Month: September 2023

lemonade at the market

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Farmers Market Davis

This is a little snapshot from the Davis Farmer’s Market that I drew one Saturday morning earlier this month. I was using this Chinese fountain pen that I had had in my office for a number of years but never yet used, so I thought I’d fill it with platinum carbon ink (very black, very waterproof) and see how it worked while sketching out and about. Well it worked ok, but was a little bit leaky, leaving me with inky fingers. I was drawing directly onto a light pre-prepared watercolour wash, which was in a perfect rectangle because I was trying that idea out again, putting tape down to create a nice clean border. The sort of thing that works for a painting on its own but just doesn’t sit right in my sketchbook. I might go back to doing some sketches with a drawn border like I used to, shaky pen, allowing some things to pop out of it. Anyway I stood and drew this little scene, the bright yellow lemonade stand (slightly dimmed by that wash underneath perhaps) alongside the Handmade Pies truck (I’ve never eaten there but should like to try it sometime). I’ve never had that Lemonade either; it was a hot morning, Labor Day weekend, but I didn’t fancy anything too sugary, I was in preparation for my Labor Day Race a couple of days later. The market was busy that morning, lots of people out, lots of food, families playing in the park, of course you also get the other stalls at the far end, including the Flat Earth wallies, I can’t even. As for this pen, well it was ok, but didn’t really draw how I like to draw, and not as smooth as the Lamy Safari for a fountain pen. I went back and got the old Lamy out, assuming that since I’d not used it in a long long time that it must be completely dried up with old ink and unusable, but in fact it did not take much washing to bring it back to life. So I ordered a couple more Lamys in different sizes, and I might start sketching with those again. They seemed to leak less, but of course at some point you have to refill the ink while sketching out on location, and I always make a mess of that. We will see. I’m going to try fountain pen sketching again for a bit, but I’ll still mostly use my nice trusty brown-black Uni-ball signo.

drawing the quiet times

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MU UC Davis 082223

Here are a couple of sketches from campus drawn in August. Above, the side entrance to the MU, next to the campus bookstore. Below, the view from the big round table in the Silo, where I was eating lunch. It was too hot out to bother looking for something to sketch, so I drew Peet’s Coffee. I don’t drink coffee, and I don’t go to Peet’s very often (they can’t even spell Pete) because they always take so long and have long lines of coffee people, and it requires several people just to get a pastry, and I don’t even like their pastries that much. It’s the same with all these coffee chains, I never go in them if I can avoid it. I love the chocolate croissants at the MU, so much nicer, but they only have them half the time, and never at all in summer. Summers are long. The Fall quarter begins next week, everyone will be back and it will be a bit chaotic, but it’s always good once things get going again. Still the quieter times are nice.

Silo Peets Coffee 082323

goodbye, tree

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Japanese Zelkova Tree by Lake Spafford 091323

Sad tree update. We thought after all those big storms at the start of this year that we had seen the last big tree loss in Davis for a while, but this one is particularly sad. In the UC Davis Arboretum by Lake Spafford, very close to Mrak Hall,  stands a tree called a Japanese Zelkova, out on its own and in a perfect spot to provide loads of shade not only to students and picknickers, but also to the many ducks and geese that call this part of the campus their home. This tree was planted back in the 60s and was so well loved. So when they discovered a serious crack in the trunk last month, likely caused by the weight of the many branches (which have always been meticulously managed), which was not possible to fix, the tree was deemed too dangerous to leave and so scheduled for removal. Here’s some information about the tree: ucdavis.edu/news/damaged-lake-spafford-tree-slated-removal . The UCD Arboretum IG account also posted the news, with a photo of how Lake Spafford looked back when the trees were first planted in the sixties: www.instagram.com/p/CxGiZm_husi/?img_index=4.

I went down there last Wednesday, the day before it was going to be taken away, and sketched it one last time. What a beautiful tree it was. There were already a couple of workmen there with a machine taking away the bench. The poor tree probably knew something was up. Trees aren’t just furniture, they are actual living things, but it was going to die. I mean, yes they often become furniture afterwards, but I’m trying to be sensitive here, I love trees. I said goodbye to the tree (in my head, not out loud, obviously), and went back to work.

