Last Christmas, 2025…

August 17, 2026August 17, 2026Leave a comment

And so it’s time to catch up with last Christmas 2025, and close out the posts of sketches from that long long year of sketches. There is no way I will end 2026 with the same volume of drawings, even though I have certainly been busy filling those sketchbook pages. 2025 was just an unusually productive year. Here then are some very festive scenes from Davis, while we are here in the middle of another scorching hot summer; “I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes, global warming is all around us…” Back in December it was really foggy, some of the thickest fog I’d seen in many years, but the shop windows of Davis brought a lot of colour as they usually do, with their annual contest to see which shop can be the most festively decorated. It’s usually this store that wins it for me, Bella Luna on F Street. Not a shop I go to myself, I’m not really into jewelry and stuff, though I really love how they decorate for Christmas and have drawn it before. I remember sketching their old location on E Street many years ago, when they were still called ‘De Luna’, and they are a longtime family owned Davis business going back to 1967. I think I did go into De Luna once to ask about cleaning my wedding ring, if memory serves. Anyway this was one of my favourite festive drawings from last year, drawn the day before Christmas Eve.

This one was from much earlier in December, another very festive storefront at Avid & Co, the kids shop branch of the Avid Reader bookstore a few doors down. It’s one of my favourite shops in Davis, and before my trips back to England I usually get something in there for my young niece. Plus some Lego minifigures for myself, why not. Before it was called Avid & Co it was known as Avid Reader Active, as the bookshop would keep its travel books in here, as well as toys and games for the kids. Long before that, it was a different toystore called Alphabet Moon, which closed in 2012 (I drew that too). I used to take my kid there to play with the wooden trains; Avid and Co still have a train table for the kids. Avid & Co has some kids books, but most of the children’s books are in the main store, downstairs at the back for the younger kids and upstairs for the slightly older kids. Back when I first came to Davis, my first job was at the Avid Reader and I worked a few times in their old Children’s bookshop branch on the E St Plaza, and then helped move it all to the main store when that closed down. As you can see here, the windows of Avid & Co were decorated with festive muppets; the Muppets Christmas Carol is one of my favourite films. I drew this while on our monthly ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ sketchcrawl. It was very cold and foggy that day but I braved it for the love of sketching.

Well well well, what have we here, Santa’s Firetruck? Santa likes to ride this through Davis during December to cheer up the kids, and while I have probably drawn this truck before at some point over the years, I don’t remember sketching it while dressed up for the Holidays. Santa’s sleigh is attached safely to the top, and I don’t think fire safety regulations allow for reindeers to ride along. I wonder if Santa gets to slide down the North Pole? I drew about half of this right there and finished it off at home, it was cold and there were a lot of lights, plus people had started taking pictures with Santa next to the truck, they asked if I also wanted a photo but I thought I’d better not, though I think Santa will agree I’ve been a good boy, and all I want is more sketchbooks, paints and pens please. I might make this into a card for this year, give to my co-workers. When my teenager was a toddler, firetrucks were all the rage. Our local fire stations used to actively invite the kids to come by and meet them, look at the big engines, and even give them firefighter trading cards with their names and pictures on them! Good memories. The fire service folk do a very good job.

Here is a sketch from our annual Holiday Party at work, I did a few but am not posting them all here. This one looks the most festive. We always have a nice party for the students, staff and faculty, with good food, games, bingo, ugly sweaters, hot chocolate and even a bit of singing, with lots of festive karaoke. This year was especially fun, and while I did not sing karaoke, I did bring my ukulele and sing one song, an Irish song by Brendan Shine, ‘Catch Me If You Can’. I have never done that before, twenty years of working there, but I think it went alright. It was because I was almost reaching fifty, there is that line in the chorus “I’m awful shifty, for a man of fifty, catch me if you can, me name is Dan, sure I’m your man”. Now, my name is not Dan, and I’m not your man, and I don’t think I’m that shifty, but I am now fifty, which seemed an ancient venerable age when I first started working here. Anyway here is one of my co-workers Olga announcing the White Elephant gift exchange game (I got a nice notebook), and one of our students Oscar singing Ozzy Osbourne in a very festive hat.

And so, back home. A few days before Christmas, my wife was getting on with some festive wrapping, ‘When Harry Met Sally’ was being played on the TV. We like to watch a lot of movies this time of year. I do love Christmas, so do our cats, and I made a very special Advent Calendar in 2025, it was basically a record store in a lit picture frame box, with shelves full of records, posters showing snowman bands (Snowasis, Taylor Snowdrift, David Snowie etc), and the records were numbered 1-24 and opened each day, with a chocolate inside, a hand-drawn album cover with snowman replacing the real artists, plus a QR code to a festive song by that artist. AI is never making this, mate. It was a Big Idea and I rushed to get it done on time but finish it I did. I should post about it sometime but I always forget; besides the advent calendars are always a bit personal. I look back at them all sometimes and go wow, I made a lot of those didn’t I. Some day I won’t. Every year I say, I’m not making one this year. I am probably not making one this year, until I get an idea in my head and run with it. Anyway.

And last of all, a sketch of the Christmas tree at my wife’s mom’s house, drawn on Boxing Day (just ‘December 26th’ here) after we had a nice breakfast at a local diner, and shortly before heading home. And that is all for 2025. I’d say ‘Happy New Year’ but I know what 2026 has been like. But from the wilds of the never-ending summer it’s good to look back at the foggy festive days.

