Drawing and listening to Rodriguez

While I was drawing this nothing really happened.

Nobody parked in my way.

Nobody stopped to talk to me.

Nobody went for a wee behind a bush.

It was just me all alone with my pastels, feeling happy drawing, listening to Rodriguez and singing along to this.

While I was drawing this 2 men stopped, at different times, to talk to me.

While I was drawing this 2 men stopped, at different times, to talk to me.
The first one, who was carrying 2 plastic shopping bags, wearing flip flops and shorts and sporting a pony tail, complimented me on the drawing.
'Hey,' he said, interrupting me so I had to take the headphones from my ear holes, which made me slightly annoyed, 'I just wanted to tell you that you really captured that, like, you know, you really got it,'
I told him thank you and that I very much appreciated his compliments.
'Well, I better let you get back to it,' he said.
'Okay, thanks,' I said, feeling very happy that he was now leaving me alone.

Then, about half an hour later, with my patience levels shriveled to zero by the relentless sun, I was interrupted again by a buckled shadow casting itself across my drawing.
I looked up and saw another man with a pony tail.
This one was wearing a baseball cap, also, and some kind of American football sweater and was hunched over, the cane he leaned on seemingly keeping him upright.
Looking into his face I saw that he was drunk and he had sores all across his face, as if he has been attacked by someone with long fingernails.
He leaned down toward me and said something I couldn't hear, forcing me to take my headphones out which made me want to scream FUCK THE FUCK OFF YOU DRUNKEN FUCK, I AM FUCKING MOLTEN UNDER THIS SUN AND I WANT TO GO HOME AND SIT INSIDE WHERE FUCKERS LIKE YOU WON'T DISTURB ME.
But I did not.
I just asked him to repeat what he had said.
And what he'd said was- 'That's really gorgeous. You really are so talented. Bless you.'
Then, feeling like an utter bitch for having such vicious thoughts, I thanked the man and smiled and said 'Well, I'd best get back to it, I'm really hot out here and I'd like to get home,'
'Of course you would,' said the scratched-up buckled drunk man, 'yes, of course you would.'

While I was drawing this an ugly pug-style dog approached me from behind and made a feeble growl....

While I was drawing this an ugly pug-style dog approached me from behind and made a feeble growl.

The dog and I stared each other but then it seemed to get bored and turned and left.

Just as turned back to the house I was drawing, a large SUV pulled up in front of it.

I watched a woman get out of the driver's seat, look in my direction and walk off down the street.

I was slightly annoyed because there was more than ample place in front of and behind her car for her to have parked her modern-day swollen chariot of glass, metal and plastic.

I had my headphones on and was listening to Rebecca Ferguson singing love songs and I was in a rather good mood which I didn't want to spoil, so instead of getting pissed off I just drew around the car, so to speak, and invented what I could not see.

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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