After having a rough day, I met Cathy in front of the Northbrae Church at the top of Solano in Berkeley to sketch. I considered staying home, feeling crummy, but knew if I went out sketching I would start feeling better. So I sat on some steps and drew a sort of map (above) of all the nature around me to get warmed up.
Next I sketched the street signs in front of my parked car (below).
Parking and Ferrari Foods, Ink & Watercolor
Then we walked a block north to Solano and sketched the interior of Ferrari Foods (above), which was closed. One worker was inside cleaning up. When he finished and turned off the lights we walked around a bit looking for our next target, realized we were freezing and moved indoors to Cactus Taqueria.
Don't Play With the Fountain, ink and watercolor
Despite the sign on the fountain telling parents not to let their children play with the fountain, children wandering around while their parents finished dinner in the family-friendly Mexican cafeteria found it irresistable. One tot helped himself to a nice long drink of water from one of the streams while the young man sitting beside me yelled “No!” and asked around whose kid it was, dismayed to see him drinking the recycled water. Nobody responded and the kid eventually wandered back to his family, who seemed unworried.
The Bread Workshop is a combination café and artisan bread bakery in Berkeley. They focus on seasonal, sustainable, organic, healthy and delicious foods served in a comfortable atmosphere. From our table we had a view of the small team of bakery workers, hustling to get hundreds of loaves of bread packaged and ready for next morning delivery to local restaurants.
Sawyer and Oven, ink & watercolor
We sat beside a table of young medical students (including the above guy named Sawyer) who were studying and discussing gastroenterology and what symptoms equaled which diseases—not the most appetizing dinner conversation, but interesting nevertheless. The back of the large “Inferno” oven faced the café and was sparkly clean and decorated with little lights beside a bulletin board.
Bread and Snacks Counter, ink & watercolor
I stood in front of the counter where you order (above) to sketch and then painted it at our table. This was really fun to draw.
Dinner at Bread Workshop, ink & watercolor
My grilled chicken breast had been marinated in a yogurt sauce first and it was spicy and delicious, the grilled veges were fresh and tasty and they even had brown rice.
It was a dark and stormy night when Cathy and I met at Au Coquelet Cafe to sketch while listening to people debate the existence of reality and/or study English in Chinese.
I started by sketching the guy in the middle with black hair and just kept on going, seeing more and more stuff to draw. At one point he walked by our table, saw what we were doing, pulled out his cellphone and took photos of our sketches of him. That was a first! But it seemed a fair trade.
A group of four (perhaps retired professors from the university) seemed to have gathered for the sole purpose of defining reality, or proving it’s existence, or both, punctuated regularly by “huh?” “what did you say?” as one of the gents was hard of hearing (but not hard of “talking” as he blathered on and on). On our other side were Chinese college students studying English, but mostly in Chinese, with the occasional English phrase thrown in such as “I am a pretty girl” and “I am eating an apple” (which she wasn’t).
Au Coquelet is a perfect place to sketch. It’s large, open very late, has a couple of rooms, and counter service only so you don’t have to worry about waiters. There’s lots of wood, bricks, brick-a-brack and plants, design left over from the hippie days.
I have fond memories of sketching there on another stormy night, New Year’s Eve 1997, when I was supposed to be in Yosemite National Park but had canceled the trip due to rain. And it was good I didn’t go: the next day Yosemite had the worst flooding in 100 years, with roads and bridges so damaged that people were stranded there for weeks without sanitary facilities or food.
So with no plans for the evening, I headed up to the café to draw people who did have plans, partygoers coming in before and after their parties. After a while, a tall, handsome artist sketching at another table came over and joined me. We sketched together and talked, and ended up dating for a few months until I decided that the tales he told were too good to be true.
Blackened Salmon at Pyramid Ale House, Ink & Watercolor
Pyramid Alehouse in Berkeley is a lively, fun place for good food, good beer and sketching too. My blackened salmon was delicious and a real challenge to wait to draw and paint before eating. After dinner we planned to sketch the brewery area visible from our table. But mid-meal they turned the lights off in the brewery so we went upstairs to check out the view.
