scenes in art is davis

June 16, 20141 Comment

Many thanks to those of you who were kind enough to stop by and say hello last Friday at the Scene In Davis group show! It went very well, and a lot of people came. I even sold a drawing there, as well as two more at the Pence Gallery next door! It was a warm evening, and was particularly hot inside Art Is Davis, but I met a lot of very nice people. I was starting to lose my voice a little toward the end! The show will be up until July 6th so if you are interested in owning a nice piece of Davis (hint-hint Davis grads!) then pop by 222 D St. Cheers!

the world cup is here!

June 12, 20142 Comments

WORLD CUP! The once-every-four-years fest of stadiums not being completed on time, FIFA corruption, corporate greed and hyper-zealous sponsors, dull substandard international football from tired irritable professional footballers, unfettered jingoism, and the world actually believing any of this still matters is finally here, and WE LOVE IT! I can’t help it. For all of my cynicism – and for those of you who don’t know, I am occasionally cynical – my inner ten-year-old leaps out and goes bananas in the build-up to the festival of football. It’s obviously nothing to do with the actual football, I barely remember the last decent bit of football I saw at a World Cup. As an afficionado of football kits and their traditions and trends I am constantly having angry palpitations over the stupid kit regulations and choices at the FIFA World Cup, in fact in global scheme of things very little annoys me more than the idea of Spain wearing red shorts (it’s just WRONG). I do intend, this weekend, to provide you with a long, detailed rant/overview of all of the kits for this year’s World Cup (and if you aren’t interested in my many annoyances about football kits, I might also advise you to unfollow me on Twitter until mid-July). But dspite all of this, I LOVE IT!
Our Panini album is filling up fast, and I have most of my old ones going back to Mexico 86. The drawing at the top as one I did in 2010 during the South Africa tournament. And above, flags of every country taking part, made out of paper mosaics by me and my son, this was a fun project. We’ll be putting them up around our house, maybe taking them down as teams get knocked out.

The World Cup starts today, with Brazil vs Croatia. Most of the games will be on while I’m at work but I actually will get to see this one. And for the record, my prediction for the winning team this year is indeed… Brazil.

scene in davis!

June 11, 20141 Comment

This Friday will be fun. I am pleased to announce that I will be exhibiting several of my Davis sketches as part of a group show called “Scene in Davis”, on display at the Art-Is-Davis co-op at 222 D Street, downtown Davis. The other featured artists are Dave Webb, Joe Finkleman and Ben Tuason, and we were all selected by the resident artists because our work is devoted to the subject of Davis. The resident artists at Art Is Davis are Dori Marshall, Seana Burke, Marieke de Waard, Jan Castle-Walker and Joanne Andresen; many thanks to Dori for inviting me to participate. There will be a reception starting at 6pm this Friday 13th June, and I plan to show some of my sketchbooks and talk my usual nonsense about uni-ball pens and fire hydrants. If you are in town and would like to say hello and see my Davis sketches, I’d love to meet you!
The show will run until July 6th, and the pieces will be for sale; maybe a nice gift for someone graduating from UC Davis, perhaps? I’m excited to see what the other works on show will be! Always enjoy seeing Davis so well represented by artists. You can visit the Art-Is-Davis website at

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But of course that isn’t all, as I also have some pieces on display at the Pence Gallery next door as part of the Garden Tour exhibit, in the upstairs conference room. You may recall the post I made about the Garden Tour recently (

dans le jardin

), and all three of my sketches are up for sale. Here are two of them on the wall:

Now there was also going to be participation in a third show, the annual ‘Tiny’ Show at the Pence Gallery, which I saw today and has some wonderful pieces (such as an amazing night-time painting of the Varsity). My contribution, drawn and painted onto a 5×7″ piece of canvas board, was of Vesuvio in San Francisco’s North Beach, redrawn from the sketch I did while stood outside there last March. Here it is:

However…it already sold! I went by today, and the Pence told me a lady from San Francisco, to whom the Vesuvio had special meaning, bought it and wanted to take it with her there and then. So while it won’t be in the Tiny Show, I’m ecstatic that it sold so quickly! I really love that corner of planet Earth myself so I am really happy it touched someone else as well. It was hard work drawing on that canvas board (it ain’t like drawing on paper) but very rewarding.

