Category: Places

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Albany Ink and watercolor wash Interiors People

The Pub on Solano: A Cozy Spot to Sketch

Cozy Evening at The Pub, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Cozy Evening at The Pub, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

The Pub on Solano near the border of Albany and Berkeley is a hidden-away, cozy place to sketch, play chess, or chat with friends or friendly strangers while sipping espresso, beer or wine and hang out as long as you want.

The Pub’s clientele tend to be colorful people who are interesting to eavesdrop on while sketching. The old guys I sketched above weren’t exactly firecrackers but the 40-something, rough-hewn guy in rainbow tie-dye and long blond hair sitting behind me kept me entertained with daring travel adventure stories of remote and distant lands told to his friend who was soon departing.

A bit of an anachronism, The Pub also sells tobacco and cigarettes from around the world and has an interesting display of old pipes. The indoor areas are smoke-free but they offer a front and back outdoor patio where smokers can enjoy their vice(s).

Categories
Berkeley Ink and watercolor wash Sketchbook Pages

Crazy Chicks at Poulet: A Poultry Panorama

Sketch of Crazy Ceramic Chickens 1 at Poulet, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Crazy Chickens 1 at Poulet, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

The night we sketched at Poulet, a mostly chicken café in north Berkeley, I was feeling out of practice with drawing. So instead of trying to sketch the architecture or people I just drew their collection of chickens displayed on shelves, counters and walls.

Sketch of Crazy Ceramic Chickens 2 at Poulet, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
More Ceramic Chickens at Poulet, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

I didn’t bother with the shelves they sat on or perspective or anything serious…just allowed myself to be as playful as the silly chickens. That helped me get over my insecurity, warm up my hand and get back to sketching again after a brief spell of doing everything but art at the beginning of the year.

Poultry Panorama (2-page spread in my sketchbook).
Poultry Panorama (2-page spread in my sketchbook).

On our Urban Sketchers blog you can see Ceiny’s sketches of the café, starring some of the same chickens and Cathy’s sketches of the scene.

Categories
Berkeley Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Sketchbook Pages

Pyramid Plates and Brew

Ale and Ale Drinkers, ink & watercolor sketch, 5x8"
Ale and Ale Drinkers, ink & watercolor sketch, 5×8″

Before being seated at Pyramid Brewery in Berkeley some of us went upstairs to sketch. I enjoyed the perspective challenge of drawing these guys below me, sitting and standing with their pitcher of beer.

The menu recommended their Apricot Ale with the Blackened Salmon dinner (fruity beer a bit odd but tasty). The beer came before my food so I sketched it. I was too hungry to draw my delicious dinner.

Plates at Pyramid Brewery, Ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Plates at Pyramid Brewery, Ink & watercolor, 5×8″

After dinner I drew what I could see from my corner of the booth where I was kind of wedged in. And that should finally be the end of December and beer sketches. Now on to posting more interesting stuff than beer and dishes!

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Berkeley Drawing Food sketch Ink and watercolor wash Interiors Sketchbook Pages

Tickle Your Tastebuds: Gaumenkitzel

Sketching German Cookies, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Sketching German Cookies, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

When we visited Berkeley’s very colorful Gaumenkitzel Restaurant, they offered us a large “community” table where we could sketch and snack all evening. After most of the other customers had left, one sketcher pulled her chair right up to the pastry case to get a better look. Gaumenkitzel means “Tickle Your Taste Buds.” Just saying the name feels tickly on the tongue.

20121222-Gaumenkitzel

I sketched the back of Susan’s beer while she drew the more decorative front. Click their names to see more sketches from the evening by Ceiny and Cathy.

My January and February have been swallowed up by a ton of organizing and business chores which I’m hoping to declare completed tomorrow (YAY!). Then I can finally get back to a life centered around art instead of on spreadsheets, file folders, computers, and tax forms.

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Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Sketchbook Pages Walnut Creek

Shadelands Ranch Museum Sketches

Shadelands Ranch Museum, Penniman House, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Shadelands Ranch Museum, Penniman House, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

While I was in Walnut Creek to take photos of an industrial park for a painting commission I stopped at the Shadelands Ranch Museum to sketch. They were hosting a ladies’ tea that afternoon in the downstairs drawing rooms that looked quite charming. I explored the rest of the house but sadly they told me I couldn’t sketch inside.

I would have loved to draw the Walnut Creek Historical Society volunteers serving in white aprons, the fancy table settings, and most especially the gang of Red Hat Society ladies seated in one of the rooms. I waited outside and sketched the building, hoping to capture them coming out after the tea but they dawdled so long I had to leave or get stuck in rush hour traffic.

http://www.redhatsociety.com/aboutus/howitstarted.html
Shadelands Ranch water fountain, ink & watercolor 8×5″

I drew this water fountain on the property to warm up before tackling the massive Penniman home. Then I did the three sideways thumbnails on the left to try to figure out how much of the house I wanted to draw and how I’d fit it in on the paper.

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Building Ink and watercolor wash Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

S.F. Cable Car Museum Sketches

Sketch of Ticket Machine and Street Lamp, ink & watercolor, 8x5"
Ticket Machine and Street Lamp, ink & watercolor, 8×5″

We rode BART and a cable car to the Cable Car Museum in San Francisco to sketch. I  had to first draw some of the antique street “furniture” on display—an old Cable Car Ticket Machine and a street lamp with cable car line sign on it (California St. Line). The tickets were only 25 cents then. Now they are $6.00 a ride!

Cables that still power the cable cars, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Cables that still power the cable cars, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

I was surprised to discover that the museum was built around and above the massive cable system that still runs the cable cars. The guy in the sketch above stands on a platform about 20 feet up to supervise (?) the cables that run through multiple sets of huge gears in the basement level of the building and then go out under the streets to pull the cable cars up the steep hills.

