5 August 11
The Golden Thread
Just like studying a new language is a portal to a different culture, so is studying calligraphic hands. This week we’re studying a few of Western ones in chronological succession, to discover how (and guess why) hands morphed from rounded Romans to compressed blackletters to slanted and graceful Italics.
This is a study of the letter “o” and its shifts through time, what Sheila Waters calls a golden thread. It’s difficult and long hours and learning how to build up a discipline. I’ve decided to go home and study them all again for a much longer period, using original manuscripts rather than what contemporary calligraphers, even if they’re masters, have interpreted them as being.
Back to my rotunda, but before I go—there’s a sheep breeder up the road. She has, oh no, covered fleeces…
15 May 11
Sketching Through The Weekend
Several sketches from a long weekend. The first at right is of a barn about a mile-and-a-half southeast of here on Eggert Road; I cycled out past there on Friday. 
The second at left is a scene from the Davis Farmers Market; Pete Scully who organizes the Davis Sketchcrawl chose the Farmers Market as the monthly venue for it on Saturday.
The final sketch is a little watercolor I did this afternoon showing today’s unstable skies. Mount Diablo to the south is the peak in the sketch. There were several thundershowers throughout the day. We went for a walk in the morning and got hailed upon. 
23 April 11
SketchCrawl 31
Last Saturday I took the train down to San Francisco to take part in the 31st Worldwide SketchCrawl, being joined on the train ride down by fellow Davis sketcher Pete Scully. We all met at a cafe at the northeast corner of Dolores Park in the Mission District and fanned out from there. At left is one of the first sketches I did there, of the prominent San Francisco landmark Sutro Tower. From the park there is a great view of this 299-meter tall antenna mast, so I was glad I remembered to bring my antenna sketchbook to record it. Across the street from the park is Mission High School, illustrated at right; its architecture is far more ornate than where I went to high school. 
I then walked a couple blocks to the west and found myself unexpectedly in front of Pica’s favorite store ImagiKnit, so I had to sketch the sign.
I had lunch at a taqueria on Mission Street, headed back to Dolores Park for a final sketch from the hill, and left early to travel to another engagement in Davis in the evening, making the train back by about all of thirty seconds.
28 March 11
The New Crocker
Yesterday we went on an outing to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento which six months ago opened a large new wing, tripling the museum’s size. We’ve been members of the museum for many years now, but it has taken us a while to see the new addition, despite Sacramento being only a hop, skip, and a jump over the Yolo Causeway from here (which is a lake right now, the Yolo Bypass being full with water diverted from the Sacramento River to prevent a flood after all the rain we’ve gotten this month).
The entrance to the Crocker is at ground level at the new wing now, rather than at the top of the flight of stairs leading to the Victorian mansion of the original Crocker. We stepped inside, stopped at the admissions desk, and then were confused. Score a minus for first-floor layout. To the left was a large open space with lots of table seating. At the far left corner was the obligatory museum cafe, and at the right was the museum store. Where to go to actually see the exhibits was not immediately apparent. A problem to be fixed with signage, but they could have made this clear with a grand stairwell.
We found the stairs, and passed up to the second floor, where there was a display of their new collection of art from Oceania and Africa, along with a handful of antiquities. Up to the third floor then, where there was the main exhibition, the highlight of the visit. This was an exhibition of the paintings of Gottfried Helnwein entitled “Inferno of the Innocents”. Helnwein grew up in post-war Austria where as a child talk of the violence of the years before his birth was repressed, children being too young to understand. Owing something to the art of his adopted town Los Angeles, Helnwein works on large movie screen-sized canvases, his style photorealist, often resembling black-and-white film noir. The loss of innocence of children is a frequent theme of his. I was glad the Crocker now finally has a space that could display exhibits on as large a scale as Helnwein’s.
It used to be that the Crocker could be comfortably toured in an hour or so., That is no longer the case now that it has the new wing, and we didn’t try to see what they’ve done with the paintings in the old building. That will be for another day. We are members after all, and it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump over there.
This post marks the eighth anniversary of Feathers of Hope.
20 February 11
February Sketchcrawl
Following the passage of a cold front, I woke up yesterday to the sight of snow sprinkled on the Vaca Mountains, and with wet-looking clouds still blowing on through this month’s Davis Sketchcrawl called for dressing warmly. Several of us sketchers met on campus at the Death Star AKA the Social Sciences and Humanities Building. The sketch at left are two views of this odd maze of a building. Fingers frozen, we headed to a nearby cafe for lunch and finished up the day only a couple hundred yards from where we began at the bus circle near the student union.