I came back next morning, to see if the deed had been done. The main trunk remained, but completely removed of all branches. It reminded me of Aslan, shaved and murdered on the Stone Table, but I heard no crack of Deep Magic to bring it back to life while my back was turned. I sketched it (see below), and went off to a meeting about temporary visas elsewhere on campus.

Japanese Zelkova Tree by Lake Spafford 091423

By Friday, it was completely gone, just a stump and a sign commemorating the tree left. I did not feel like sketching it. This area has a lot less shade now, and shade is good for keeping the ground cool during those long Davis summers. Goodbye, lovely old tree.

lionesses before dawn

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Womens World Cup Final 2023

We all got up at 3am, for the second time in a week, to watch England playing in the final stages of the Women’s World Cup. The midweek semi-final was a fantastic win. The final, in those wee hours of a Sunday morning, as sketched here, did not go quite as well. Spain were the better team on the day, and deserved to win 1-0. Of course we all know what happened next with that awful Spanish FA president, it’s been quite a drama. The Women’s World Cup overall was a really fun tournament, even though we could not watch too many games live (as they were in Australian and New Zealand), we watched all the highlights each day. The USA were not so good this time, but I was pretty happy with how England did overall. European Champions last year, beaten World Cup finalists this year (I guess we start counting ‘years of hurt’ again now?). Congratulations to Spain though. This was nearly a month ago now, and these days we are back in the Premier League fun times, and Spurs are doing great so far under Big Ange Postecoglou. However now I am getting right into the Rugby World Cup, of all things. I’ve never been much of a rugby fan, I used to watch it sometimes on telly when I was a kid, but never really understood it like I do with football. I still don’t, but it has been fun watching these huge guys smash into each other this past week. Sport, eh. It’s the big distraction from all the other shitty things in the world, and there are increasingly shitty things in the world, that my mental health just can’t deal with, so I go back to watching sport. I was up at 5am this morning watching the Formula 1, and what a race (Carlos Sainz won; Max Verstappen for once did not win, coming fifth). Earlier this summer we watched pretty much all the Tour de France (well, all the highlights each day, I’m not actually watching them race live). At this rate I might even start watching cricket (no, let’s not go that far). But we loved the Women’s World Cup. And I’m now a big fan of goalkeeper Mary “F***-Off!!” Earps.

the poking machine

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3rd St machine 082823

It’s that time of year when loads of street construction gets done before the academic year starts. At least, I hope it’s done before the academic year starts. 3rd Street is a bit of a mess, with loads of work meaning cars and bikes and even people can’t access it too easily, so we have to go around a short way, causing ‘chaos’. Hardly chaos, but the way people talk about it. It does give an opportunity to draw another construction machine though, I feel like it’s been a little while. Remember when my son was very young, I’d go out of my way to draw these machines, he loved those, we’d read books all about them before bedtime. Now he’s fifteen and a lot less interested in construction machines, but I still like to draw them. This one had an ominous looking pointed contraption on the front, like it is a machine designed for poking, or prodding. I’ve no idea what it does, and that’s how I like it, I never want these sort of things explained to me. If I were to go a big place full of these machines, the last thing I would want is for someone to tell me what they actually do, when I always imagine them as big mechanical monsters designed for destruction and, you know, poking.

