Rigoletto: SF Opera at the Ballpark, 5×8″, drawn in ink then watercolor (and a bit of digital paint) added later. NOTE: Flags at half mast for slain diplomats. Also, appalled by all the corporate advertising, I replaced their signs with generic ones.
My first trip to the S.F. Giant’s ballpark was for a simulcast of the San Francisco Opera’s production of Rigoletto. Our plan was to sketch this annual tradition where 30,000 people attend the opera for free and picnic on the field or feast on hot dogs, beer and garlic fries in the stands.
Public transit was jammed. I stood all the way to SF on the BART (the subway), then we transferred to a SF Muni streetcar so tightly packed my bag got closed in the door and my big feet barely had space to stand.
Wasps Nest Under the Eaves, ink & watercolor, 8×5″
Each year a family (a nation?) of yellow-jacket wasps builds a nest here. One year they built a nest in an abandoned bird feeder which led to an interesting garden ecology life-cycle story. This time the nest is under the eaves of my studio. Fortunately it’s in an area where they’re not bothering me and vice-versa.
I would have liked to draw them and their nest with more detail, but decided it was best to work from a distance, have a more vague drawing, and not get stung.
When I eat lunch on the nearby deck, a wasp scout or two will come by for their share, which I put on a plate on the table for them. That way they don’t bother me on the chaise lounge where I usually eat and read.
I investigated having the nest professionally removed but read that they are beneficial to the garden, as they eat insect pests and move pollen around. I was surprised to learn that you shouldn’t swat at them as that makes them instinctively want to bite, which they can do repeatedly since unlike bees they don’t lose their stinger.
When the season changes I’m hoping they go away so I can remove the nest to observe and draw it more closely. And I’m watching for dead wasps that I can draw, but no luck so far.
We started our Tuesday evening sketching outside the Hotsy Totsy Club in Albany. I had trouble with my watercolor Moleskine paper kind of pilling up when I tried to put another layer of paint on the shadow side of the funky building. Not sure why but that has happened to several pages so I’m glad to be finishing up the Moleskine and going back to binding my own sketchbooks.
Around sunset it got cold so we moved inside.
Hotsy Totsy interior, ink & watercolor, 5×5″
We heard they had free hot stew on Tuesday nights (S’tewsday) and thought that would be a good way to warm up. It turned out they don’t serve it until 9:00 so Judith and I shared a hot toddy (as opposed to a Hot Totsy which the bartender explained was served on fire). It was pretty dark inside and hard to judge the colors we were painting.
I previously posted some snide comments about the Hotsy Totsy Club here, but it got new owners around that time who transformed it from a 72-year-old sleazy joint mostly populated by old drunks to a fun neighborhood retro saloon. Here’s an article about the club’s transformation.
We hung out and sketched until 9:00 when we were rewarded with the most delicious gumbo ever! Full of fat shrimp and all the other spicy goodness that is gumbo. Yum!
Back in the 1970s when Chez Panisse first opened, the neighboring area became known as Gourmet Ghetto, and it has continued in that tradition since then. The area is packed with wonderful foodie joints, fine restaurants and specialty food shops as well as boutiques like Earthly Goods (above).
The French Hotel has lost part of its neon sign. Ink & watercolor, 8×5″
The French Hotel (above) is in the same neighborhood and has a great espresso bar on the ground floor. A couple of doors down is the Cheese Board Collective, famous for their special pizzas that people line up for while being entertained by a jazz band and then eat, picnic style, on the center median strip of Shattuck, despite signs saying not to. (This previous post has funny video of people breaking that particular rule.)
Normandy Village Berkeley, ink & watercolor sketch, 8×5″
This sketch of Normandy Village in North Berkeley got lost, passed by in my journal and never got posted. When I uploaded the image I was surprised to see a May date on my screen and went to grab my sketchbook to make sure that was right. Sometimes if I’m in the sketching “zone” I lose track of things like dates, and write the wrong month or year.
I couldn’t find my sketchbook. I knew I’d had it with me on at least one of my errands today because I sketched in it. I looked all over the house; no sketchbook. Then I went to grab my car keys to see if I left it in the car. I couldn’t find my keys. I’m usually very organized and always put my keys in the same place but they weren’t there.
Finally I opened the front door to see if I’d dropped them (which doesn’t make sense because I obviously needed them to get in the house!) and there were my keys, hanging on the outside of the door in the lock. Duh! I’d left them there when rushing in the door to take care of an urgent need, shall we say.
I grabbed the keys, beeped the car door open but the sketchbook wasn’t there either.