22 January 11
SketchCrawl 30
Today was the 30th Worldwide SketchCrawl. I’m not sure how many of these I’ve participated in, somewhere between five and ten I would guess. Pete Scully organized the Davis edition of this event; a number of us meeting at E Street Plaza in downtown Davis at 11 AM. It was a beautiful day, beckoning of spring, temperature in the mid-60s, breezy in the afternoon. That helped with the turnout, which was huge: at least 25 sketchers. We stayed within a couple of blocks of the starting point, my furthest journey being out to Ace Hardware to add a sketch to my antenna book . Pica arrived in the afternoon following leading a children’s bird count event. We sauntered forth after our traditional Saturday lunch of a burrito and soft tacos and stayed to the event’s finish at 3:30.
31 December 10
Antenna Book
I’ve started my antenna book. This was the idea I had earlier for a sketchbook devoted to that type of infrastructure. The sketches I want to do these days involve ink overlaid with a lot of watercolor wash, which makes it very difficult to find pre-made sketchbooks with suitable paper. This meant it was time to resurrect my bookbinding skills: my big project over break was to bind a 6” x 8” sketchbook with sheets of Arches Cover paper. This made for a good rainy day activity at the beginning of the week, and now I’m three sketches into this book project..
23 November 10
Just Another Morning Around 60 Meters
I’ve been doing a fair bit of shortwave listening these days. I enjoy the randomness of what one finds there. For example, the following is from between 1607 and 1708 UTC on Saturday:
- miscellaneous voices in Spanish talking to each other on 4888 kHz USB, one of them using a call tone like those irritating ones on FRS radios.
- air traffic using HF, including an Alaska flight out of San Francisco on 5574 kHz.
- two RTTY-like digital signal stations (5306 and 5403 kHz). I try to decode these, and without any surprise fail; all I know is they have an 850 Hz tone shift.
- a shortwave broadcast from Sarawak (5030 kHz). No confirmatory ID on it, but it matches the published schedules.
- on 5810 kHz I heard Radio Free Asia being jammed. What I heard was voices on a news broadcast fighting it out for the frequency against orchestral music. Radio Free Asia is a US-funded set of propaganda stations broadcasting to various undemocratic regimes in East Asia.
- and best of all, a numbers station, at 4724 kHz (1607 UTC)! It was saying “Charlie Charlie Charlie Zulu Romeo…Bravo Two Three X-Ray Seven Tango….” Numbers stations are generally believed to be communications to spies over shortwave radio, and are the subject of much amateur sleuthing.
Throw in the religious broadcasters, and we have quite the microcosm here
On Sunday’s sketchcrawl, I got to see Pete Scully’s sketchbook for his project of drawing fire hydrants. This gives me an idea for an infrastructure-related drawing project: how about a sketchbook of antennas!
21 November 10
Davis Sketchcrawl
Davis sketcher Pete Scully organized a Davis sketchcrawl today. We started out at the Amtrak station and over the course of three hours moved about two blocks.
Five of us spread out and drew what we could see. After the torrential rain of last night, the sun was very welcome.
Pete would like to get a Davis Sketchbook project underway which I think is a great idea and I might do a birdy take on that subject.
I heard birds all day but didn’t see them so I haven’t got a bird by bird entry, but hoping to make up for that.
25 August 10
Des Reliques
My father was an avid photographer. His favorite thing to do during camping trips in Spain was to fetch out his Minolta FX with multiple lenses and take close-ups of wildflowers. His attempts at landscapes were less successful and of wildlife even less so, but this didn’t alter the fact that during my adolescence the fridge was always full of beer—and film.
Dad died in 1999. Film was still in the fridge, now on the Northern California coast. We brought it back with us to Davis because you can’t waste film.
I just checked the dairy section of the fridge. It contains two rolls of Kodak Gold 400 (undoubtedly for my mother, who still shoots in film/ it will be on its way to her shortly), one roll of Kodachrome 64, and one roll of Kodachrome 25.
We’d better shoot this final roll of 25 because after December, there won’t be anyone left who will develop it professionally. I don’t know what we’ll shoot. Probably a lot of morning glory, which is improbably in flower and which my Dad took in spades.