Before I get posting all the summer travel sketches I suppose I should catch up posting all the Davis sketches from June and July as well. I might mix it up a bit, and bunch them up as I often do. Expect more of the same, more drawings of a house in Davis with a tree in front of it. You can tell it’s me, it’s a drawing of a house with a tree in front of it. Above, the nice little house on the corner of E Street and 3rd Street downtown, I’ve drawn it before; I’ve drawn them all before, but this is what they look like in 2025.

I have draw so much this year, and each time that question keeps jumping back out – what is it for? It probably sounds like I’m asking it in a mid-life crisis kind of way, “what does it all mean?”, and I’ve tried to think about the “why” behind all the sketching. The answer is almost always “because I like drawing”, but it feels a bit glib to say that, so I dress it up with ideas like, “the world is a crazy place, I have no control over world events, but by focusing on this one little bit of world in front of me and drawing it, it gives me a tiny piece of control over a tiny piece of my reality,” stuff like that. Maybe it’s about feeling overwhelmed and unable to get things done, but if I can achieve one thing that I know how to do then that is a start. I draw to record the world around me, that’s another big one. I can look back over sketchbooks and say, yes that was my world then, where I lived, and I drew what I wanted to record. Am I doing it for the town, itself as a record for the City of Davis or for UC Davis as a campus? Maybe, and it’s a fun outcome that I have this record of nearly two decades of sketches from this place, but mostly it’s for me. I draw to improve as well, to exercise the drawing muscles, but I also like the comfort of a certain type of drawing, and I suppose this is that type of drawing. I think about pushing myself more, and look I have some highly detailed cityscapes and bar scenes and all of that, but mostly I’m a lunchtime sketcher, as I have a pretty busy job and it gives me a way to refocus my mind halfway through the day. It’s not for likes, though I post them online as it’s an important part of being an urban sketcher and it was that which encouraged me back in the early days of 2006, 2007, discovering other peoples’ work online, but I don’t really engage on the socials like some of my sketching peers do; I prefer it here in my world, old school. If I ever get to writing this new book maybe I’ll write out the whole explanation and motivation as to why I draw, with the history of when I first picked up a pen and all the drawing I did as a kid to try to block out the noisy world around me, and then I will get out my editorial pen and cut it all down to the very simple “it’s because I just like drawing”. End of the day, that’s what it is.

As I post, it’s early in the morning. Not as early as when I started writing all that, the sun is coming up now (well, the fog is coming up, that time of year is finally here) and I’m getting ready to go for my morning run, I have a 10k in just under a month that I am trying to prepare for. I’ve had funny dreams lately, and last night I dreamed of old friends I have not seen in years, I was standing behind them in a queue and was trying to decide whether to run for it or tap them on the shoulder, and in the end I think I made a funny noise to make them turn around, and then realized they might not recognize me, the ravages of time, and then realized it might not be them at all. But it turns out it was them and we went for a beer. I must point out, nobody’s dreams are interesting, and it’s always extremely boring when someone tells you what happened in their dreams, because sure they may have felt real and meaningful to the dreamer but are absolutely not to anyone else. It’s like someone telling you about their Fantasy Football team, it’s like, mate, please. However I did have another dream where I was at my Mum’s house in Burnt Oak, and I had to try and save family members from a vampire that had somehow gotten in and was in the loft. It had managed to turn my cat into a vampire, though nobody thought it was any different. Anyway vampires are really hard to beat and it felt like it was a hopeless situation, no matter what we do the vampire just keeps on going making everything dark and miserable. Then I remembered that my Mum has some Holy Water in the shed (she actually does, she brought it back from Lourdes in the 90s), so I put some in a spray bottle and went hunting for the vampire with that, and it must have worked because I woke up and the vampire was gone, vanquished, but then I looked on Instagram and things were still shit.

That has nothing to do with the drawings, sorry. That sketch was on E Street outside the Hunt Boyer Dresbach Mansion, some ditch cleaning machine that I decided to sketch. I still can’t draw circles as is evident by the wheels. If I had to draw a magic circle to protect from demons or ghosts, I’d ask someone else to do it, I’d be too embarrassed. The next sketch above is a sorority house or something on D Street. I’ve drawn that before too. Another big house with a tree in front. I didn’t even bother drawing the wheels on the car, no point. The Greek letters look like magical symbols, or maybe it means ‘Ax Omega’ which I think is the name of a spray-on deodorant. You can’t use that against vampires by the way, that just do an evil laugh and say something funny like “I don’t sweat you!” It’s nearly Halloween, I have vampires on the mind.

This sketch above was on campus, not a house with a tree but the other water tower, the one near the football field, as sketched next to the funny old building that houses the University Honors program. I had been drawing a lot of flowers during the spring so they popped up again here. It was June the 6th, D Day, 81 years on. The Spring quarter was nearly finished. I like that moment at the start of summer, especially when there are summer plans, but it was still a long way before travelling and the long hot summers we get here feel like a drag. It didn’t end up being as ridiculously hot this year as usual, but hot enough.

Finally, I’ve meant to draw this gateway for a long time, down on D Street outside the Cole Building (on the other side of the road from the Cloud Forest Cafe). That shop The Wardrobe is based in here now. I drew at lunchtime but then finished it off and coloured it in later. I am glad that I captured it like this, because I came back a few months later and it looks really different! It has now been painted with a big colourful blue mural on it, it looks pretty good too. Several of the buildings down here have seen wildly colourful makeovers recently (such as the restaurant on the corner which is now a rather wild pink). This I suppose is why I sketch, to capture a moment in time, just before it changes. It probably won’t look like this again now, and I’ve captured it at the right time. I like drawing.

I’ll post more soon, right now I’m off for that morning run.