Category: Places

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Berkeley Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Painting Places Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Why the Post Office Should Be Run by the Girl Scouts

Berkeley Main Post Office, 5x8", Ink & watercolor
Berkeley Main Post Office, 5×8″, Ink & watercolor

We’d heard the historic Berkeley Main Post Office was going to be shut down and sold so we decided to go sketch it. When we arrived for our Tuesday night sketching session, there was a “Save The Post Office” demonstration going on. (News report and photos.)

Post Office Protestors, ink & watercolor
Post Office Protestors and Great Dane, ink & watercolor

By the time I found a parking space and a spot to draw, the rally was breaking up.  I quickly sketched a few of the protestors, including an old lady in purple sweats with wild gray hair serving cake and petitions on her ironing board table, and a patient Great Dane.

So what about the Girl Scouts running the post office? While I sat and sketched the historic building, the protesters left except for one man who was shouting slogans and pacing back and forth in front of the building. At first I thought he was part of the rally, but no. While he sounded educated and articulate, he was also literally “raving mad.”

He carried on non-stop, and provided the background sound track to my drawing. Here are a few of his rants that I jotted down.

“Let the Girl Scouts run the post office.”

“Yeah they’re gonna sell the post office. And then they’re gonna sell your mom and put a for sale sign on her buttocks.”

“The Buddhists and the Catholics won’t pick up cigarette butts from the sidewalk. Obama won’t even pick up cigarette butts from the sidewalk. Romney won’t pick up cigarette butts. Berkeley High students won’t pick up cigarette butts from the sidewalk. The Boy Scouts won’t even pick up cigarette butts, the City Council members won’t pick up cigarette butts.” (and on and on)

He lectured on politics, religion, environment, sex, drugs and more. I wondered if he had been a professor or a politician before he lost his mind. Then he packed up his shopping cart and headed to his homeless home. And I finished my drawing and also headed home, grateful for shelter and sanity.

You can see more sketches from Cathy and Sonia (with post office building history) on our Urban Sketchers S.F. Bay Area blog.

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

From Mortuary to Marmot Mountain Works to…?

Marmot Mountain Works, Berkeley, Ink & watercolor, 8x5"
Marmot Mountain Works, Berkeley, Ink & watercolor, 8×5″

Built in 1923 as the Hull & Durgin funeral home, this storybook-like building became the home of outdoor gear store Marmot Mountain works in 1976. In March 2012 Marmot closed up shop and the building is now for sale.

The Hull & Durgin folks had quite a colorful history going back to the late 1800s when they were half furniture store, half mortuary. The story about them and this building on the Berkeley Architectural Heritage (BAHA) website begins…

“On the morning of 1 February 1895, a Berkeley carpenter by the name of A.E. Spaulding entered Stricker’s cigar store at 2132 Shattuck Avenue. Laying a bundle of medications on the counter, he announced that he wished to leave it there. Then he walked to the rear of Durgin & Bleakley, a furniture and undertaking establishment at 2129 Center Street. Leaning against a barn, Spaulding shot himself through the heart with a 38-caliber revolver.”

There are wonderful photos of the interior and exterior of this building in its prime on the BAHA site with a fascinating story of its history. The building cost $28,000 and opened in February 1924. I hope it is restored and not torn down.

About the sketch: Drawn with Lamy Safari Fountain Pen Ex-Fine with Platinum Carbon Ink in Moleskine Watercolor Notebook and painted on site, while sitting on a pile of huge  PVC sewer pipes stacked at the curb near the corner of Adeleine and Ashby in Berkeley.

You can see Cathy’s amazing sketch of the building on our Urban Sketchers blog here and Carries here.

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Drawing Gardening Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Painting Places Plants Plein Air Sketchbook Pages Walnut Creek

Ruth Bancroft Gardens: Beyond the “Private, No Entry” Signs

Ruth Bancroft Gardens Old Barn, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Ruth Bancroft Gardens Old Barn, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

My plein air group was given the great privilege of being able to go beyond the chained off, “Private Property. No Entrance” signs to explore the property where Mrs. Bancroft and other family members still live. There are old barns like the one above and other outbuildings as well as a log cabin, a chalet and a beautiful Japanese style home.

1970s Muscle Cars Resting in the Shade and Dust
1970s Muscle Cars Resting in the Shade and Dust Behind the Garden

The Ruth Bancroft Gardens in Walnut Creek began as a 400-acre fruit farm in the 1880s developed by Hubert Howe Bancroft, a famous historian and publisher whose book collection is now part of UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library.