December 2025 in Davis, California

August 16, 2026Leave a comment

I am still playing catch-up on 2025, but we are at December now. In other news I am all caught up with scanning my current sketches, but since I keep drawing more, there’s always more scanning to be done. I often wonder what it’s all for – a record of places and my time within them, fulfilling an urge to draw all the time that I have had since I was a toddler, a way to stay sane in these far from sane times, creating content to share with the world so that they may be inspired by them as I have been inspired by others (which was the whole idea behind Urban Sketchers), or maybe it’s like regular exercise that I need to stay fit. It’s all of those things, but it’s also because I just love to draw. Despite the thousands of sketches, I get self-conscious about my ability, that voice in my head that I am probably doing it ‘wrong’, the same voice I hear when I am playing my guitar or training for a race or working on a budget or even just having a conversation. It’s like those clickbait YouTube videos that are titled things like “You Are Folding Your Clothes Wrong!” or “You Are Listening To Music Wrong!” or “You Are Living Your Entire Life Wrong!” Hey, I was ALWAYS told I hold my pen wrong, and wow, did people like to point it out at the Sketching Symposium. The other voice is my voice saying, no you are doing it your way, even if it is ‘wrong’, and fortunately I listen to that stubborn little voice the most. Anyway, here is a two-page drawing I did in early December of the Yolo County Library, the Mary L Stephens branch in north Davis near my house, and I think I got it pretty damn right. It was late afternoon, I was at home that day and finished up early, and walked over to the library. The sun was setting and the autumnal leaves were amazing, they usually are in early December. Davis gets boring to me sometimes, when it’s really hot and there’s not much to do, but I love living here and I love that time of year. I stood on the street corner and sketched and painted until there was little light left; I had to finish off the paint at home, but I wanted to catch that sky, those leaves. The library has a lot of arches which is why I don’t sketch it very often (I don’t like drawing arches, just as I don’t like drawing circles, or feet, or hands, or dogs, the list goes on; for someone who loves drawing there’s a lot I don’t like drawing). I went into the library after this and had a good look through some books; I read almost the whole of ‘Abundant Harvest’ which was a detailed and illustrated history of UC Davis, it fascinated me, full of old stories and old photos. I realized also that this library has a pyramid roof, just like Burnt Oak Library, my ‘home’ library growing up. Here it is in a post from 2022. That cannot be a coincidence right? I think I had never really noticed it before. This library is bigger, though. They did make a display of my sketchbooks back in late 2011, shortly before my first solo show at the Pence, I had almost forgotten about that. A lot of time has passed since then, a lot of sketches, and a lot of improvement too, a lot of ‘doing it wrong’.

Ok, I have a lot of sketches from December because that’s the way it goes, so I might divide them into ‘December’ and ‘Christmastime’. One day I will get back to one post, one sketch, one story, but that day is not now, I have lagged behind too long. I drew the scene above while on our monthly ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ sketchcrawl in December. It was quite cold out as I remember. I drew a festive shopfront (of Avid & Co) but that will fall into the Christmassy post. This one is the Varsity Theater on 2nd St, I have drawn it many times before. If Davis were bigger and had more interesting things for me to sketch, I would still have sketched the Varsity about the same amount. There’s no point linking to old posts with Varsity sketches, new ones come along all the time, like Spider-Man movies. In fact my most recent one from July 2026 actually does have Spider-Man on it.

Here’s another from that day, sketched just across the street at the corner of 2nd and E. I liked the colour of all the trees, plus I liked that Jeep, and went to great pains to make sure I sketched seven grille slots as is the case for all civilian Jeeps, unlike the military Jeeps which have nine grille slots. I overheard someone saying this at the California Automobile Museum many years ago and it stuck in my memory. I kept thinking I should release a YouTube video titled “You Are Drawing the Front Grilles of Jeeps WRONG” and then shaming all those who draw 8 or 6 or don’t even bother counting. You will notice I didn’t bother drawing other car details (except for the Jeep’s distinctive circular headlights, and you know I hate drawing circles, but I had to get those right) and the other car barely gets an outline.

Christmas was coming alright, but I will include this one here. This is Mabel’s Market on D Street, in an old building that has been many things since I came to Davis, but is now a very nice shop; I really love their jam and like to buy it as presents for people. I like drawing that building though. I decided not to colour it in when I forgot to colour it in later, but that’s ok because the red stands out more, very festive. Also, it was very foggy at this time of year, it had been far foggier than usual, and so this is reflected in the lack of colours.

Speaking of D Street, well here is another one. The unusually thick Tule fog had finally lifted that day, and the bright mid-December colours really burst into life. I was just outside Mabel’s Market (in fact I had just bought some jam) and I drew Cloud Forest Cafe and the red phone box next to the Mustard Seed. It was so colourful I just had to stop and draw. It’s another scene I have drawn a lot, but after over twenty years here what do you expect.

On the day that I drew this, the now-closed Mamma’s restaurant on 3rd St (formerly Bistro 33, plus various other things). By the way I understand this location will soon be home to a noodle restaurant, and when I walked past the other day they have removed all of the red paint from those distinctive metal fences. Well at least I have drawn them here in that red.

Ok this one is late December, the building that is part of Newman Center on C St, just past 5th, in the Old North Davis area. There’s a bit of a crack in the building. I like all the brickwork though. I think we had just got back from Santa Rosa where we had been on Christmas Day and the day after.

Further down 5th Street, another Old North Davis house, another ‘triangle with a tree in front’ special, two in fact, plus a special mention of a picket fence on the right there. Weather was nice. There had been a lot of very heavy rain over the Christmas.

And finally, Tres Hermanas on 2nd St, near the train station. We love this place at work, some of our favourite staff lunches have been here. It always makes me hungry for their enchiladas. This was drawn on the day before New Years Eve, and it was very cold and foggy again. So, apart from the few Christmassy sketches I will post next, that’s pretty much it for 2025. The question is, shall I go ahead and post my Toulouse sketches while they are fresh in my mind, and then go backwards again and play catch up for 2026? I say, yeah why not. Otherwise it will be 2027 before I talk about Toulouse, and hey I’m getting older, the memory is not what it was. I’m probably doing this all wrong.