Anyway, if you happen to be on D Street this Friday evening, come and see some art!

hair today, gone tomorrow

June 9, 20144 Comments

This is my barber shop, the Razor’s Edge on 3rd Street, downtown Davis. I have been getting the same haircut here since I moved to this town almost nine years ago, but I had never ever sketched the place. Well you know how it is, you sketch somewhere, then suddenly it closes down (it’s happened a lot to me), and to be honest I couldn’t afford to have my barber close. I have tried other barbers in town and you’d be surprised how different my hair looks each time, whereas here I know what I’m getting. You know how it is. So not wanting to ‘curse’ it, I never sketched it. Anyway, recently I heard that the building would be demolished to make way for, well a more modern building that can charge more rent, I suppose. So I decided I just had to sketch it, for posterity. Now the last time I did this was The Beat, a record shop in Sacramento, I sketched it last summer before it was to move to ‘another location’. It was definitely not closing for good. Well, sadly it never reopened. I’m glad I sketched it, but the curse had struck again. So before finally putting the Razor’s Edge into my sketchbook, I went in and asked if the barber, Sukh, had found another location yet, just to make sure. He certainly had, and he’d signed a new lease and will definitely be moving into a new spot about a block away in July. “Hooray!” I exclaimed, and here is my sketch.
(And yes even I, with my low standards for cheap gags, cringed before using that title for this post, but it just had to be done. It’s not every day your barbershop closes.)

dans le jardin

June 7, 20144 Comments

Last month I took part in the Pence Gallery’s annual Garden Tour event in Davis. On the Garden Tour, local Davis gardeners open up their gardens to the ticket-paying public. All of the gardens are specially selected and are themselves works of art – gardening is a whole ‘nother world to me but when it’s taken seriosuly, you really see some amazing results. In each garden there was a Master Gardener, which is an actual person who specializes in helping people with their gardening issues, and to whom visitors could come for advice. Oh, and in each garden on the tour there is a local artists, painting (or in my case, drawing) the lovely gardens. I was in the garden of the Reinerts just beyond the northern edge of Davis, and it was a delightful place. Lizards roamed the flowerbeds, hummingbirds flitted between the trees, bees buzzed high on nectar, and the flowers were colourful and fragrant.

Another artist was there for a while, so I sketched her painting with oil at her easel. A lot of people who I had met before came by and said hello, which was nice.
And finally I sketched the house while seated in the arbor, the reverse view from the top sketch. As I sketched, I listened to the Master Gardener advise people about their gardens and was just hugely impressed. Keeping a garden is an enormous amount of work, but really requires years of careful knowledge to get right, so I am just so impressed with gardeners right now.

Anyway…my sketches from the Garden Tour are currently on display at the Pence Gallery on D Street, Davis, in their silent auction so do pop by and see them if you’re in town!

part of the queue

June 4, 20142 Comments

Recently I went to the Davis Farmers Market on a Wednesday evening to do a bit of sketching. It was a warm evening, as you get around here, and a lot of people were buzzing around getting food from vendors and listening to live music. It’s always tricky figuring out what to sketch; in order to capture the vibrancy of the scene, you need to sketch a bunch of people moving around. I chose a spot near the food vendors and sketched the market information building, which sells t-shirts and baskets and other such stuff, while a queue of people lined up before me for tacos, finding themselves inevitably the foreground subjects of my sketch. I stood holding my big sketchbook (the larger size Stillman and Birn Alpha book rather than my smaller everyday sketchbook) at an unusual angle, I look kinda funny when I sketch like that. Someone came to look at my work, but they were at the wrong angle and probably thought I was holding it up so they couldn’t see, but that’s just how I hold it, close to my chin like a violin. I had time that evening so added the paint on site, sitting down on one of those benches by the tree to do that. I didn’t eat a Naanwich or any other of the market foods, I can’t really eat and sketch.

