There's a woman living in the alley next to the Panchita's bakery.

There's a woman living in the alley next to the Panchita's bakery.
I don't know if the woman lives full time in the alley, but according to Leonora, who cuts my hair at the Grapes Beauty Salon in Golden Hill, San Diego, the woman doesn't want to be homed.
She wants to stay in the alley.
The other day, while we were inside having lunch at the Pomegranate Cafe, the woman who lives in the alley walked past the window pushing her shopping trolley.
There was a younger woman with her, also pushing a loaded 'not-with-food' shopping trolley
The older woman looks to be extremely old and her mouth forms a big open grin, so if you didn't know, and if she was dressed not in rags, and not pushing a shopping trolley overflowing with shopping bags and other things, then you might think she was just a happy old woman walking on a sunny afternoon.
And maybe she is. I just do not know.

While I was drawing this I think I saw a boy playing hide and seek with a couple of cats.

While I was drawing this, a tall, teenage-type boy dress in beige track pants and beige hoodie and trainers and wearing headphones walked back and forth across the lawn.

He did this several times and a few moments after each crossing a frantic looking cat would nervously cross the lawn, too, acting as if it was desperate to find the boy.

One was a black cat wearing a diamante encrusted black collar and the other was a generic kind of greyish cat, collarless.

After the third episode of this, I wondered if the boy had taught the cats to play hide and seek, a massive feat in itself which, if filmed, had the potential to become a viral YouTube video.

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While I was drawing this a young woman stops and starts to talk to me.

While I was drawing this a young woman stops and starts to talk to me.
When I look around to respond I she she has a very pretty curly-haired toddler, with very snotty nose, with her.
The mother tells me the toddlers name is Matilda and so I offer Matilda the chance to handle one of my pastels and make some toddler-like marks on my paper, while her mother and I talk.
It eventuates that the mum is from Germany, Stuttgart, and the dad is from Mexico, both of them trained musicians who have just come back from Europe to San Diego, via Tijuana.
We talk a bit about the food in America and then she offers me some pie.
'It's an American recipe, my first try at one,' she says, 'and it has peanut butter in it.'
'Doesn't everything have peanut butter in it?' I say, and as baffled culinary outsiders, we both laugh,
We talk on a bit about how much we like San Diego, what her husband and her hope to do job-wise, and that Matilda is learning English, Spanish and German.
I tell the mum I am learning Spanish and she tells me hers is very bad.
Then, after Matilda runs up off the street, the mum chases her, bringing her back and telling me the child is tired.
I give the mum, Anita, my business card and she tells me how much her husband wants a tattoo.
'I can sort him out,' I tell her, and then we both decide it has been a fortuitous and pleasant meeting and that we will get together again for sure.
'I'm happy to meet lots of people,' I say, 'I could be here for months and I am taking the opportunity to meet people and get lots of art done.
Then, parting, I tell her, as she is a classically trained musician and all, that I have a dulcimer at home and she should come around and have a look at it.
'Great', she says, 'let's meet again,'
'For sure.' I call out, turning back to my view and drawing, hoping to finish before another ridiculously inflated SUV pulls up in front of the house and blocks my view.

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White San Diego House-Approx A4 Original soft pastel on black paper £100.00

While I was drawing this a very tall SUV pulled up, hesitantly, in front of the house.
Then, for probably 7 very tense minutes, while the car crept up and down the street, I thought my drawing session was over.
But eventually, the driver seemed to settle down and decided to park just beyond my view.
I watched the driver, a very short woman with very long permed-looking hair get out.
For a few moments she stood at the car door, looking down and then up and then down and then up the street.
By this time I had put my pastels down and I was frowning, wondering what sort of internal challenge was facing the poor woman.
Eventually, bored by her indecision, I went back to my drawing and didn't even notice when later on she drove off.

 

I really am IN the US of A.

While I was drawing this house road workers went up and down the road in front of me, driving mini steamrollers and crushing asphalt into the street and smiling at me as they passed.
The house, in Sherman Heights, San Diego, is just over the bridge that separates Golden Hill and Sherman Heights and the bridge is over one of those massive multi-lane freeways that has a massive green signs that things like LOS ANGELES. and MLK Parkway and other directions.
So after I finished the drawing I walked back across the bridge and for a moment I stood in its middle, looking down at the cars and then over to the city in the distance and then up at a plane as it flew in to land at the San Diego airport.

And as I stood there looking at these vistas that I'd only really ever seen in films and on TV, I had a revelation-
'Woah,' I thought to myself, 'I really am IN the US of A!'

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Blue house in Golden Hill, San Diego

While I was drawing this a man wearing a pork-pie hat and carrying an armful of cardboard boxes came up and stood in front of me.
I looked up at him and took my head phones off.
'Hello,' I said.
'Hello,' he said back to me, 'That's a really nice drawing, do you, um, you know, uh, would you, like, uh draw other houses?'
'Like a commission?' I said.
'Yeh,' he said.
'Yeh,' I said and I gave him my business card.
I asked him if he lived nearby.
He said yes, he did, and pointed out a red house.
I told him that if I was to draw it, I would draw it in afternoon light from the other side of the road, to catch the light and shadow.Then, what he said next left me with the idea that he was being forced to move out of his red house because of some kind of break up.
'What's your name?' I said, eventually and he told me it was Toby.
"Email me,' I said, thinking that he looked like the kind of guy I'd like to have a coffee with regardless of whether we went through with the commission or not.
My encounter with Toby had left me so cheery that not even the pile of dried dog shit I noticed that (as I turned to get water from my bag) I was almost sat in could have spoiled my mood.

A4 size, pastels on black paper

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