Third Street in Davis has been undergoing a facelift. The section between B and A (crossing University Ave) has been closed off for a while so that the whole street can have a big facelift. It just reopened a week or two ago, and while all the details are not quite ready, it’s looking pretty good. The newly paved street is bright, providing a much nicer look than old grey tarmac (they call that ‘blacktop’ over here). There are also more benchs, so I sat down to draw this. It took me a couple of lunchtimes, and I still had to do a lot of the colour when I got home in the evening. You can click on the one above to see more detail, or look at the one below for the middle bit. Now here’s an interesting thing – there should be another window next to that red front door, but my faraway spot and not great eyesight, also the tree being in the way, meant I missed it. I shouldn’t have, I’ve drawn this house before. That’s ok though, just imagine it there yourself.

As I said, I have drawn this building, and this stretch of street, several times over the years and so we go to a regular feature of this show, the “flashback corner”. Follow me on a journey back through memory lane…

2016… A front on view of that building, and you can see that the railings downstairs are wooden and white. Street looks different but that little tree is still blossoming pinkly. More ground foliage, less sidewalk. And oh look, correct number of windows.

2014… See how the bollards are still there, plus shoes all along the telegraph line. Pink blossom still there but that building is now white with a green trim. The telegraph poles are still there, they have now gone. I liked drawing them, for perspective’s sake but also I liked the details of the wood and the ripped paper fliers. That house next door is a sort of yellow (it’s blueish now). See how the bottom front windows are hard to see behind the tree from out here.

2011… I drew the one below because I really wanted to draw that pole up close. I actually sold this sketch at the Pence Gallery in my 2011 show.  This was a summertime sketch. Just one pair of shoes up high. Again, window hidden.

2007… First time I sketched this building, if not the the junction. It was a very white-wooden house then, home of the Davis Copy Shop.

That’s as far back as my sketchbook goes. If I draw it again, I’ll be sure to get the number of windows right…