So I had another birthday. I don’t feel a year older though, but I do feel a day older than yesterday. Tomorrow I might feel a day even older. Anyway, I went out on my bike to enjoy the sunny super-bowl Sunday weather, and was attracted (not acttracted per se, but you know what I mean) by the clunkety-clunking noise coming from the railroads down by 2nd street. I don’t know what these things are properly called (which considering my two-year old is an expert on such matters, and an avid Thomas fan), but there were loads of these yellow maintenance railtrucks out, busy at work, rolling slowly down the track, making a good old noise. Some were huge complicated loking engines, others small crane-type machines, like this one, picking up wooden sleepers and doing whatever it was supposed to be doing. I sketched it as it clunkety-clunked by.
Author: pete scully
Pete is a sketcher from London who now lives in California.
from here to fraternity
One of the many fraternity houses that line Russell Blvd, on the edge of the UC Davis campus. This was drawn over a couple of lunchtimes; I had to 
cycle back up today to finish off the drawing and add the colour. It was however grey today, so I kept in the fluffy clouds and blue skies from yesterday. And wow, that was some gnarled up tree! This is the Chi Phi frat house. Chi Phi is an old national frat, founded in 1824, but the UC Davis chapter’s been here since 1969. Ok, enough facts. If you’re interested in how it looked after the first lunchtime, the work in progress is on the right there.
And here is the whole spread. Also posted at Urban Sketchers.
the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face
The last day of January; it was a long, busy month, wasn’t it? Long, cold and dark, with not as much drawing as normal. Well the Sun came out and so did I, with the sketchbook.
The last day of January; it was a long, busy month, wasn’t it? Long, cold and dark, with not as much drawing as normal. Well the Sun came out and so did I, with the sketchbook. Wandered town looking for something to draw; I was not inspired by anything new, so went somewhere old. It’s the time of year when trees are like bare spindly bones, just asking to be sketched. Of course drawing them out in the open takes time and patience. I may have to photograph a few while they’re still leafless and draw some complicated pictures of branches at home in the warm (like I did here and here and here, a couple of years ago). No branch left behind. Doing them outside is fun too (like here and here) but going for branch accuracy in chilly weather can be a struggle on the old fineliners. Still, in yesterday’s cold sunshine I gave it a shot.
I’m making a habit of revisiting old spots. I last sat and sketched this corner, 5th and E Streets in Davis, about two and a half years ago. Here’s how it looked back then, on a hot July day (in moleskine #1, when for some reason I didn’t want to draw powerlines):
three wheels good
The tricycle. ‘Nuff said. Drawn in purple micron.
and the seasons they go round and round
I draw this scene every six months, once in winter, once in summer. Each scene looks slightly different, and for more than just the changing seasons. This more than any other Davis scene is my ‘Mont St. Victoire’. (Incidentally I’ve actually climbed Mont St. Victoire, twice) I started drawing it one lunchtime a couple of weeks back, but ran out of time; then it rained solidly for a fortnight. So yesterday we had a day of sunshine, cold cold sunshine, and I got back out to finish it off. You’ll see it again in six months or so.
Anyway, here are the other ones. I can’t help myself:
Summer 2007:
Winter 2008:
Summer 2008:
Winter 2009:
Summer 2009:
cake that
It was my son’s birthday; I made the cake. Here it is, half-eaten (or is it half-uneaten, whichever is the more positive sounding…) It was very nice cake. I thought this wasn’t going to become a food-blog? I haven’t baked a cake in years, I mean years. I was all for doing a nice Victoria sponge with jam and buttercream in it, but for some reason couldn’t pluck up the courage. Besides, ingredients here always seem to have different names from their British recipe counterparts when I get to the store.
It’s what first frustrated me when I moved here. I remember back then, I forget what I was making, but I couldn’t find double cream anywhere, had no idea what Americans called it. Out went half my recipes. No coriander? Well I’ll use cilantro instead. Biscuits are a type of bready thing you get at KFC, not something you dip in your tea. Even now I’m still not sure if America has any swede in any of its grocery stores (I’ve had mashed-swede-&-carrot-free roasts for over four years now), it may be disguised as something else. The perils of being a Brit abroad.
But cake, on the other hand, is surely cake! So I used a cake mix, from a box, Betty Crocker, just add eggs, oil and water. Kind of cheating I know. But it was bloody good, I will say, and my son (who had been looking forward to this much-hyped birthday cake for days) was super impressed, and that’s the main thing.
Drawn in the moleskine diary.
mail on friday
Another rainy lunchtime, another envelope sketch, this time of my busy busy desk. I had been outside in the rain to find food, so only had fifteen minutes or so to get a drawing in. These are some big big storms California is getting.
he who wears the shoes
My boy is two this weekend. Joyeux Anniversaire little dude!
H2 Pencil on paper. Don’t draw these sorts of drawings very often, it was a lot of fun, especially the hair.
long to rain over us
The massive rainstorms this week have confined me to the inside world. I feel like a hermit. But you’re from London, they protest, you must be used to the rain. Yeah, it got me just as wet there too. So anyway, I’m still using bits of cut up enelopes to make my drawing look a little different. I had a few minutes over lunch to draw out of rain-soaked window, in poor visibility, in brown micron on an envelope that came from London, funny enough.
i’ve got a lot of songs but they’re all in my head
When massive storms are swirling outside, you need to stay in, and draw your home. This corner of the apartment is where we keep the music. Why is it that no matter how many CDs I have I only ever listen to the same few ones? I used to listen to a lot more music than I do now, years ago, or at least it feels like that. Maybe it’s because I don’t spend my weekends jumping about to the crackle of records as I did when I was a teenager, or fall asleep to the repeats of a CD, or commute for an hour plus to the hiss of a tape deck, as I did for too many years in London. I have an mp3 player now, everything on random shuffle. My two-year-old likes music. When we get up together on early weekend mornings we put on some top tunes and rock out with air guitar to our breakfast. He likes ‘Formed a Band’. And ‘Yellow Submarine’. He’s a budding little artist too – that’s one of his finger-paintings on the wall there.
When I was a teenager, it was all about the records, Never Mind The Bollocks, full blast. Not really any feeling quite like it. It’s what teenagers do. If I listen to it now, I swear I can still hear my mum or dad shouting my name up the stairs (not usually to turn it down, funny enough, more often just to come down and make a cup of tea). I guess I have all that to look forward to.