November 2025 in Davis California

August 14, 2026Leave a comment

And so we move on towards the end of 2025 in Davis California. That was a long year wasn’t it. Don’t go back and tell them, 2026 is not any better. All you can do is what you can. I do my job, spend time with my family, and draw lots and lots of things. Sometimes I run. Last November I ran my second 10k and nailed it, getting my personal best time, ten minutes faster than the year before (my watch broke 17 seconds into the run so I had no idea of my pace, so I just ran faster and it worked). Then I went to work, and made a big teaching budget presentation to our faculty. In my post-run confidence I decided that day to run a half marathon by the next November. That would be this coming November, 2026. I have done a 10k since, and a 7k, and a 5k, and lots of running and then not running. And right now, three months away from the half marathon I told myself I would do when I’m 50, it’s more of a ‘having-a-laugh’ marathon. No way do I feel ready yet. Sure I can work at it still, and it’s a great goal. But mentally, I don’t know, I don’t know. I’m more on the ‘having-a-laugh’ side right now than in the ‘do it!’ camp. I will decide in a month. Still if there are any marathons for sketching, well I’m right there, because that I can do. The sketch above was on the first day of November, a bright day where I stood next to the Dresbach-Hunt-Boyer Mansion (I can never remember the order of the names) and drew the side of Mishka’s and the Varsity. I liked this sketch a lot, though I only coloured in a little bit, including that shadow, which I was very pleased about because I used a little burnt sienna in the mix with ultramarine, which I had seen someone do at the symposium and I’d never done, and it created quite a warm feeling to the shade. Look at me, mixing paints to find nice tones. While carry lots of paints around I have never been one of those people who gets super into paints and mixes, I am all about doing the drawing and colouring it in. After coming back from Toulouse now I am thinking about doing more paint stuff, maybe even getting better brushes, but that would mean looking after them, not putting them in my pencil case where the bristles get caught in the zip, that sort of thing. I always think, I’m not a good enough painter to deserve a good brush. Story of my life.

This one was drawn in the Arboretum, and that is a turkey in the foreground, that was just passing by with its turkey friends. We have so many in Davis, they just wander about. “Don’t people eat them? They would eat them here!” say people back in London, to which I say “No they don’t, obviously” and “No they wouldn’t, obviously”. This one was just minding its own business, digging up worms or whatever, and I drew the tress and Lake Spafford behind. I like the Arboretum, sometimes I get bored of sketching all the trees and then I remember, no I love sketching trees. Not so much all the foliage, but that’s like saying you like sketching people, just not the faces, or the feet or hands or clothes. Wait, I do say all that. I like drawing hair, and beards, and glasses are a big help so I don’t have to worry about messing up the eyes.

This is Bizarro World on E street, which I have drawn a few times before, because it is right there and I come down this way a lot. It’s a good comic store. They rent movies too but I have not done that. They have games too, and action figures, and cards, all that fun stuff. Second hand sci-fi and fantasy books too. When I was reading comics a lot I would go in there more, I’ve not been reading many comics for a while now though. I like drawing sketches like this, not always completing the colour, but really focusing on the perspective, especially as it goes down the alleyway.

Speaking of shops in Davis, here is one of my favourites, Soccer and Lifestyle. To my massive surprise, I was passing down 2nd Street one day and it was GONE. Now this was one of the first shops I ever went into in Davis, on that day in Fall 2005 when my wife was interviewing at UC Davis and I was walking about the downtown, seeing if this was somewhere I’d want to live or not. A lot hinged on that, if I had said “nah, Davis is too far away, too flat, and the downtown shops are rubbish” we would probably not have come here, well maybe. As it was, I went to the Avid Reader bookshop, Bogey’s Books (which is where Bizarro World now is), and Soccer and Lifestyle, which clinched the deal for me. The fact Davis had a shop dedicated to selling football shorts, my obsession? I chatted with the owner, who complained about Kappa not supplying in the US (Spurs were Kappa at the time, before Puma, Under Armour and now Nike), and I decided I really liked this shop and Davis was alright, as it goes. Well we ended up moving here and the rest is biography. So when I saw the shop was empty I panicked. (Would we have to move to a city closer to where football shirts were sold?) But I read the sign that said they had moved to 3rd Street, just a block away, phew. I do really like their new location. In fact I sketched it inside during the World Cup in June. The last kit I got there was the 2026 Japan away kit, that one is lovely. Anyway I drew this one shortly after the new location opened, it’s right next to Dunloe Brewing, which is where the old bike shop used to be, B&L? I forget the name now. I probably drew that. Just past that is Zia’s I have drawn that place a couple of times. I have this idea of making a book of all the shops in downtown Davis, mixed in with sketches of the people that run them or at least work there, that would be a really fun project and way to connect downtown. Everything changes.

And finally this is another panorama, down on the corner of 2nd and G Streets. I have drawn panoramas here before, but this one was done during one of our Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawls, we had a good crowd with us that day. I used that tree with its reddish bark as the anchor in the middle for this sketch, and let the world unfold around it. You can see some sketchers there on the left. The trees were already quite autumnal, it happens a little later here than in some other places. On the left corner is Froggy’s / Tommy J’s, I have not been in there for ages but I remember they have delicious chicken burgers in there, I mean really nice. There is a sign to the right of the centre there that tells a little bit of history. This part of Davis is the oldest part of town, and used to have a kind of gateway arch here many decades ago.

November 2025 was actually 20 years since I moved to Davis (November 5th actually). I already commemorated that at the time with the following two posts:

Check back soon for December…

FYAC Urban Sketching, Fall 2025

August 14, 2026Leave a comment

Last Fall, I was invited to lead a ‘First Year Aggie Connection’ (FYAC) group on campus, under the theme of Urban Sketching. The FYACs are a special program for first year students on campus at UC Davis, offered on a whole range of subjects, and my one was of course all about drawing Davis and the campus. They are a way for first year students to get to know other first years with similar interests and also learn a few things too. It was not a for-credit course, but I did provide handouts with tips and tricks on different themes we’d be covering each week. I selected different places to sketch, and we would just get together, draw them, and then look at all our sketches afterwards. It was nice, very informal, and I was well impressed by all their work. In the very first session, I had them do a portrait party, sketching each other for a few minutes. Here are some of the sketches I did during that quarter.

The UC Davis Eggheads. I made a handout telling them all about the Eggheads and where to find them, and we drew these ones, Yin and Yang, outside the Arts buildings.

On one day it absolutely poured down, so we stood in the shelter of South Hall and drew the big trees outside. The them was trees that week anyway. There is one of the sketchers keeping dry from the rain.

The Bike Barn is always good to sketch, as you know I like drawing triangles. I think the theme was about composition that week, but I didn’t really think too deeply about composition in this sketch.

