Three Artists Paint...

Every year fellow artists Matt Cruickshank, Mike Dutton and I choose a destination and head there to paint and draw. We just did our fifth annual trip together! Below is my latest video from our travels to New Mexico (+ the four previous trips).


Last year we went to Mexico City- an amazing destination to explore through paint and drawing.


Year three was New Orleans


Our second adventure was to Joshua Tree...


... and the first trip was to Yuma county in Northern California.

On the trail of Replicants . . .

I headed Downtown Los Angeles to hunt down locations used in Ridley Scott's 'Bladerunner'. I made a short film of the sketch I made of the iconic interior of the amazing Bradbury Building. It was used memorably in the film as the iconic building where toy-maker J. F. Sebastian lives.

On this trip we got access to the top floor where I sketched the iconic elevator that Darryl Hannah exits in 'Bladerunner'.

 Deckard's apartment in the film was the famous 'Ennis House' in Los Feliz designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
 

Sketchcrawl-San Francisco Museums

Leaving San Francisco I'll miss its world-class museums. I saw some great exhibitions and there are countless artifacts to draw in their collections.

The DeYoung Museum

The Legion of Honor

'Hamadryas Baboon' ca. 1910 Rembrandt Bugatti

Asian Art Museum

Matt Cruickshank and I cruised down the Northern Californian coast to sleepy surfing community Pacifica. We painted the jettys and found a cool, wooden shark sculpture to draw.

Motherlode

In early october I embarked on a painting and camping weekend in Goldrush country with artist pals Mike Dutton and Matt Cruickshank.

Mike's trusty camper-van was our base of operations for 3 days on the road.

 We found a basin with scorched paths winding through marshland and scrub. The orange rock was striking. The heat was so intense we had to make it quick.

 North San Juan

In North San Juan this hot-rod stretch limo pulled up to the saloon bar we were cooling off in.

'Gold Bug Stamp Mill, Auburn'

Back in 2012 I trekked out to 'arrested decay' ghost-town Bodie with my old Aardman Animation chum Ash Boddy. I finally cut together the footage from that trip. My original post with all the sketches is here.

Bay Area Sketchcrawl summer 2014

 The 'Russian Mansion' on Alamo Square.

 Haight and Masonic. The nudist strolled past and into my picture, his modesty preserved by a golden fig leaf! The freaks, hippies, beatniks and junkies still flourish in Haight Ashbury.

 A trip to Berkeley Marina. The pier above stretches 3000 ft into the Bay!

 Mojo Bicycle Cafe on Divisadero.

 A couple views from the top of Piedmont Cemetery with Downtown Oakland in the background and the Bay behind.

These old navy vets were in full uniform for a memorial service. They each carried a rifle and fired a salute for their departed brother.

Japantown

This house on 'Billionaire's Row' in Pacific Heights looks like a Greek temple.

Mansion over-looking the Bay on Lafayette Square. Apparently the largest private residence in San Francisco and owned by Danielle Steele.

San Francisco Noir

SF based illustrator Ben Walker and I went on a themed sketch-crawl over the July 4th holiday. Inspired by a recent article in the NY Times on Dashiel Hammett's connection to the city.

We trailed Hammett all over San Francisco. We started at 891 Post St where  Sam Spade's detective agency was based in the Tenderloin. Then on to Burritt Alley to see the site where Spade's partner was killed. A plaque marks “On approximately this spot, Miles Archer, Sam Spade’s partner, was done in by Brigid O’Shaughnessy.”

 This is a view from Dashiel Emmett alley

With still no sign of Hammett we broke for lunch at Lori's Diner, on Powell to compare notes.  We gum-shoed it down to the Flood Building on Market Street, where Hammett was employed as a private dick for the Pinkerton's.

Near Union Sq. we bribed the doorman of a downtown hotel where Hammett was known to stay. There's even a suite named after him. . . 

Around the corner is Hammett's favorite hang-out, John's Bar & Grill. Still in business as a restaurant and now the HQ of the Hammett Society. The author is said to have written much of 'The Maltese Falcon' at a booth here.

We went inside and smooth-talked the dame on the front desk. She let us go upstairs and find the famous falcon itself.

Pinkerton's were on to us so we high tailed it through the Stockton Tunnel and laid low in North Beach. We had a tip-off that Hammett liked to drink at Tosca cafe but we lost him in the crowd. We sat outside a cafe and observed the wild-life on Broadway.

He was elusive, kept to the shadows but we're gumshoes and we'll find him. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon ... 

Drawing San Francisco

Sketching around town . . .

 Film shoot in North Beach with fake snow

 

On Grant Avenue, Chinatown

 Mission Dolores cemetary

16th street

 Japantown

18th Street diner

Shoeshine booth on Market St.

Drawing in a Mission dive bar with JSG, Melodie & Matt Cruickshank. Crookie did a finger drawing of an artist painting outside the window.