Combined 2 partial sketches (one exterior, one interior) with a pasted in bit of event calendar
Upstairs there was a crowd of people playing Pyramid’s version of trivial pursuit “Brainstormers Pub Quiz,” with an announcer reading off the challenges that teams try to solve. The teams with the most points win more beer.
I assume there is an honor system that prevents people from getting the answers on their smartphones. I couldn’t play trivial pursuit unless answers like, “You know, it was that guy who was in that movie with that blonde…” would win a prize.
Kitchen from above & Beers on tap, pasted in stuff
While we were upstairs I (tried to) sketch the chef in his galley kitchen. The perspective was challenging. Then we went downstairs to the bar area. I loved the whimsical handles on the taps, each reflecting some feature of the specific beer. They had 17 beers on tap that night.
I just noticed my color-scheme on these pages: they’re all predominantly beer colored.
When we go on our Tuesday night sketchcrawls I learn so much from seeing how Cathy approaches sketching, with her years of experience and vision as a graphic designer. This sketch is a good example of the way she designs a page, including both the detail and the context, while connecting elements to the edges of the page.
Firefighters' Jacket Rack
Cathy’s sketches often display groups of objects in interesting patterns. She also edits the subject to make a better composition, in this case removing a few jackets to simplify. She first draws a group of objects as one shape as in contour drawing and then adds the interior lines. Again in this sketch above she shows the context as well as the detail, so that it’s not just a rack of jackets and helmets, but with the bit of fire truck you know they’re firemen’s jackets. Notice also her wonderful sketchy and free lines, which she achieves by holding the pen closer to the end than to the point.
Engine No. 2
I love the way she got so much detail in the fire truck above but loosely, and with good perspective. Most of her sketches also include informative notes about the subject, placed in a location that adds to the good design. When I asked Cathy how she starts a sketch she said she always tries to start with the thing that interests her most to make sure it fits on the page and that it gets on the page. (It’s so easy to start drawing and run out of page before you ever get to the thing that attracted you first).
More cool details: all the gizmos on the side of the truck.
Gizmos close up
When she was sketching this (above), one of the firemen told her that when they are learning their equipment they also sketch all the gear and label it to help them study.
Boots and pants
Here’s her version of the ready-to-step-into boots and pants.
Cathy sketches with ink in a spiral-bound 4×6″ Strathmore 400 Drawing notebook, focusing on making as many quick sketches as she can. She makes tiny pencil notes over the sketch about color to use when she adds watercolor later in the studio.
All images copyright 2010 by Cathy McAuliffe, used with permission.
She sketches with ink in a 4×6″ Strathmore 400 Drawing Paper pad, focusing on making as many quick sketches as she can. She makes tiny pencil notes over the sketch about color to use when she adds watercolor later in the studio.
The Berkeley Fire Station #2 was the scene of our Tuesday night sketchcrawl two weeks ago. Cathy had requested permission for us to visit and sketch and they generously gave us access to the station, the vehicles and equipment. The firemen live at the firehouse during their long shifts and since it was a quiet night they came around to see what we were doing. They all told us how much they love their jobs and were extremely helpful, earnestly answering all of our questions.
Boots & Overalls Ready; Flag Flying
We loved seeing the boots and overalls, ready to jump into, by the doors of each truck (above). I know the requirements are very stringent for becoming a firefighter, but do they also have to qualify as centerfold models? These guys were simply gorgeous: tall, strong, handsome, and really nice too. (If only they would have posed for us!) Firefighters have one of the highest rates of job satisfaction of all careers.
Tiller Truck, ink & watercolor
This little Tiller Truck caboose steers the back of the fire truck while the steering wheel at the front steers the front wheels. We learned that a Fire Truck is “a big tool box” where they keep all their gear such as Jaws of Life and the Fire Engine carries the water and hoses.