I did enjoy the week we sketched out at Wyatt Deck, in the Arboretum. That was very peaceful, and I sketched some of the other sketchers.

This was at the Memorial Union, by the campus bookstore. I can’t remember the theme now, probably perspective, but I didn’t have a lot of time to sketch to it was really about adding in a little bit of colour. The point of the course was to explore different places anyhow; many of the students were quite new to Davis. We didn’t really explore away from campus though.

This is Rock Hall, which we drew from the Student Community Center.

This was fun though, on the border between campus and downtown, on A Street. Not ‘a street’, that’s “A” Street. I drew the stop sign, with all the bikes whizzing past ignoring the “Stop” bit.

And this is Hart Hall, which we drew in late November. This was a really fun way to introduce new students to Davis and urban sketching, and I will be doing the same again this coming Fall in another FYAC, but maybe with a few other locations and themes thrown in too.

a brief oregon story

August 12, 20262 Comments

Last October we took a few days away in Oregon, primarily to visit some universities. It had been a little while since I went to Oregon, and it was good to see something more than Portland or Medford, and our first stop was to the city of Corvallis, about an hour or so down from Portland. Corvallis is where the huge Oregon State University campus is located. We were given the guided tour, starting at their enormous football stadium, they are the ‘Beavers’. I was well impressed by the campus, I’m not dissing Davis or anything but it was pretty nice, very well kept. The sort of place I’d like to have been a student. Though I am glad I went to Queen Mary. They have those little delivery robots going all over campus. I had never seen one before! I thought I’d sketched one but I must not have. After we had done the tour the family explored a bit more, and I sketched this big grand building, which I believe is called Weatherford Hall. After looking around campus, we looked about town, finding two very interesting guitar shops. I say ‘very interesting’, it was really just interesting that they had two, always a good sign. Also bookshops. Plus a big river valley that made me start wondering about how often it floods here. Apparently, a moderate risk. I did draw a couple of fire hydrants, which are orange here, just like in Portland, but are a different shape from Portland. It would be a shame if the whole world was all the same.

I also sketched a movie theatre, the Whiteside (made me think of Norman Whiteside, Manchester United player from the mid-80s), which was opposite a big booskhop we spent some time in. They were advertising a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show that evening. My family had never seen it, and we didn’t go on this day, but I made them watch it when we got back to Davis. Not sure what they thought of it.

We stayed the night in Salem, the state capital, but I didn’t sketch anything there. We looked around Willamette University the next day, a nice and very old private liberal arts college (in fact it’s the oldest college in the Western US, founded in 1842, so it’s older than Association Football, Marxism, the Telephone, the country of Italy, and every single Hollywood movie ever made. That’s pretty old. Still compared to for example Oxford or Cambridge Universities, it’s a right Johnny-come-lately. Still, it is very very old in American terms. It was very small too, smaller than a lot of high schools here. It didn’t take long to look around, and so we looked about Salem, then headed up to Portland.

It had been a good while since I was in Portland; we stayed on Broadway, and I was saddened to see that Bailey’s Taproom, which I had visited last time I was here, was now a State Farm insurance shop. Voodoo’s Donuts and its long line were still there though, delicious. We had a little look around the Saturday Market, and then I walked along the river and sketched the Steel Bridge. You have to, if you’re in Portland as an urban sketcher. The very first time I was here was for the first ever Urban Sketching Symposium and we had a workshop down here, with Lapin, just drawing the bridge. I sat in between Lapin and Gerard Michel watching their very different styles and approaches, it was one of those formative moments of the whole Urban Sketching thing for me. I also think of Liz Steel when I see this bridge because we joked at the time that this bridge was named for her, and so I always think of her sketch of it when I see it. When I would visit Portland in subsequent years I’d often stay over by the Lloyd Center, and so if I was out downtown at night I would walk back over the Steel Bridge to get back to the hotel, this makes me think of that. I have walked a lot around Portland over the years. After sketching this though I took a walk through Old Town, towards the hotel, and drew a couple of hydrants.

Old Town seemed to be a lot more worn-down than the last time I was here, with many more shops and cafes closed down. I was looking for Floating World Comics, but that was no longer there on NW 4th Ave. I sketched the hydrant in front; I have drawn it before, when it was still painted orange (my old sketch looks pudgier, I think the hydrant lost weight in that time). The other hydrant I drew on NW 2nd (on the left) is very rusty looking, I love sketching that sort of hydrant.

It rained a lot in Portland; “it’s what we do, mate” as Ange Postecoglou would say. I don’t mind at all – more time to spend in Powell’s Books. We did spend a lot of time in there too, exploring everything they had. The rain did ease off so I could draw the shop itself, including the guitarist outside, and the fire hydrant across the street (below). We had been exploring Portland State University that day, but it was a Sunday and it was mostly closed, so we just walked around the campus and the neighbouring area. The leaves were all turning autumnal,

We had some more time that day so drove out to Multnomah Falls, the big double waterfall I had previously only seen in LEGO format (in a display at the airport). I didn’t sketch it, but we took a lot of photos. It was getting late, but our flight was not until quite late in the evening so we went for dinner at one of the McMenamin’s places, I have forgotten which one now. Then we returned the car, and went to the airport where we sat for ages in the lounge while our delayed flight got delayed even further. I was so tired but I managed a few sketches. I really don’t like airports much.

And that was our brief trip to Oregon. Not sure when I’ll be back up that way again but it was good to see some new places.

October 2025 in Davis California

August 7, 2026Leave a comment

And so on to October 2025, sketches in and around Davis. I might have already posted this particular drawing already of the Newman Catholic Center on 5th Street; it was blue but had just been painted a cream colour. Another one of those trees that I like.

This was a house being built on B Street and 7th, it’s probably finished by now. I like these in-progress construction sketches because they will never look this way again. I also liked the colours, red, gold, green, the colours of my dreams, or maybe that was a song.

There’s another from A Street, the corner of 2nd, I didn’t colour it in but this is very ‘start of October’. You’ll have to take my word for it. I like A Street, it’s that liminal space between the Campus and the City, the two worlds of Davis.

