Category: Life in general

[edit added November 06: If you are a fan of the duo that was playing the night I described in my original post and have arrived here via google search for the group, you don’t need to leave any more rude and personally insulting comments like several others have done as I will delete them.  Since people still seem to be getting here via Google search for the band’s name even though I’d already removed it at their manager’s request, I’m also going to remove my previous comments about the duo in my post, who were mostly enjoyable to listen to, especially the violin player. Please have some manners, folks!]

Tonight Michael and I went to Jupiter, a pub and pizza place near UC Berkeley Campus with a large outdoor courtyard and live music most nights. I selected it because I hadn’t gotten in any drawing today and knew it would be fun to sketch there. Usually it’s hard to get a seat because there’s no hostess. You have to stand around like sharks waiting for someone to leave but tonight we lucked out and got a table right away. These folks above were in the front row, listening to a folk duo. The pizza and Caesar salads were fabulous.

Quick sketch of one of the musicians
(she was much prettier than my drawing) 

These were drawn with Micron pigma in my small Moleskine sketchbook. I started drawing the violinist when we sat down but they took a break after a minute. So I switched to drawing the courtyard and entrance to another cafe until the duo started playing again. I rushed a bit on both, since drawing time was limited (between courses and before a movie) and regretted having to do so, since I found so much to explore there.

I think I discovered something interesting about converting 3-D to 2-D tonight. For the first time I think I kind of got how to see a very complicated scene as flat, interlocking shapes (2-D) instead of layers of things in front and behind each other (3-D). I want to explore this idea more because I think it MIGHT be a key to understanding and drawing complex scenes.

This was sketched from a sunny bench in the little park just outside the Federal Building in Oakland. That tall thing in the foreground is a stone statue etched with a bit of a face, some lillies, and some extra eyes.

I’d gone to the Federal Building to cash a check at the credit union on the second floor (payment for a painting I’d sold). Inside the building there are guards, metal detectors and x-ray systems just like the airport. As I was about to go through the metal detector I remembered my new Swiss Army knife in my backback.

It was new because my old one was confiscated at the airport when I flew to Los Angeles to visit my mother in May. I’d forgotten it was there so it set off alarms going through the x-ray machine, winning me a detour to the place for naughty people where I was given a pat-down search, and every item in my backpack was thoroughly inspected.

The Swiss Army Tinker model which I’ve carried for years has knives plus a Phillips and flathead screwdriver, a can and bottle opener, a nailfile, toothpick, and tweezers, and has come in handy many times. I convinced the nice guard to hold it for me while I went upstairs to the bank.

They should have a system at the airport to store people’s illegal-to-carry-on but otherwise innocuous items like little pocket knives and now, TOOTHPASTE, DEODERANT and SUN TAN LOTION! How hard would it be to have a “coat check” system where you get a receipt for your item and pick it up when you return for a small fee?

I feel sorry for all the people at the airport today who had to discard everything from bottled water to expensive wine and cosmetics just in case they happened to have put liquid or jell explosives in there. I hope that at least the minimum wage airport custodians and security screeners were able to take those things home to use or sell on EBay rather than everything going into the trash!

Brown Micron Pigma in Strathmore 6×8 sketchbook that lives in my backpack too.