let’s draw davis at orange court

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Orange Court Davis 081223

Last month I organized a Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl, the first one I’ve organized in a very long time. The meet-ups have still been happening regularly for a while, though due to my own busy weekend schedule I’ve not usually been able to join them, let along organize any. Hopefully that will change now, and I’m going to start getting out and sketching with other sketchers a bit more regularly again. It was a very hot morning in the middle of August, and we had a pretty good turnout as we met up in the shaded courtyard of Orange Court. I stood for what seemed like ages drawing the scene above, a view I’ve drawn before, I like all the different angles and shapes, and all the warm colours against the blue sky. I wish my scanner had done a better job on it though, I think the settings were a bit off. It was also really hot and dry – I found it very difficult to paint, because my watercolours were not only drying too quickly on the page (that may be the paper too, using the slightly thinner Stillman & Birn Alpha instead of the watercolour Moleskine) but also in the pan, I found it difficult mixing and judging the water to add. Here are some of the other sketchers I drew. The guy in the soccer shirt, Alejandro, I have sketched him a few times before, and I have drawn him in a Wolves shirt. I wasn’t sure what this jersey was – black and white stripes, made by Charly, they make a lot of Mexican teams’ kits, but I didn’t recognize the badge nor the colours. I was stumped. I like a challenge when identifying a kit, but I couldn’t figure it out. It turns out it was the kit of a team called Cuervos (Crows), which is not a real club but is from a popular Spanish-language Netflix show. Still it looked a bit like it might be a Charleroi shirt, and I just had to sketch it. I am a little bit obsessed with football shirts as you know.

LDD 081223 people>

LDD 081223 people

Other sketchers posted some lovely drawings on the Let’s Draw Davis FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/LetsDrawDavis. I don’t know if there will be a sketch-meeting this month, but I’m planning to organize one on the UC Davis campus on October 14 – details coming soon.

the trees weren’t blue

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3rd St Davis 080923

It was lunchtime, I was cycling back from downtown looking for something new to sketch. I’ve drawn most of Third Street over the years but I don’t think I’ve ever drawn this little house, and I love drawing a picket fence with its repetitive pickets and close observation of the things behind it. I used a bit of blue paint on the trees to make it stand out a bit more (especially with the little bit of purple I’d used as well), though the trees weren’t blue, it’s more of a feeling. This is a typical looking little old house in this part of Davis, the old downtown before you get to campus. This was almost a month ago now. August flew by.

fillmore, fifteen years later

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SF Clay Theatre - Fillmore

Back in San Francisco, this time on a short trip with the family to escape the atrocious Davis heat. We went to Japantown and had a look around, and then I had a little bit of time to myself heading back to the hotel, so I wandered up Fillmore, to an area I had not been in about fifteen years. I had a new sketchbook, a Stillman and Birn Alpha. Despite having used those extensively in the past, it has been a while, and so I’m still getting used to the different paper after a few years back in the Moleskines. On this day, I decided what I wanted to do was draw quickly in pencil with some light wash. There are some nice shops up that way; I popped into Paper Source, still a great little shop I used to love getting envelopes and things from. I found the Clay theatre; I remember that I had sketched this place once back in late July 2008, back when my son was just a wee baby. I recall kinda struggling with that sketch a bit. It seemed to be closed down now, but still there to sketch. I walked about a bit more, there were lots of nice looking cafes and shops around here, it’s quite upscale. I did find this little bookshop, Browser Books, which at first I thought was Bowser Books, that big dragon guy from the Super Mario world, with Thwompers coming down as you enter and highly pixelated fireballs moving slowly towards you, but thankfully it wasn’t like that. I had a good look around at some books, and then I drew the shop, again just quick pencil with a little bit of watercolour. I took the bus back to our hotel, and then before our evening dinner at Fog City Diner I found, at the hotel bar, Anchor Steam on tap. So I had my final ever Anchor Steam on that day. I’ve not found it since, and I’m probably not likely to. I like it up Fillmore though, I’ll come back this way, but maybe I’ll not leave it fifteen years this time.

SF Browser Books - Fillmore

deacon brodie’s tavern

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Deacon Brodies Tavern Edinburgh

The other drawing that I’ve put into the Pence Gallery’s Art Auction was this one of Deacon Brodie’s Tavern, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. I wanted to draw an old pub, and I decided to go beyond London this time and draw one I never got around to sketching while I was in the Scottish capital. I didn’t even pop in for a pint, I’m sad to say. The one evening I went out to sketch a pub, I didn’t go further than the block near our apartment, but this was just a little way up the hill. I had taken a few photos of it before, as I remember seeing it on one of Rick Steve’s many shows, so I knew it was famous. It dates back about 200 years or so, and was named after a well-known local character, Deacon Blue Brodie. Sorry, Deacon William Brodie. He was an upstanding Edinburgh citizen, a maker of cabinets, but boy did he have things in his closet. Do you see what I did there. By night, he would turn to a life of crime, becoming a burglar to pay off his gambling debts, trying not to ‘drawer’ attention to him ‘shelf’ and fall foul of the long ‘armoire’ of the law. Ok enough cabinet gags. The point is, Deacon Brodie led a double life, eventually leading to his being hanged in 1788 – ironically, as the sign outside the pub states cheerfully, on gallows he himself had designed. There’s a lesson for you. His story however inspired a much more famous one, when Robert Louis Stephenson created the characters of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. (Spoiler alert, Jekyll and Hyde are the same person). The pub sign on the corner shows the respectable Jekyll-like goodie Deacon Brodie on one side, with the Hyde-like villain Deacon Brodie on the other.