Another one from Old North Davis, corner of 6th and B, this is a nice old house. I don;t think it’s in John Lofland’s excellent book on the area, which I do consult a lot. I did learn not too long ago though that John Lofland had sadly passed away, which was sad news; I had never met him, but I really like his book about Old North Davis and the histories of many of the buildings around there. Thank you for the book, and rest in peace. Anyway I drew this while heading home one day and finished it off and coloured it in at home. It always reminds me of the Davis Turkey Trot which usually starts on this very block. I did the 10k again last November, and made the probably foolish decision to try the Half Marathon this year. I may regret that!

This is that place on D Street which was the ‘Secret Spot’ for a while, but is now something else. I drew it when it was pink, it has been other colours. I sketched a lot in early October. I sketched a lot in 2025 in general.

This is the Davis Farmers Market, sketched at one of our monthly ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ sketchcrawls. We have held a lot of sketching events there, there’s always a lot to draw. Here are a couple of sketchers, Suma CM who I have met at several Symposia over the years but never met in California (where she also lives), she was visiting Davis that day. Marlene Lee is also here, she co-organizes Let’s Draw Davis with me. I keep talking about making our group an official Urban Sketchers chapter, join the club proper, but never get around to it.

This is Community Park, near where I live, and it’s the view looking up towards the toilets. On the left is the dog park. I’ve spent a lot of time in this park over the years, with all the soccer coaching and parenting, the Davis World Cup, other big local events, or just passing through on the way home. I appreciate all the parks we have in Davis. It is good to live somewhere with so many parks and green spaces, that isn’t just focused on cars and long long roads that only cars can really use. It’s Community Park because it is really used by the community, and the local library is here, Davis High School is on one side and North Davis Elementary on the other, with Rainbow City playground and the Davis Arts Center up in the other corner. Yeah, a lot of my life and my family’s life has been spent in and around this park alright. I’ve also done a lot of running events passing through here. Yeah I love this park.

This is First Street Real Estate on, well it;s on 1st Street. I like the shape of the building, it’s good to draw. I like triangles and a tree in front, that;s what it all boils down to, if I was an AI which I’m not (let’s make that clear right now) then just a tree with two branches and a triangle behind it, that’s basically most of my drawings. Like the rhythm of a joke, it’s the way you tell ’em. Years ago, I held an art show here, they very kindly hosted me for one of the monthly 2nd Friday Art About events here in Davis. It was one of my favourite ones I have done (also the last, I don’t really do those shows much) and a lot of people came, talked about sketching, sold some prints, and the people hosting were really nice as well.

Ok this will do for the October Davis sketches; I did others, but those were part of the First Year Aggie Connections group that I led during Fall and I’ll post those separately. I also have a bunch from our trip to Oregon. This one though was just before Halloween and Dia de los Muertos, in fact this was specifically for “Dia de los Muertos for Pets”, it’s a little book box and pet treat box, there are dog bowls beneath it, and so on my early evening walk up on the North Davis Greenbelt I stopped and drew it. It was a warm evening. Anyway I had been there about 15 minutes, there were a lot of walkers and cyclists about, when one lady on a bike approached ringing a bell. I was at the side of the path close to the box, not in the way, but she was turning and I think didn’t want to go around the back of me, but bank the corner. At least that’s what I gathered when she got off of her bike and deliberately walked in front of me making me move backwards into the path, grumbling that I am in her way. I said I wasn’t in the way, I was at the side of the path and the ten or so other cyclists had no problem passing by. “You are standing in the middle of the path!” she yelled. “Well I am now, because you just made me move, but I wasn’t.” I had been standing right next to the pet box, as is obvious from the drawing. She went off still complaining that I was in her way and that she had to get off of her bike. It was quite bizarre. As a sketcher I always try not to block any paths, and be considerate of those passing around me. People just having a bad day I guess. I went back to my spot and finished the sketch. Anyway, that was October in Davis. There will be a couple more October posts, then I’ll do all the others, or I might take a break and post the Symposium sketches, and then get back to 2025-2026.

September 2025, Davis California

August 7, 2026August 7, 2026Leave a comment

Alright, alright, alright. Time to catch up, before I start posting all the sketches from the Toulouse Symposium. I am not even halfway through scanning them all yet anyway. As mentioned in this post from June, I have a long list to get through, so let’s get cracking. I might keep the storytelling to a minimum, just look at the sketches and imagine what I was thinking about when I drew them. Let’s take a look at my Davis sketches from last Fall… Above, the opening page of a new sketchbook, and it’s that building on the corner of A Street (that’s “A” Street, not “a street”, I may have made that distinction before but it’s worth repeating) and 1st Street, which used to be a frat house, and at this moment in time it was painted yellow and the name ‘James A Kidd Foundation for the Arts’ was written above the door, for some reason, because shortly afterwards and to this day it is not written there any more. I don;t know what the building is going to be but I see people coming in and out, I don;t really need to pay too much attention to it. I like the shape of the tree in front. This is one of those ‘Fall quarter is about to begin, let’s start ramping things up’ sketches, and it was a busy Fall for me, no doubt. Busy is good, I like busy, but I appreciate the quieter Summer times as well.

Now here is a frat house, or maybe a sorority house, I don;t actually pay that much attention. For someone who prides himself on paying attention to the city and drawing all the changes over the years, being a real ‘interested’ sort of person, I do actually skip over details about what places are for or how things work. I do not, for example, have any idea how fire hydrants actually work, yet if you search for fire hydrants and sketches you’ll probably find me right up there on the lists. Or at least, until AI took over the world. I really like that Jaguar parked there. This was drawn on C Street, next to Central Park, while a Crafts fair was going on. I was talking for a little bit with one of the artists whose stall was nearby, I think they recognised me. I do like September sketches though, there is this ‘late Summer, not quite Fall’ air to them, it’s still hot, it reminds me of the first September I spent in Davis a year after arriving in America. Wow, September 2025, I just remembered, that was 20 years after I moved here. That’s a big deal. I love California, it’s a good place to have spent the majority of my adult years, the grown-up bits of my adult years.

