Part Two of the autumnal study of Davis in November. It’s a pleasure walking and running around town at this time of year. It’s like walking through a box of paints, so it’s exciting for people like me who carry boxes of paints around with them. Above, the street next to mine, on Veteran’s Day, all the bins still lined up outside. The blue house on the left, we used to live there over ten years ago. The big tree on the right is still standing, though some of its buddies down the street fell in the storms a couple of years ago. In fact the top of this tree also fell off, a few years ago, thankfully causing no injury. It’s always a worry, these big tree limbs coming down. I love the way the smaller trees bring a lot of colour to our little neighbourhood though.

Downtown now, and this is the Fast (and Easy) Mart on the corner of B and 2nd. ‘Lamplighter Terrace’ it’s called, apparently. The trees get colourful here, and it’s always a fun thing to sketch with those funny jazz musician sculptures stationed above it.

I drew this one on Russell Boulevard, and it was a far more colourful scene than what I actually painted. I added in the yellow and a little red while I was there, thinking I could just add the rest later but I didn’t, and yet it makes it stand out more, and the mind fills in the rest. There were more reds, oranges, both dark and light greens, browns. A lot of this are looks like this, leafy fraternity and sorority houses.

I drew this one above while stood on Hutchison on the UC Davis campus looking towards the arts complex. The building itself is painted a light blue and really stood out against the colours, but again it looked better unpainted. I walked past there yesterday; the trees are no longer bright, or are leafless, but there are other changes; the building on the right now has a big bold lettering saying “Maria Manetti Shrem Art Hall”, while the free-standing signage on the left with the blue colouring has been updated to a snazzy blue and turquoise gradient with “Maria Manetti Shrem Art Hall” on it. All along here and right down past the Pitzer the signage on the lamp-posts has ben updated with a similar design, as this has been rebranded as the Maria Manetti Shrem Arts District. Maria Manetti Shrem gave a very very sizeable donation to support the arts on campus, in fact the largest single gift ever given (read about it here); she and her husband Jan Shrem, who passed away just this year, were the primary founding donors for the amazing Manetti Shrem Musuem of Art, you may remember my sketches of it as it being built (see my tag manetti-shrem-museum), and the opening weekend eight years ago which I documented. I’ll go back and sketch a bit more down there some time.

The sketch above I drew in largely the same spot and on the same day as the previous one, stood behind the Shields Library. Those trees that were very colourful a month ago are dull and wintery now.

Above, the UC Davis Silo, which I’ve drawn many times, and barely drew this time. I was focused on those very bright trees. In fact it started raining a little, so I stood beneath a tree as if that made some difference. I wish the Silo’s tower still had all that green covering, but it looks blank and bare now.

And finally, the colourful trees outside the DJUSD offices, the ‘Susan B. Anthony Administrative Center’. You can catch a reflection of me sketching from across the street if you look hard enough. Thsi was on Saturday November 23rd, the day of the annual Turkey Trot, and my legs were sore because I had just run my first ever 10k. In fact it started from very close to this spot. I was up in the morning and down here jogging about a little in preparation, wearing my Spurs shirt to represent (Spurs were playing Man. City that day too), and I thought, I must sketch these later. Davis was very much in full autumnal bloom, though it was raining a bit. I had done a few six mile runs to prepare for the 10k, going from imperial to metric in the blink of an eye. Actually it was a big deal for me, felt like an achievement unlocked. I want to do more, but after my London trip and the mince-pie infested Christmas I intend to have, I might just go back to 5k runs again until I’m ready. Still, it was my best 10k time ever, and I kept a steady pace throughout. It did pour down with rain in the middle section, making it hard to see out of my glasses, but I like running in the rain. It stopped long before I reached the finish line. As I ran across, my son called out to me to let me know Spurs were already 2-0 up against City, so we rushed home to watch the rest of the match with some donuts. Tottenham won 4-0, away from home, so that was a very good day. Later that afternoon, once my family had flown down to Disney (no way I was doing that after my 10k), I went down B Street to sketch this, before having an early dinner and heading home to watch the Formula 1. I was flying to London a couple of days later, so this was Fall’s final fling, until next year.