Lieutenant's Helmet, ink & watercolor
I held off posting these sketches because I’d been really frustrated with the messy, helter-skelter way I laid them out in my sketchbook and the ones not posted that were just ugly (but which I made good use of, writing my notes to self for improvement on top of them). When I looked at Cathy’s sketches I really liked the way she approached the subjects and designed her pages. That set me off on a learning process that I will write about next time when I post her sketches from the evening.
This month the San Francisco Bay Area is the locale for the Virtual Paintout (we paint from a Google Maps street view image). At first I was disappointed; I live in the Bay Area so I wouldn’t get to explore new territory like last month when we painted Corsica.
It seemed a little silly to paint from a map picture instead of from life but having just spent the afternoon on Telegraph Avenue, it seemed a natural subject. This tie-dye T-shirt stand is practically a permanent fixture on the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft.
Although it’s right across the street from the University of California Berkeley campus, I don’t think I’ve seen a student wearing tie-dye since around 1975. Even old hippies don’t wear tie-dye anymore. So who buys these things?
I felt like painting in oils, but watercolor seemed a better medium for this subject. So I printed out the image (which I cropped from the original Google snapshot) and then sketched and painted the scene in my sketchbook. Here’s the original map and image on Google.
I had a wonderful afternoon with Casey (of art blog “rue Manuel bis”), her charming husband and delightful daughter on Friday when they were in San Francisco for a brief visit. Casey’s husband was interested in visiting Berkeley so we started our tour of Berkeley at Chez Panisse where we were lucky enough to get lunch reservations.
Although we brought our sketchbooks to share with each other, we didn’t sketch, focusing instead on delicious food and great conversation. I took a photo of this scene in the restaurant as we were leaving. Here is the way it appears in my sketchbook, drawn from the photo on my computer screen:
sketchbook pages
The design at top left is from the lunch menu which I photocopied smaller and glued in the sketchbook. I discovered that my souvenir Chez Panisse postcard is the perfect size to trace around to create a nice margin in this book. To keep it handy I stuck it in the glassine envelope I’d glued in the back of the sketchbook. Things were looking so messy in this sketchbook as I tried to find my way with the new paper and size of sketchbook. Now I’ve found the solution to the messy pages: draw the margins first and stay within them instead of painting to the edge of the page.
911 on Telegraph Ave.
Despite my warning that Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue is pretty funky, everyone wanted to see the University of California, Berkeley campus and visit the used record and book stores on Telegraph. We walked on campus and then down to the shops where I bought an old Busby Berkeley CD (in honor of my cat of the same name).
On Telegraph I noticed two women who looked like prostitutes wearing outlandish makeup and mini-skirts. We also passed a soapbox preacher ranting (positively) about sex, a lone hare Krishna, sad clumps of young junkies with their pit bulls, the requisite tables of political bumper stickers, a super-stinky homeless guy, a bathing products store, a “head shop” selling hookahs, and someone handing out flyers for a tanning booth.
Heading back to my car we heard shouting. Those same whorish women we’d seen were running from Telegraph towards us on Durant, pursued by several coeds and everyone was screaming. The ho’s were screaming “Don’t touch me! Get away from me!” The coeds were screaming “Give me back my purse! Give me back my sweater!”
We stood there as if watching TV, trying to make sense of it all. The two ho’s jumped into a shiny black car parked right in front of us and slammed the door. The girls continued screaming while a slight young man stood at the driver’s window, saying, “Just give her the purse back.” Finally someone yelled, “Call the police!”
That snapped us out of our confusion and while I dialed 911, Casey had the presence of mind to note the license number of the car and was repeating it over and over. I told the 911 operator what was going on and handed the phone to Casey who gave the license number.
The ho’s threw the empty purse out the car window, revved their engine, and although the girls tried to block them from driving off, managed to speed away. I sure hope they got caught via the license number but I’m guessing the car was just as stolen as the purse, and probably ditched quickly. It was weird and scary, but fortunately nobody was hurt.
