San Francisco via Sketchbook
Jan. 29th, 2009 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinIt's been a criminally long time since I posted any artwork on here. There are two reasons for this:
1. All my energy, talent, and initiative have been channeled into work; not only am I not moved to draw anything outside it, but when I do, I really struggle with it. Apparently I am now useless without a story and layout department. Waa, waa.
2. At home, I moved my laptop from the desk into my bedroom for various personal reasons, which has made scanning just inconvenient enough not to do it.
Anyway, the long dry spell is at an end! (For the time being, anyway.)
1. All my energy, talent, and initiative have been channeled into work; not only am I not moved to draw anything outside it, but when I do, I really struggle with it. Apparently I am now useless without a story and layout department. Waa, waa.
2. At home, I moved my laptop from the desk into my bedroom for various personal reasons, which has made scanning just inconvenient enough not to do it.
Anyway, the long dry spell is at an end! (For the time being, anyway.)
 There was a slope in the Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park that was a delightful arrangement of shapes and textures. I'm afraid I turned it into a mash of pencil but here it is anyway. This is one in a series of drawings from life that I didn't get to finish. With all due respect to the people I was with, I understand it is boring to linger for hours in the same place while someone else draws, which is why next time I am going by myself. With any luck I might learn how to sketch a location gesturally instead of agonizing over every detail...   [left] One night my sister and I went to a neat little wine bar near Market and Rose. We caught an F-line trolley back and along the way it started to reek of a certain illegal herb ... There were very few people in the trolley and neither my sister nor I could see anyone smoking. A few minutes after we smelled it, this fellow picked up the odour and looked around. He gave us a questioning eyebrow. I shrugged theatrically. Perhaps it was the driver.[right] Sketched inside the Eureka, in the dying light of the afternoon, listening to a guy practise the mandolin. I think we were the only two on the boat. It was very relaxing, and quite an atmospheric moment. (then my phone rang...)  The Champion of the Seas model at the Maritime Museum's Visitors' Centre. She was a clipper with such a hubristic name that it should come as no surprise that she met her end in a storm on the Straits of Magellan. It was a fantastic model, to the point that I could almost see it battered by waves and wind. Don't remember what interrupted this one (lunch, probably) or what caused that smudge at the last minute...   These regard Muir Woods day but were drawn after the fact. The first is an entertaining couple we kept running into along the trail; the short guy did all the talking and was from New York, judging by his accent. His companion was attentive but quiet and ... was obviously ... the Doctor. There is simply no overstating that green jacket, by the way; even in a lush forest it screamed to the heavens. If anything my version is a bit dull.The guys to the right were funny. They were examining an educational sign that detailed relatives of the Coast Redwood around the world. It wasn't what the dark-haired one said that was funny so much as the genuinely astonished way he said it. We had coupons for a cruise 'round the bay, under the bridge and around Alcatraz, which sounded entertaining enough. When the boat pulled away from the dock a voice came over the PA system, rolling off the usual safety spiel. He said the ship was being sailed by Captain Nemo at one point. Haha, I thought, nice little allusion there tour company, but then Captain Nemo actually turned up on the recording as well. This is how it went (I am not making this up):   Captain Nemo and the PA guy never stopped – it turned out the whole cruise was narrated, either by them or various other voice actors who played immigrants and prisoners and what have you. It was the sort of thing you could never get away with in Canada, unless it was at an attraction where you could be fairly certain no Canadians would show up, because it would be heckled and/or eye-rolled nonstop. As the ship drew back to port the narration followed suit, so it was obvious that the whole thing was carefully timed out with the recording. I thought it would be funny* if something went terribly wrong and the artificially jolly actors on the tape just kept going ... *using that word broadly |
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Date: 2009-01-30 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 02:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 04:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 04:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 12:56 am (UTC)Makes me wonder a little, though ... I know Daniel Handler grew up there, and I kept seeing things that might have influenced him at some point.
/lurk
Date: 2009-02-05 12:33 am (UTC)I know Daniel Handler grew up there, and I kept seeing things that might have influenced him at some point. There used to be -- I think it's been taken down -- a photo of him up on GettyImages holding an accordion on Baker Beach. It's both unmistakably San Francisco and unmistakably from the crazy land of Snicket. Did you hit up 826 Valencia while you were here?
[relurk]
Re: /lurk
Date: 2009-02-05 12:36 am (UTC)I heard about that photo; it got used in the cover of a book by someone who didn't know who it was in the photo, didn't it?
Re: /lurk
Date: 2009-02-05 12:38 am (UTC)Yes -- about a week after I'd seen it on Getty, I walked into Books Inc and choked, because, SERIOUSLY? I don't remember what book it was, though...