Here’s another one from that week, drawn in the portrait-format sketchbook. This is the Belfry on A Street, I have drawn this building loads of times over the years, it’s an interesting shape and good to sketch.

The corner of 3rd and D, another one I have drawn loads before. Why do I keep sketching these buildings over and over? In case something changes. Something usually does, and then I have a record of it in my sketchbook. It’s like my purpose is to document the world. Maybe I should do a book. I’ve been saying it for years but never get around to it, a book of Davis sketches. I think people would buy it. I probably have a sketch for every day of the year in Davis, like one literally done on each calendar date. You definitely feel the different times of the year here. People say we don’t really have ‘seasons’ like other places do, it;s just summer and then a bit cooler, but it’s not true, the times of the year here are very distinctive, it;s just that summer is very long and very hot.

This was drawn at the Pence Gallery’s annual Art Auction, I sold a couple of pieces there last September. That’s Natalie, the director, speaking to the people at the gala event, and there is one of the musicians. I didn’t draw a lot that evening, just had a glass of wine, some food, looked at all the lovely art, and went home. This in fact was the day I celebrated 20 years in the USA. I thought it was the 26th but it was the 27th. I think a lot about that day.

Another tree in front of another house, this time on 4th Street, that’s Cooper House I believe, but I really like that tree. Maybe I should give a workshop on drawing trees. I have decided I want to be able to identify trees by looking at them, I even bought a box of flashcards with different trees and their leaves on them so I could learn them. Again it’s that thing where I love to draw things but lack that extra detail of knowing what they actually are or anything about them. Like, my mind says, “you’ve draw it haven’t you, that’s enough information for now, draw something else”. I feel like it was like that in Toulouse as well, I looked up the street names later, and am still figuring out the names of the buildings I sketched. Anyway I like these trees that get a kind of orange colour on their bark, it looks good.

Finally, from the same day but sketched after work when I went downtown before heading home, this is at the corner of 1st and E Streets, I like this little house and the way that path leads up to the door. I think it’s a dentists or a realtors, I really don’t know (see what I mean, it’s not like I don’t care what things are, I just like sketching). Next up: October 2025…

Toulouse: two lose in the semi-finals

August 6, 2026Leave a comment

The Longest World Cup Ever is over, at last, and I am done with football for a while. FIFA and its All-Powerful Leader, He-Who-Must-Be-Shown-Onscreen-In-The-13th-Minute-Of-Every-Game, have been very quiet since it ended, nothing controversial happening, very low profile. Maybe this will be the last ever World Cup. It’s just the shirts I like anyway these days. The game itself, well good games are few and far between. Certainly the World Cup Final was one of the most boring games I have ever pretended to enjoy. I am glad Spain won that final, Argentina were about as anti-football a team in that game since the Argentina of the 1990 final, unsporting thugs. I didn’t sketch the Final, as it came at the end of a very very busy Urban Sketching Symposium in Toulouse, and anyway who would sketch that game, better to just paint my page and watch it dry. The Third Place Game between England and France was unmissable but I missed most of it, because those games are usually missable, and besides I was busy. I did however watch and sketch what I could of the Semi-Finals. I will post the Symposium story and my Toulouse and London sketches soon (and then get back to catching up from 2025, by which time it will be 2028 and time for the Euros). For now tough it seems a good moment to close out my World Cup documentation. I arrived in Toulouse on July 14, which we call Bastille Day but the French call the Fête Nationale. They held the fireworks the night before on the July 13, and this night was all about the football. I watched it in a bar right across the street from my hotel, O’Brien’s, with fellow sketche Kalina. It was full of locals dressed in the colours of Les Bleus (ie, blue), some draped in French flags, lots of bières blondes (it was happy hour, buy one get one free), and a lot of nervous anticipation. I was probably expecting more noise and atmosphere, as France had been the most exciting team in the tournament and I fully expected them to win the whole thing with goals and panache, but people were not getting carried away. Not like in 2002, when they were on top of the world and the atmosphere in France was triumphal to say the least (I was living in Aix that year), until they completely flopped in the group stage. It was a bit more like 1998, I was there for the semi-final then as well, watching it at my friend Roland’s apartment, and people did not want to get too carried away, until the final whistle blew and wow, they were actually in the Final, and would play Brazil, in Paris, and boy did they celebrate that night. Well this night felt a bit more like that, but with the opposite outcome. Even at the start, when the national anthem La Marseillaise played on the TV, it was fairly subdued, save a few people singing the rousing part “aux armes, nos citoyens!”. I had been expecting that scene in Casablanca, or even Escape to Victory, but it was more like the opening to All You Need Is Love. It was a quiet game too, France could not lay a glove on Spain, who were a defensive masterclass without being boring. I had to add in a few yells at the screen on my page, but even they didn’t really happen (nobody says “Zut Alors!” in France, except maybe in the Tricolore textbooks). It became clear that France were not getting back into this game, so there was very little edge-of-your-seat tension, and people seemed a bit relieved it was over by the end. At least France have won two World Cups in our lifetimes (or one, based on the ages of many in the bar), so it’s not like with England and their famous ‘Years-Of-Hurt-Ometer’ which has now been reset to ‘At Least 64’). After the game, many left but the bar did not empty and we stayed and sketched and had fun conversations with some locals, and it was nice.

I did watch the second semi-final, of course, as it was England vs Argentina, and yeah, I am disappointed with the result. I missed half of the first half because I was at the Symposium Opening Reception, but ducked out early to a pub called The George and Dragon, which is about as sure a place to watch an England game as you can get in Toulouse. About half the people in there, maybe less, were in England shirts, the rest were either not really watching, or were French but cheering for Argentina, mostly because Messi, or maybe because they wanted to play England in the 3rd Place game, if they cared about that game. Mostly they wee not that bothered. England were winning for quite a while, and then they weren’t, and then it was extra time, and shortly before the end they weren’t winning even more, and I went back to my hotel to get some pre-Symposium sleep. Football is rubbish anyway, it’s only the shirts that I like. The Premier League will be starting again soon, how excited am I, ooh I can’t contain myself.

