Summer Squash on a Messed Up Page, brush pen & watercolor
Last week we went to a fairly desolate corner in El Cerrito with the intention to sketch a church and the local Wienerschnitzel fast food drive-thru. I was starting to get a migraine and feeling generally stupid so my first attempt just left a page with a bunch of black lines that I could see were all wrong.
I left the page and moved on to the next one (below). The next day I went back and drew right over the messed up page with my green Pitt Brush Pen to paint the squash above. (I’d cooked and eaten its delicious brethren but saved this one to draw.)
Wienerschnitzel, El Cerrito, Ink & watercolor
Here’s my second attempt. I love the way even the stupidest building can be pretty at sunset. At 7:30 it was already too dark to see so we gave up on drawing the church. By time we left at 8:00 I was happy to go home, take my migraine meds and head for bed.
This cement plant/sand factory takes up a square block of West Berkeley and offers a wealth of sketching opportunities. We were there as the sun was setting and everything was glowing for about 45 minutes and then suddenly it was too dark to see.
The factory’s site on Second and Virginia used to be a white sand beach (not the desolate industrial area it is now) and First Street (now Highway I-80) ran along the Bay.
Berkeley Cement Plant #2, ink & watercolor
In 1855 the Pioneer Starch and Grist Mill opened in the same spot but later burned down. And that begs the question: what is grist?
While searching for more information about the factory I came across a railroad buff forum (Trainorders.com) where they describe watching trains deliver to the plant. I don’t understand most of their lingo but appreciate their enthusiasm for railroads:
One of my favorite memories was watching a flying switch drop at Crystal Amber back in the early 90’s. I used to bicycle from my house in North Berkeley to Aquatic Park next to the SP main.
The cab to cab SW1500’s were facing eastbound. They accelerated and then cut off the two hoppers, went into the pocket track and then the brakeman threw the switch. The other brakeman rode the two hoppers while the fireman flagged Virginia St. The switcher set then coupled back onto the hoppers, shoved past Cedar St and then pulled them down past Berkeley Ready Mix, then shoved them into Crystal Amber.
As the crew was walking back, I said to the brakeman “nice flying switch”. He was a bit surprised and replied “you liked my drop?”, to which I replied “Yeah, I liked your drop”. Ahh the memories.
I don’t know what they were pumping out of the ground but the name on the truck—”Environliners”—made me think I probably wouldn’t want to know. It was a gorgeous summer day and I was determined to get outside for a few minutes at lunchtime. I spent it eating a take-out salad and sketching in Snow Park across the street from our building in Oakland.
Our office culture is to eat with co-workers in the office kitchen and get right back to work since there’s always more to do than hours in the day. We’ve even been trying to figure out how to add a new month to the calendar to fit it all in. But some days you have to forget about all that and just enjoy the moment and the all-too-rare sunshine in the Bay Area this summer.
Mississippi Catfish and Smog Express, ink & watercolor
Would you eat dinner at a place that also offers smog testing? I didn’t take a chance on the food while my car was getting its smog test. Instead I stood out in front and sketched. The car was finished and certified in 10 minutes—before I could finish painting.
The mechanic couldn’t figure out what I was doing. Twice he stuck his head out of the garage and called out to me that my car was ready. Finally, he came over and asked, “Are you still doodling? Your car is ready.”
He looked at my sketch but still couldn’t really comprehend the concept that I was drawing his humble establishment. But he said, “Nice picture. Take your time.” And I did.
This lady carefully marked up her cheesy crime novel, “Guns Before Butter” with her pencil as she read. The train ride was really bumpy and so my ink line got pretty squiggly. I switched to drawing her after a big guy with a bike got on and completely blocked my view of the man above her.
Two guys in green, ink & colored pencil
I experimented some more with the brown craft paper sketchbook, drawing with a black brush pen on BART and (above) adding white pen and colored pencil at home.
More Brown Paper People
And below, some ink drawings done on BART with watercolor added at home later.
Waiting patiently, ink & watercolorElderly Asian couple, ink & watercolor
Fishing & Strolling Berkeley Pier at Sunset, ink & watercolor
It was the hottest August day in the history of San Francisco, smack in the middle of the coldest summer since 1975. So for our Tuesday night sketch-out we headed for the cooling breezes coming in off the Pacific Ocean through the Golden Gate Bridge (in the center of the picture above, to the right of the San Francisco skyline). We weren’t alone. The pier was full of people strolling and fishing and enjoying the rare warm evening.
Men's Bathroom on the Pier at Sunset, ink & watercolor
Although my sketch buddies selected a more scenic perspective from the same vantage point (which you can see on our Urban Sketchers Bay Area blog here), the men’s bathroom and shoreline rocks glowing pink and orange in the sunset attracted me instead. Apparently I was holding my sketchbook at a strange angle as I was drawing and painting (or else the world temporarily tilted) causing the wonky slanted horizon and bridge.
The sky turned indigo blue as we walked back down the pier towards land, and a huge full moon rose over the hills. Then a group of half a dozen kayakers with little headlights on their boats paddled right under the pier and out the other side below us. It is special sights like this that make getting out in the world to sketch so special.
Peet's Coffee El Cerrito and Albany Hill, ink & watercolor
Our Tuesday night sketch group is now an official Urban Sketchers group, known as Urban Sketchers SF Bay Area. If you’d like to visit our Urban Sketchers blog, you’ll get to meet my fellow Bay Area sketchers and see the different ways we interpret scenes in our sketchbooks, often from the same viewpoint.
The sketch above was done while sitting on the steps of the Pier One across from Peet’s in El Cerrito. It was the first sunny day in ages and it felt so good to enjoy a latte and some sketching in the sun. Albany Hill sticks up right behind Peet’s. It’s an odd bit of geography that resembles a very tall cupcake (sprinkled with trees instead of jimmies) in an otherwise flat landscape.
Albany Hill’s “Dynamite” History
In the late 19th century, the Judson Powder Works used the hill for the manufacture of dynamite. The company was forced to move from San Francisco and then Berkeley because of continuing accidental explosions. They planted the eucalyptus trees on the hill to catch debris and muffle the sound of their explosions. The stop on the transcontinental railroad tracks just to the west was called Nobel Station, after the inventor of dynamite.
Jana Bouc, Artist 