Bancroft Garden Lilly Pond and Dragonflies, ink & watercolor 5x8"
Bancroft Garden Lilly Pond and Dragonflies, ink & watercolor 5×8″

The farm was passed down through the generations, and much of the land was sold off for housing development. In 1971 the last walnut orchard on the property was cut down, and Ruth’s husband, Phillip Bancroft, offered her three acres to begin a new garden using her large collection of succulents.

Giant Agave, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Giant Agave, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

The garden also has collections of aloes, agaves, yuccas, and echeverias. Aeonium ‘Glenn Davidson’, the first succulent in Ruth’s collection, is still growing in the garden.

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Gardening Landscape Outdoors/Landscape Painting Places Plein Air Pt. Richmond Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Secret Pt. Richmond “Wave Garden” With Spectacular Views

Pt. Richmond Secret Garden View, Watercolor, 9x12"
Pt. Richmond Secret Garden View, Watercolor, 9×12″

One of our Urban Sketchers, Susan Ford, is a landscape designer who discovered this amazing secret garden in Pt. Richmond that overlooks the bay. The owners of the property,  whose home is just above the garden, recruited concrete artist/sculptor Victor Amador (photos: concrete work) to create winding paths, walls and little nooks with seating areas, all with views of the Bay. They hired Kellee Adams (photos/video about the plantings) to fill it with  colorful, abundant plants. And then the owners opened the property to the public.

I painted the larger watercolor above by working from my on-site sketch (below) as well as from memory and a funky cell phone photo.

Pt. Richmond Park Sketch, watercolor, 5x8"
Pt. Richmond Park Sketch, watercolor, 5×8″

We sketched until sunset, and the evening felt like a truly spiritual experience. It was so peaceful to be surrounded by sky and sea and the sounds of birds, bees, breezes. Although we were only blocks from the freeway I felt like I was far away on a distant island.

Here is a video from a local TV station about the park and its creators when it was first opened in 2008. It doesn’t do justice to the planting which was new then, but is fully grown now.

The Wave Garden is located at the end of Grandview Court in Point Richmond and parking is limited. If you visit, please be quiet and respectful of the neighbors.

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Bay Area Parks Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Painting Places Plein Air Sketchbook Pages

Lost on the Way to China (Camp)

Sea Breeze, Grounded Boat at China Camp Village, ink & watercolor 5x8"
“Sea Breez”, Grounded Boat at China Camp Village, ink & watercolor 5×8″

I think I broke my record of getting lost when I went to a paint out at China Camp. The first three times I apparently confused my GPS when I entered my destination as cross streets and it delivered me to three different neighborhoods in San Rafael instead of the state park. Finally I arrived at the 15 mile long park but missed the turnoff to our painting spot and drove all the way through and out the other side into yet another nice San Rafael neighborhood.

Plein Air Painter and the Old Pier at China Camp Village, ink & watercolor, 5x8"
Plein Air Painter and the Old Pier at China Camp Village, ink & watercolor, 5×8″

At least the road through the 1,514-acre park offers beautiful views of the San Pablo Bay waterfront, a salt marsh, and meadows. At China Camp Village where I made these sketches, there are many remnants of the 1880s Chinese immigrant shrimp-fishing village of 500, including one lone, 85-year old surviving resident who was going to be evicted when the park was to close July 1 due to budget cuts. 

Continue reading “Lost on the Way to China (Camp)”
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Berkeley Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Places Sketchbook Pages

Back to Albina Street

Back to Albina Street, ink & watercolor, 8x5.5"
Back to Albina Street (Cathy sketching), ink & watercolor, 8×5.5″

We were fortunate to be invited back to the amazing Albina Street Victorian that I wrote about before here. The owners were so gracious to allow our entire Urban Sketchers group explore the house from top to bottom. They even served us lemonade and cookies in the garden.

I was interested in that curvy shape below the edge of the roof, a motif that is repeated throughout the exterior and interior of the house.

At the end of the evening we spread out our dozen sketchbooks for the owner to photograph for his scrapbook. I thought my sketch was rather boring but fortunately others in the group made up for my blah sketch. Cathy outdid herself with a half-dozen renderings of the rare and unique palms and other trees in the garden and Micaela captured some wonderful interior scenes.

When the others post their new Albina Street sketches on our Urban Sketchers blog you can see them here.

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Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Painting Places Urban Sketchers

Not a Haunted House: Temescal Tid Bits

Temescal Clark Street Victorian, ink & watercolor, 5.5x8"
Temescal Clark Street Victorian, ink & watercolor, 5.5×8″

Although my wonky sketch makes it look rather spooky, this is actually a lovely, well-maintained home in the Temescal district of Oakland. I was sitting on the curb sketching at sunset and a woman walked by and said, “Oh, I just sketched that house yesterday!”

