Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Around San Francisco

Through the first weeks of January I was host to my old pal Matt Cruickshank who was in town on an illustration gig.  Showing him around we sketched in almost every neighbourhood and sunk beers in all of them!  Here are the results of our intrepid expeditions on the streets of San Francisco . . .

Our first stop on New Year's Eve was Haight Ashbury . . .
Attracting too much attention from the pimps,pushers,winos and bums we retreated inside the nearest pub and drew the freaky folk from the relative safety of a bay window with a good view of the by-passers.





Sleepy Noe Valley has a different kind of vibe to the Haight-more push-chairs less crack addicts!



We climbed up to Bernal Heights for a 360 degree view of the city.


North Beach has a nice, laid-back feel too with of course the obligatory eccentrics.


Pier 39 is still home to the stinky, barking, bellowing sea-lion colony.  The gaggle of tourists watching them were even rowdier!

View of the city across the East Bay with the Bay Bridge passing through Treasure Island and the Oakland port cranes on the left.

See Crookies marvellous sketches over on his blog

23 comments:

Roman Muradov said...

These are so cool!!
Very inspiring, I think now I'll head outside to draw some passers-by myself.

Scribbler said...

fantastic work!

Crowpie said...

Fantastic post!! The balance you have in your ink sketches is amazing!

Achi-L said...

Very nice, do you have any sketching
processes? or are you directly using a pen-brush on paper

Cako Facioli said...

Hey Matt, always good passing by for a visit, inspiring as usual.
Coming to London give a shout.
All the best

Rochelle Burrows said...

I always love seeing your sketches!

by patrick merewether said...

Wow, I've walked those streets, swear I've seen those same people, smelled those same sea lions.

Really marvelous, inspiring work (as usual!)

ANTONIO CUESTA said...

Wow! Great works here! I love your stile...If you don´t mind, i'll link you in my blog.
Cheers!

Matthew Cruickshank said...

A wonderful trip down memory lane- thank you.

You nailed those Bernal Heights views perfectly!! That's a hard thing to do, to condense the view into an appealing design- I love the sweep of the road on your 3rd illustration.

Superb work.

Seen Elvis Christ lately?

Periwinkle Paisley said...

Wish I could've tagged along on your people watching trip. I always need people drawing practice and there looks to be an abundance of interesting subjects!

Uli Meyer said...

Beautiful work from both Matts. Lovely...

Erika *Hadas de AzĂșcar* said...

I love it Matt!! It's the first time that I post, but I love always take a look here. You are amazing!!

Colin Jack said...

great stuff!

Amanda Gil said...

i love your sketches!!!

Bryon Caldwell said...

Really nice stuff! Missing SF now :P

Owen Williams said...

Great studies- rekon you'll be going to CTN again this year?

chengwhich said...

great sketches! i like the skateboarder.

Ted Blackman said...

Nice pen and inks of my old stompin' grounds. Wow. Very expressive!

http://crotchetycomics.blogspot.com/

sakiteriyaki said...

These are AWESOME!

Matt Jones said...

Many thanks for the comments folks- appreciated!

chia said...

i love all of them!!!

Unknown said...

Cool sketches!

Catilustre said...

the black lines in your sketches are specially strong! great urban drawings!