It was a more comprehensive tour of Berkeley than I’d intended. We went from the pinnacle of fine dining, to the campus at the center of the city, to the ugly underside of my dear Berzerkeley.
Valentine Window at Sala, Berkeley, ink & watercolor
I spotted this store window and loved the mannequin’s attitude amidst the cupids, hearts and flowers at “Sala,” a little shop in North Berkeley. I’d parked in front of the shop to go to my son’s Superbowl party. Then I left before halftime because I just couldn’t sit and watch more rude commercials about beer and junk food when I could be in the studio. Before I got in the car, I had to stop and sketch the window.
Love the One You’re With
As the old song goes, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” Back in the hippie days the song encouraged us to hookup with whoever was handy. Of course we know how well that era turned out. But there is one person we’re always with who it’s good to love, and that’s ourselves.
I used to dread Valentines Day; afraid I’d be alone, or afraid the “one I was with” would somehow disappoint on that portentous day. Then one year I was alone and I had the best Valentine date ever.
I took myself out for a Valentine’s date. I went to a book store that had a pretty café inside and spent the evening gathering great art books from the shelves and devouring them over a latte and sweet treat at the café, picking one book to buy as a gift for me. I also came across a funny kids book, “Play with your Food,” which I read to a bored little boy who was waiting for his mom to finish shopping. We both had a good laugh and the mom was grateful for some time to herself.
Full page in sketchbook
Since then I’ve had many other fun dates with myself, when friends or lovers weren’t around. One New Year’s Eve when I’d made no plans because I was supposed to be taking my sons to Yosemite, but it hadn’t stopped raining for two weeks and we’d decided to stay home (which was a good thing because Yosemite flooded and people were stuck there for two weeks without fresh food or working bathrooms) I went to a café that stayed open late and sketched people coming and going all evening. One of those people was a tall, dark, handsome artist who was out doing the same thing. He asked to join me at my table and we had a fun evening of sketching together and then a few months of interesting dating
I imagine this all might sound weird to those who enjoy fancy dinners out and expensive gifts of shiny bling but I guess that’s the point of loving yourself. You get to pick! If you want bling, get yourself some bling. If you’d rather have books or draw in them, make it happen!
Berkeley, California is known as a nutty town, and this morning even the wildlife seemed wacky. I don’t usually post photos, but just couldn’t resist sharing these pictures from this morning’s after-breakfast walk in the hilly neighborhood above Berkeley’s “Gourmet Ghetto.” This deer couple above were camped out in a secluded front yard. One had a strange floppy tongue, retracted only when she chewed an itch.
OCD Bird
This bird was stuck in a loop of peering into the mirror of a parked car, attacking his image, jumping atop the mirror, and then coming back to see if the bird was still there, and attacking it again. I tried to shoo him away, but he started the loop again when I walked away. Do birds get OCD?
Chickens on a log
These chickens had a huge yard to themselves but gathered together in one tiny corner, all trying to all perch on the same chunk of log. Makes you wonder about how important “free range” really is to chickens.
Catwalk (see below)
And then there are the people. These neighbors built a second story bridge between their two houses for their cats. (above and below)
Cat crossing between two houses
And these humble homeowners hung this on their modest bungalow in a neighborhood where even a 3-room shack is worth half a million dollars.
Happy Hovel
And then there were the bird lovers…
For Birds
…and goose lovers…
Window Goose (I hope it's plastic!)
and Monkey madness and…
Surprised Monkey garage ornament
and just plain madness…
Australia: One hour time limit
That’s a dismantled parking meter below the Australia sign. Their whole front yard was filled with similar flotsam and jetsam.
Welcome to Berkeley
Of course I would have preferred to sketch these sights, but I was walking with a non-sketching friend whose patience was already tried by my taking photos, let alone stopping to sketch. And now I’m even further behind posting all the sketches and paintings I’ve been working on.
Jana Bouc, Artist 