far away.

This was drawn in baby’s journal. I can’t quite get his face right yet though. Eyes are wrong, face too round, hair too dark. Then again each time I attempt a drawing, he changes a bit more. They really do grow so quickly at this age, just like everybody says; I can barely keep up.

smelled the spring on the smoky wind

October 16, 2008October 16, 20083 Comments

Between 1999 and 2000 I lived and worked in Charleroi, Belgium, as my Year Abroad while studying French. Who could love Charleroi? The sprawling decayed post-industrial mess at the heart of the slag-dumped Pays Noir, derided as a bed of crime and shady politics, and the place where a lot of England fans threw a lot of chairs and got hit in the face with big water-cannons for their efforts. Well, grimy as it is, I do love Charleroi. The people are warm and welcoming, and down-to-earth, and beneath the soot and neon there is some gorgeous art-nouveau archtitecture to be found. It’s the home of some of Belgium’s most beloved BD (comic book) stars, such as Spirou and Lucky Luke. Yes there are rats the size of small cows, but so what? (I tripped over a massive rat here once, actually tripped over it – it ignored me and just shuffled along, watched by a prudent cat).

And the beer is amazing. This is la cuve à bière, a little pub I used to visit several times during the week, largely because they had a TV that would show match of the day on BBC1. I’d sit and write or draw, taste new beers, eat cheese. Sometimes, Tel would come over from England and drink Kwak. I remember that on cold sleety nights I would walk through the doors, my glasses would steam up instantly, but by the time I’d wiped them clean and gotten to the bar, my beer would already be there waiting there for me. I don’t even know if la cuve is still there; I hope it is. When I’m back in the UK this december, I might pop over there to find out.

E-B-G-D-A-E

October 14, 2008October 14, 200813 Comments

This is my illustration friday for this week, theme “strings“. Pretty obvious.

I absolutely hate stringing the guitar. It’s my least favourite thing. It takes me hours, and it is torturous. I am constantly afraid of one snapping and cutting my lip, or ripping a hole in the fabric of the universe or something. It’s almost like my fear of bunsen burners, but more stupid. I’ve considered just giving up the guitar for good while restringing in the past, it’s been that bad. The guy in the shop when I bought these offered to string my guitar for me, but it would mean bringing it in, I just don’t have time. He did also try to sell me some really swanky looking guitar strings called Elixir, but I decided against them because they sounded too much like a packet of condoms.

dial M for redrum

October 12, 20082 Comments

Just as you get off the freeway at downtown Davis. Caffino is a drive-thru coffee booth, and Murder Burger is an old-school american diner that does incredible burgers and amazing milk-shakes. Oh, sorry Redrum Burger.

They used to be called Murder Burger, and to most Davisites they still are. But a few years back they opened another one in some other dog-knows-where town, and someone complained that Murder Burger (“so good they’re to die for”) was not appropriate as a place to eat (even though appropriateness is usually measured by the money something makes). So they decided to change their name, and asked their customers to vote on a new name. The name that won with an overwhelming majority was, in fact, Murder Burger. So they went with the second choice, Redrum Burger (yes, I thought it meant the horse at first).

I don’t eat red meat anyway.