Cable Car Museum, ink & watercolor, 8x5"
Cable Car Museum, ink & watercolor, 8×5″

It was extremely LOUD in the museum since it’s on a second floor mezzanine completely open to the cable machinery (see picture) so it felt great to get outside again and sketch the brick museum building from across the street. It was a grey, drizzly winter day but never outright rained so we had a great walk back to BART up and down the hills.

For more sketches of cable cars and the museum, click here to see Cathy’s.

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Albany Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Sketchcrawl 38 and Urban Sketchers Show

Masonic & Solano, Albany, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Masonic & Solano, Albany, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

We had a fantastic time hosting sketchers from around the Bay Area at our sketching event last Saturday. There were at least 30 sketchers and a total of around 100 people who joined us at the reception for the show afterwards. It was great seeing so many local scenes captured in many different styles. You can see photos of the exhibit, the reception and tables of sketchbooks on the library’s blog here.

In the sketch above I enjoyed seeing and drawing all the details that normally go unnoticed. Then I  disregarded my plan to put the paint down and leave it alone. Instead I repainted the right side of the building several times and even removed the paint with a wet paper towel (in the restroom of the Sophia Cafe above, left) and then painted it again, finally getting the “right” color but ultimately ruining the paper surface.

Bart Tracks on Masonic, ink, 5x8"
Bart Tracks on Masonic, ink, 5×8″

I got in one last quick sketch of Masonic Ave. with the BART tracks and train before I had to zip down to the Albany library/community center at the end of the block for the reception. We made lots of new sketching friends and some will be joining us for our Tuesday night sketch outings we will be hosting the first Tuesday evening of each month.

If you’re interested in sketching with us, please visit our Urban Sketchers blog’s Event page or join our Urban Sketcher’s Facebook Events page.

Categories
Berkeley Ink and watercolor wash Interiors People Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Brennan’s Bar Backsides and Balding

Brennan's Bar Backsides, ink & watercolor, 6x8"
Brennan’s Bar Backsides, ink & watercolor, 6×8″

The nice thing about sketching in bars, especially one that is also a cafeteria a frequented by an older crowd on a quiet Tuesday night, is that people tend to sit still long enough to draw them.

Balding at Brennan's Bar: trying and trying to capture him. Ink, 6x8
Balding at Brennan’s Bar: trying and trying to capture him. Ink, 6×8

I kept trying to capture this guy who sat a few tables away eating his dinner and reading but never really got him. My sketch buddy Micaela perfectly captured him, which you can see on our Urban Sketchers blog here.

I’m still playing catch up: these are from November. But now that things have settled down in my world, I intend to be caught up by the end of the month, including my 2012 year-end review and a whole week of sunflower paintings.

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Bay Area Parks Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Life in general Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Playing Catch Up!

Egret at Miller-Knox Park, Ink & watercolor 5x8"
Egret at Miller-Knox Park, Ink & watercolor 5×8″

Since my end-of-year wrap-up blog post remains unfinished, here are a couple of autumn sketches that were waiting patiently to be posted. I have a good excuse though: my new iMac arrived last week and since then I’ve been immersed in learning the Mac after over a decade on Windows PCs. I’ve been transferring files, talking to both Moron and Genius-level tech support, and installing and learning Mac versions of my applications.

Miller-Knox Park Autumn, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Miller-Knox Park Autumn, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

I’m finding the Mac to be quite delightful in many ways and a bit confounding in others. But little by little I’m getting the hang of it… And..Oh Crud! right after I typed that I made some kind of wrong move and instantly I was popped out of the blog and into an endless loop of…

Computer: “Are you sure you want to leave this page?” I click: “Stay on page.” Computer: “Are you sure you want to leave this page?” over and over until I finally give up, say OK and click “Leave this page.” And of course nothing happens. Had to force quit and restart.

But Yay WordPress; it saved the draft! I wish I knew what I did so I don’t do it again. It has happened a bunch of times and I have no clue why.

It’s quite humbling going from being expert on the PC to being such a beginner that I couldn’t even figure out how to turn on the Mac (finally found the power button hidden behind the screen).

Categories
Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Places Sketchbook Pages

Urban Angel & Exciting News!!!

Urban Angel, ink & watercolor, 8x5"
Urban Angel, ink & watercolor, 8×5″

I sketched this scene at the Sundar Shadi holiday display on Moeser Lane in El Cerrito. More about that in a minute but first the…

Exciting News

Katherine Tyrell of my favorite art-related blog, Making a Mark, has selected my painting, UPS Delivers at Night, as one of four portraits up for “Best Picture on an Art Blog 2012: The Making a Mark Prize for Best Artwork – Person.”

Katherine invited nominations and then selected 4 paintings in 4 categories (still life, people, places, nature). Now the public has 4 days to vote for their favorites. Click here to visit Making a Mark, see the beautiful work in each of the categories and vote for the ones you like best. The deadline for voting is Sunday, December 30 at 6:00 a.m. London time (10:00 p.m. in California).

Sundar Shadi

Now back to Sundar Shadi’s holiday display. Mr. Shadi was born in India but moved to the Bay Area to attend college in 1921. In 1949 he put up a holiday display on the large empty lot next door to the home he built in El Cerrito.

Sundar Shadi Holiday Display
Sundar Shadi Holiday Display (at sunset between rainstorms)

Every year until he was 96 he added to the display, building figures, animals and a whole village. He passed away but his family and volunteers continue to assemble the display each year. Sundar Shadi was a Sikh not a Christian, but created the display as a gift for the community.

View looking down the hill, Moeser Lane, El Cerrito
View looking down the hill, Moeser Lane, El Cerrito

The view looking down the hill from the display is pretty nice too!