Panicking, I made a second search of the house and found my sketchbook on my bed, hidden in plain sight. I was going to sketch it sitting on the bed and post that picture right here, but realized I couldn’t sketch it while sketching in it. And the sketch was from May.
The 90-year-old owner of this house on Allston and McGee in Berkeley has trimmed the bonsai trees in his garden for 50 years and they are beautiful. I enjoyed sketching from in front of his house while my sketch buddies took posts across the street and on the corner.
I have a whole bunch of paintings and sketches to post so I may keep my writing brief on some of them in order to get caught up. This is one of the brief ones.
Update: When Carol asked if “Giant Bonsai” is an oxymoron I looked it up. According to Wikipedia:
The purposes of bonsai are primarily contemplation (for the viewer) and the pleasant exercise of effort and ingenuity (for the grower).
Bonsai practice focuses on long-term cultivation and shaping of one or more small trees growing in a container. Bonsai does not require genetically dwarfed trees, but rather depends on growing small trees from regular stock and seeds. Bonsai uses cultivation techniques like pruning, root reduction, potting, defoliation, and grafting to produce small trees that mimic the shape and style of mature, full-size trees.
So apparently I was wrong to call these trees Bonsai since they are growing in the ground and while shaped like Bonsai trees, actually are full-sized trees. So it’s not an oxymoron, but I wonder if there is a word to describe this situation: “A full-sized tree cultivated to look like a miniature tree that is cultivated to look like a full-sized tree, only in miniature.” ????
Northside Sketch – U.C. Berkeley University Library, ink & watercolor 8×5″
Last week Gail Wong, Urban Sketcher from Seattle was in the Bay Area visiting and we had the privilege of sketching with her. You can see Gail’s sketch, story and the photo she took of us that evening on the Seattle Urban Sketchers blog here. I loved getting to see her amazing work and it was fun sharing sketchbooks all around even though I was a bit distracted all evening, because….
As soon as I sat down to sketch I got an emergency auto-dial call on my cellphone from the county with this terse warning: “There is an emergency situation at the Chevron Refinery! Shelter in place. Close all doors and windows and turn off heaters and air conditioners. Do not go outside until further notice.”
There was a huge fire at the Chevron refinery and while I thought it was at least 20 miles away, my house is actually only 5.5 miles south (I checked Google maps). The air was clear where we were so I decided to worry about it later. Friends seeing the smoke or the news kept texting and phoning to make sure I was OK. The smoke could be seen from all over the Bay Area, but not where we were.
Fortunately, when I arrived home the air was clean with the usual fresh sea breeze and everything was fine. The smoke stayed very close to the refinery which was really fortunate (except for those living close by and people who buy gas since the price is going up for the West Coast area supplied by the now damaged refinery).
The county called me back at 1:30 a.m. and again at 2:30 a.m. to let me know it was now safe to open windows or go outside. Gee thanks, county! I would have rather slept through the night!
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 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.
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.
El Cerrito Natural Grocery, sepia ink & watercolor, 8×5″
I was so tired I almost didn’t go to our Tuesday sketch night but our destination, El Cerrito Natural Grocery, was near home so I pushed myself out the door. I only managed the sketch above, made standing using a shopping cart as my table. Even the colors looked tired. Cathy focused on the meat department and entertained the butchers with her drawings of them. Her chicken sketch is a hoot.
We left at 8:00 when the store closed and then I sat in my car for a few minutes, checking my email on my phone while trying to talk myself out of a trip to the ice cream shop. My phone rang: “Hello, this is El Cerrito Natural and you left your little notebook in your shopping cart.”
Thank goodness I always put a note on the first page of every journal: “IF LOST PLEASE CALL…” with my phone number. I said I was still in the parking lot and ran back to the front door and gratefully took it home.
Outside Peet’s Coffee, Ink & watercolor
This was another drawing while tired. I tried taking a walk to Peet’s coffee to wake myself up. Since caffeine is no longer an option, the walking and an iced decaf had to do the trick. It didn’t. I was just more tired when I got home but at least I got to sketch a bit (and didn’t lose my sketchbook this time).
I watched the blind woman at the next table (in the sketch above) make a phone call by listening carefully to the tone as she pushed each number. Her friend arrived shortly afterwards, also blind, walking a large black poodle.
Two things I wondered:
If you’re meeting someone and you can’t see them, how do you know they’re there or arriving without calling out “Susie are you here…” or phoning?
Why don’t you ever see standard poodles as guide dogs? I live near a center for the blind and also often see people training guide dogs on our subway system. They’re never poodles. Though they do always wear very cute booties–I wonder why?
with 
in 
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.
Jana Bouc, Artist 