As I say, I never went in this time, but I guess it’s one of the stops on the literary pub tours of Edinburgh, when you presumably go to literally every pub. I had to draw it, and this will be in the Pence Gallery’s Art Auction this year; details are at: https://pencegallery.org/events/art-auction/. As I said in my last post, there’ll be a Preview Exhibit on September 8th if you’re in Davis, and bidding starts on Sept 10 through Sept 23, when the Art Auction Party takes place at the gallery.

bar italia – round the corner in soho

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Bar Italia, Soho

Looking back to London, this is the famous Bar Italia, a cafe on Frith Street in the heart of Soho. I drew this as part of two pieces I out in to the Pence Gallery’s annual Art Auction, deciding I really wanted to put in a place that meant a lot to me. Well, Soho means a lot to me, not necessarily Bar Italia, given that the last time I actually had anything here was in the mid-1990s. I just love that it is still here, still very much keeping Old Soho alive in the face of all the dross and change in this area. I drew it on an 8″x10″ piece of paper and framed it, I was really pleased with how it turned out. That might be me sat in the corner, wearing what looks like a Charleroi shirt (lot of Italians lived in Charleroi), but not exactly representative of when I would actually go there. For one thing, it’s daylight, and another, I don’t drink coffee. Bar Italia was a great place to go at about 3 or 4 in the morning, after going to whatever small Soho nightclub that played indie or rock music, and have a cold soda or even a cappuccino. I knew some Italians back then and we’d sometimes go there in those wee hours and those were the only times I ever had cappuccino, and the cappuccino in Bar Italia was really good. I can’t stand coffee, but that was nice. It was more the location, filled with interesting people, Soho people, all that little bit still awake and alive before the night bus home. In summertime the sky would already be streaked with early morning pink, as you walked down to Trafalgar Square to get the N5 from outside the National Gallery with the rest of the world. In those days I had boundless energy; if I stayed up all night, I wouldn’t even notice. I definitely had the odd occasion when I would be up all night, then rater than sleep I would just shower, have breakfast and then go off to work my day job in the Asda coffee shop. When you’re 20, you can do anything. I was a sensible 20 year old though, not very hedonistic, but I loved London. I remember going off to Germany when I was 20, to spend a year working in a school for children with disabilities, a live-in job I found so difficult and stressful that I ended up leaving, and coming home again. Mostly I just missed London. The world out there was great, but London, and this London especially, was just the best place. I’ve long since left it behind now, and found a new life in California. Pulp famously ended their Different Class album with the song ‘Bar Italia’, dedicated to this old Italian cafe, including the line “I’m fading fast, and it’s nearly dawn”. When a man is tired of London, it’s time for the Night Bus. This building, 22 Frith Street, has a longer history though, as the blue plaque indicates. This is where John Logie Baird first demonstrated his new invention, the ‘television’, back in 1926. That caught on didn’t it. Further up Frith Street is Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club – and I’ve never actually been there. When i was in my late teens and 20s, jazz clubs were not really my thing. Maybe some day I might go, and pop into Bar Italia afterwards.

This drawing will be in the Pence Gallery’s Art Auction this year; details are at: https://pencegallery.org/events/art-auction/. There’ll be a Preview Exhibit on September 8th if you’re in Davis, and bidding starts on Sept 10 through Sept 23, when the Art Auction Party takes place at the gallery, always fun, and there are loads of great artists involved this year.