BYT I drew these on the reverse side of the accordion sketchbook that I drew the USA-Belgium game on, in the previous post. I got that sketchbook in Poznan in the Sympsoium goody-bag, and I don;t really like the bumpy watercolour paper much.

Anyway, I was in France and London recently and I have so many sketches to post. And then after that, catch up with 2025 and the first half of 2026. I can’t stop sketching.

with the crowd on G St, watching the footy

July 11, 20263 Comments

And so, in the end, it was not to be for the US Men’s National Team, commonly called the USMNT (they really need a nickname). Three weeks of hope and glory, days in the sunshine, and definitely maybe. Admittedly a lot of the good feeling had been unnecessarily dampened by the whole red card-suspension-phone call-suspension not-so-mysteriously suspended thing. Belgium were well up for it, in their Magritte-inspired kits, “ceci n’est pas un carton rouge”. In the end, the US players were just not as good as the Belgians, Champions League players against MLS. Maybe the whole unnecessary charade got in their heads, but they were not up for this game, even with the Seattle crowd behind them, who only two weeks ago had seen them swat Australia aside, MLS players against A-League. All three hosts went out in the same round, but not in the same way. Canada punched above their weight but were ultimately undone by the best team in Africa, Morocco; Mexico had a barn-storming game against England at the Azteca in one of the wildest matches in the tournament, loved by both sides, and unlucky not to get a result; the US lost 4-1 with a whimper, even with their new star Balogun on the field. None of the nonsense was his fault, really. A lot of people were not unhappy that the US went out, but it is a shame for all those fans of soccer here, but hey, now you all know what it’s like, “it’s the HOPE that kills ya”, they say, ain’t that the truth. If England are like the Spurs of international football, the US men’s team is like the Crystal Palace (or until Palace started winning things last year), or maybe the Newcastle, but with fewer shirtless fans. I don’t know. I really liked the 2002 team, with big man Friedel in goal, Brian McBride as the American Teddy Sheringham, and the youthful energy ball Landon Donovan (I’m not gonna make any comments about his barnet), plus Alexei Lalas already had retired along with his beard but hadn’t yet discovered the podcast, which hadn’t been invented yet. That was the team I watched with my then-girlfriend-later-wife from California, and they beat the mighty Portugal 3-2 in a super wild game. The USMNT now have some more well-known players, household names over here like Pulisic, and the other ones. That wavy red and white kit was popular, not as popular as that Mexico kit, but a lot of people were wearing it. Maybe they still will, now they have been knocked out, or maybe fans will go back to one of the less see-you-coming-a-mile-off kits.

We watched the game downtown on the big screen at G Street. They have been setting it up for the US games, along with a special Davis Soccer Fest full of activities and music, making use of that public space we have down there now. It’s a good community, Davis, and there are people out there that really make stuff happen like this, and people that are out to support it. I wanted to make sure I was there this time, so we went down and saw that the crowd was about three times bigger than the one for the Australia game a couple of weeks or so before. Was that only two and a half weeks before, it felt like a year, this World Cup has gone on for so long. I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t World Cup. It Has Always Been World Cup. Even when it ends, it will never end, and you might go four years without a bloated money-grabbing morally bankrupt World Cup and you might think that the days of the bloated money-grabbing morally bankrupt World Cup have finally gone and we can all move on to some other sport, when suddenly the bloated money-grabbing morally bankrupt World Cup is back but this time even more bloated and morally bankrupt, but still we eat it up, we love it, because we remember Maradona and Pele and Nobby Stiles dancing. I am sick of World Cup, but I love World Cup. If you want a vision of the future, imagine a football boot stamping on a man’s ankle, forever, frozen in a VAR check that can never be decided. Hydration Breaks, me arse. They are advert breaks, nothing more. If they are going to have them, at least have them at moments like they used to do on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, you know, when Chris Tarrant (or whoever hosted it here) would have them answer a question, final answer, and then say “we’ll find out after the break!” Well the ref should do that when issuing a card, put his hand in his pocket, slow as you like, and then look at the camera and say “see you after the break!”. There was a moment in the France Morocco game when I genuinely thought the ref was going to do that, just as Mbappe was trying to take his penalty, he kept stopping it, and making him wait. Maybe he should have phoned a friend.

But I love the Davis community, coming together to watch the game like this. In my first summer here in 2006 it felt like nobody cared about the World Cup, except for my mate in the football shirt shop, and some of the faculty in our department. The only channels I could watch it on were all in Spanish, and as I didn’t speak Spanish it made it much more interesting, and I picked up some interesting vocabulary (I already knew ‘gooooooooooooooooooooooooool’, of course, but I loved that every time David Beckham would get the ball they would call him “Beckham, El Spice-Boy!” and laugh. It was one of my favourite World Cups, 2006, ending in that amazing Zidane headbutt to end his international career. One of our faculty did not get live TV but had a VCR, so I used to tape the games every day and bring them into him to take home and watch them later, and he’d bring me a tape back each day to do the same. I still have that video tape, in a drawer in my office, and now none of us have VCRs it is a little historical artefact, and one day centuries later someone will find that tape, invent a new VCR to watch it, and wonder why the Mexican commentators kept calling that English player “El Spice Boy”, maybe they will assume he was some sort of galactic spice trader before taking up sports, I don’t know. This is the sort of thing the World Cup brings up, it truly is the beautiful game.

I drew all this while watching the game, but I added in the colours when I got home, because it was quite crowded and I was stood next to a tree and next to my wife. I draw fast and wrote down what I could. We did however go home for the second half, having seen enough, we watched the rest sat on the sofa, and I wrote down some more of the commentary. It was good to be around the fans though, all rooting for the USMNT (they need a better nickname than that). I like sketching big people events like this, especially if they are all dressed in bright colours, and especially if they all stay where they are for a while. Oh well, USMNT, we’ll watch the Women’s team next, at the Women’s World Cup in Brazil in 2027, a nice normal size World Cup of 32 teams, as it should be. This World Cup though will keep on going on, and on, and on, until in the end all that is left are the ants and the dust, and then, England will finally win it. It’s coming home.