Temescal Alley Barber Shop door
Temescal Alley Barber Shop door

We met for our Tuesday evening sketching in Temescal Alley, a historic semi-restored block of tiny shops that was formerly a horse stable. Temescal Alley Barber Shop is an amazing place with old-fashioned everything (except the barbers who are anything but old-fashioned). They were closing so I only had time to draw their door and barber’s pole but really want to go back and draw inside the shop.

Barber's motorcycle, ink, 4x6"
Barber’s motorcycle, ink, 4×6″

Since all the other shops were closed I started drawing the motorcycle outside the barber shop. Then the barber closed up and drove off. So we walked down the street where we spotted the Victorian at the top of the post and sat down to sketch. We finished the evening at Scream, a tiny shop that sells tiny cups of homemade vegan sorbets, where we sat on a bench and shared our sketches.

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Bay Area Parks Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Outdoors/Landscape Painting Plein Air Sketchbook Pages

Bull Valley Barn and Cow Studies

View from Bull Valley Trail Staging Area, Crockett, ink & watercolor 5x8"
View from Bull Valley Trail Staging Area, Crockett, ink & watercolor 5×8″

On the road home from the Port Costa adventure in my last post I spotted this barn and pulled off the road (this time actually managing to stay on the pavement!) into the Bull Valley Staging Area parking lot to sketch it.

When I finished I noticed a herd of cows grazing on the hill beside the parking lot and walked over to the fence to sketch them.  As you can see, I know nothing about cows and these gals weren’t holding still for me.

Bull Valley Cow Scribbles, ink 5x8"
Bull Valley Cow Scribbles, ink 5×8″

Then the strangest thing happened. A very old Asian man with very long whiskers and long hair, wearing only loose pants and flip-flops appeared in the cow pasture, walked up the hill through the cows and just kept on going until he disappeared. A guy with a camera was taking pictures of the cows and we looked at each other confused. We tried to figure out his story but could come up with nothing.

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Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Outdoors/Landscape Painting Places Plants Richmond Annex Sketchbook Pages

Dangerous Wildflowers on Carlson Boulevard

Wildflowers on Carlson Boulevard, ink & watercolor 5x8"
Wildflowers on Carlson Boulevard, ink & watercolor 5×8″

When the two-year long repaving project on the one-mile stretch of Carlson Boulevard from El Cerrito to Richmond Annex was finally completed, someone planted wildflower seeds in the dirt-filled center dividers. The ugly, urban street took on new life as the wildflowers bloomed into a gorgeous riot of color. There were little white ones and fluffy yellows, brilliant orange California poppies, and my favorites, the blue bachelor buttons and tall lavender lupines that stood (note past tense here) three feet high.

I’m glad I spent a lovely hour enjoying sketching them because the next day work crews came through and HACKED them all down. The neighborhood email newsletter was abuzz with people horrified at the destruction.

Then we found out why. There was a serious car accident and a couple of near misses because the flowers grew so high that you couldn’t see oncoming traffic on the other side of street when crossing or making turns.  It was true; even in my sketch you can’t see the street on the other side of the center divider because the flowers completely hid it.

Happily, new, completely different wildflowers have now sprouted, and hopefully they won’t be so dangerous and will be left to bloom in peace.

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Berkeley Building Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Landscape Places Sketchbook Pages

Berkeley’s Amazing Albina Street Victoria

Albina Street Victorian, ink & watercolor (added at home), 8x5"
A corner of the Albina Street Victorian, ink & watercolor, 8×5″ (sketched in ink on site, watercolor added at home), 

Have you ever stood in front of an amazing house and wished the owner would appear and invite you inside? That’s exactly what happened to us when we were sketching the historic Albina Street house in Berkeley. The new owner (steward is a better word, and how he describes his role) bought the house just six months ago (only the third owner), and he and his family are clearly in love with the spectacular home and gardens with the huge variety of majestic palms and other trees.

He saw us sketching and invited us in for a full tour and made sure we were on the fourth floor roof deck to see the sunset. There were so many amazing architectural features (I know I keep saying “amazing” but other than “jaw-dropping” it’s the only way to describe the property), fascinating contraptions and attention to detail that I can’t even begin to list them.

You can get a good general view on the Berkeley Architectural Historic site, and for the complete story, there is a 43 page book available for viewing on the web.

You can also see Cathy’s wonderful sketches here and Micaela’s here on our Urban Sketchers blog.