You give me FIFA, in the morning, FIFA all through the night

July 9, 2026August 6, 2026Leave a comment

This World Cup has gone on for ages, and we are still not close to being done. As I write the Quarter Final stage is about to begin and this long mind-boggling controversial bloated tournament is finally in the Endgame; France, Morocco, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Argentina, Norway and of course England. A lot of big names have fallen, your Brazils, Germanys, Colombias, Portugals. The three hosts all went out in the same round, Mexico, Canada and the US, and some countries just won over everybody, we are all Cape Verde fans now. Poor old Scotland didn’t get far. They lost to Morocco and Brazil and then had to wait to be told what they already knew, they were Coming Home Too Soon, again. Oh well. I sketched and wrote down words that were coming from the TV for a number of games, too many if I’m honest, but I like to write stuff down and draw in my little brown sketchbook. It’s a fun record, I suppose. A lot of them are just in front of the TV at home. I have watched almost all of the games, somehow, and there have been some exciting classics and some utter slogs In previous tournaments I’ve also sketched players during games all over the page. Anyway without further ado, here are some of the in-game sketches I’ve done.

Uruguay were a bit useless weren’t they. Cape Verde (Cabo Verde) however gained so many fans with their incredible displays, especially their goalkeeper Vozinha. They drew all their group games and took Argentina into extra time in one of the games of the tournament. They also played in a positive and proactive way, not trying to foul the whole pitch up like some teams, and definitely deserved their place here, having topped a difficult group in Africa qualifying. Also, the first U6 soccer team my son played on all those years ago were called the Blue Sharks, and that is also Cape Verde’s nickname. You can see in the foreground the little Messi Lego set I got, an odd build. Messi, well the Ancient One Himself (not as ancient as Ronaldo or Vozinha or Modric or the truly venerable Scottish keeper Craig Gordon) has kept going, kept scoring, kept walking into important areas and broke records, starting with the all-time World Cup goalscorer record which he gained in the 2-0 win vs Austria. I mostly watched that on the iPad at the office, though we have been showing the games on our big screen in our student lounge.

England had a good start, but the game v Ghana was a difficult one. I’ve been overall impressed with England, and they are still in it so, you know, it’s coming home yeah? I sketched this with my England and my Ghana shirt up on the wall. This was held in Boston, and this was not the first time the English were frustrated by a T. Partey in Boston. Haha, I was proud of that one, and can’t believe the commentators didn’t pick up on it. (That isn’t why the England fans were booing T. Partey though, nope.) Still, England topped the group, as expected.

Canada did well this tournament, but not enough to top their group and stay playing games in Canada. They are good hosts. They lost to the Swiss though. I like Switzerland’s manager Murat Yakin, I liked him as a player and he still comes across as cool as a coach. Not a man-crush, but he’s pretty handsome. Out of the world Cup coaches I’d say he is near the top of the handsome league, (with Tuchel probably about mid-table). Montella is a handsome bloke too. Uruguay’s coach with his long hair and distinctively set eyes reminded me of the Beast from the 80s TV show Beauty and the Beast. I’m not doing a league table of football coaches’ looks here, but it has been noted by a lot of people that Poch (my beloved former spurs manager) really looks like Russell Crowe these days. Anyway I sketched this game in our student lounge watching it on the big screen, though unlike World Cup 2022 which was held in November/December, there aren’t really many people around in summer to watch the games.

The Round of 32 started, the first time we’ve had a knockout with 32 teams. World Cups usually start with 32 teams, which makes for easier-to-complete sticker albums. England beat DR Congo, but it was another great game by the Congolese, and I’m a big fan of them as well. Portugal narrowly beat Croatia in the Ronaldo-Modric face off of old Real Madrid team-mates, and Germany managed to get knocked out by Paraguay after some of the worst penalties I have ever seen. Why can’t players take penalties properly any more? Brazil beat Japan, which was a bit of a disappointment because Japan had been a lot of peoples’ ‘dark horses’, plus they had the best away kit, which I bought. It’s so nice. The Japan fans have that reputation for tidying up the stadium afterwards, and the players clean the dressing rooms, and I was wondering if after they lost this time they might have though, sod it let’s just leave it messy, someone else can do it. Mexico beat Ecuador at the Azteca (which wasn’t allowed to be called the Azteca during the World Cup, but tell that to anyone talking about that historic hallowed ground. Mexico, backed up by their loud and loyal fans, easily swept Ecuador aside to set up the Round of 15 game with England. Mexico have been an exciting host in this tournament and you see a lot of those lovely green shirts around here. In the last sketch, Egypt v Australia, with Wolves fan Jacqui Oatley commentating and Warren Barton on co-comms, going on about “moments” and “banging on the door asking questions”. Again we had some bizarre choices in the penalty shootout, this time by Australia, but Egypt got through a knockout game at the World Cup for the first time ever. They ended up going out in the Round of 16 to Messi and Argentina after leading 2-0 until near the end of the game, having been robbed of another goal, I felt very bad for them.

And finally, that incredible and exciting Round of 16 game Mexico vs England, the final game at the Azteca. A huge event, so noisy watching on the telly, knowing loads of people back home would be up all night, and they were not disappointed. Mexico fought so hard and would have been justified getting something from the game, but after all the talk of altitude and fireworks outside the hotel and the massive electrical storm changing the kick-off times, England did really well in the face of a really up-for-it and skillful Mexico, especially the keeper Pickford, and ended up winning 3-2 overall, a proper World Cup classic. Bellingham had a great game. The last time England played a World Cup game at the Azteca was forty years ago, the Hand of God match, I remember it well, as you do when you watch the world Cup as a 10 year old.So England will go on to face Norway and Erling Haaland in the quarter-finals, and well, we will see what happens. But to me it looks a little bit like it’s coming home…

Addendum: This was the last World Cup game I sketched in the little brown book before the semi-finals, France vs Morocco, which my wife and I watched on July 9th over lunch at Pizzas and Pints on the corner of 3rd and B. We had pizza, not pints, except water. And salad. There was a guy in a Mexico shirt, and another guy in a US shirt next to us. Morocco didn’t come close to France, who totally dominated. I was heading to France a few days later, and would watch them in the semi-final on Bastille Day.