Anyway this particular sketch (and several others) will be on display and for sale this month at the ‘Art Is Davis’ Co-op on D Street, Davis, as part of the ‘Scene In Davis‘ show. We will be having an artist’s reception in the early evening of Friday June 13th, so if you are in Davis please do come by, look at some of my sketchbooks, and say hello!

music and skateboards

May 29, 2014Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I was invited by Yolo Arts to sketch in Woodland on a Friday evening, as the event sketcher for ‘Music On Main’, part of the 1st Friday Art Walk’s evening entertainments. My first stop was at Steve’s Pizzas on Main Street, where, in the courtyard at the back, a band called Os Lorenzos were playing jazzy tunes. I sketched for nearly an hour, got the musicians to sign the sketch, and moved on.

In the square outside Woodland Opera House was this odd looking little truck. “Acoustic Sanctuary” is the colourful vehicle of the one-man-band Winko Ljizz, usually resident in midtown Sacramento, whose purple truck is filled with musical instruments and enough stools for a small audience. I didn’t have time to sketch inside – I was scheduled to sketch skateboarders next and the evening was running away fast – but I’d like to sketch Winko performing his many instruments sometime.

Part of Main Street was cordoned off for a special skateboarding demonstartion / competition, organized by the SorD Boardshop (“SorD” stands, ominously, for “Skate Or Die”, though I’d rather simply “Skate or Maybe Walk Or Ride a Bike, Thanks”). The young skateboarders zoomed all about making jumps and other sorts of jumps (I don’t know any skateboarding lingo) while onlookers looked on. I’ve never sketched skateboarders before – well they move so fast – so it was a fun challenge.

And finally the sun set, but I had one more sketch to make. A three-man mariachi band called Trio Los Lafiras was moving about from place to place performing traditional Mexican songs. I started following them as I saw them walking down the street, and eventually they went into a brewpub and asked to perform a few songs. I tagged in behind them, big sketchbook in hand (I had bought a large format spiral bound Stillman and Birn ‘Alpha’ sketchbook for bigger sketches that I could take out if I needed, I really like that paper) nd told them I would sketch them as quickly as I could. They played three songs, giving me just enough time to sketch them all, paint in their yellow shirts and draw the brickwork too (I added the ‘spotlight’ detail after they’d finished), which was pretty bloody fast if I say so myself. Well, their music was excellent, truly brilliant. I can’t stress how much more fun it is sketching to music, but believe me sketching to a Mariachi band is so much more of a delight. I even knew the tunes they played (though mostly from their 1980s football terrace versions, admittedly). So a fun end to a very busy sketchy evening.

Many thanks to Kristina Fong at Yolo Arts for giving me this great opportunity to sketch!

giedt on up

May 28, 2014Leave a comment

This is Giedt Hall, UC Davis, sketched one lunchtime a few weeks ago. I am a slow poster these days, I’ll admit, but I’ve also not done as much daily sketching this month so you’re not missing much. A couple of sketching events still to post though, and also let you know that I am participating in a show at the end of next week at ‘Art Is Davis‘ on D St, Davis (next to the Pence), called ‘Scene In Davis’. I’m very excited about it, and I believe the work will be hung for the whole of June, with a reception at the ArtAbout on Friday June 13. Also on that date, I will have work showing in the Pence Gallery for their ‘Garden Tour’ silent auction/exhibit, as well as a small piece in the ‘Tiny’ show (of work that is just 5″x7″ – pretty big for me…). So June will be art-tastic! Still no time to organize sketchcrawls though :(

UCAAC 2014 – part 4

May 27, 20141 Comment

Here are the final few sketches from the UC Academic Advising Conference. I went to two different workshops on the Friday and when I say different I mean polar opposite. One had superhero costumes and databases, one had cops and guns. The session sketched above was given by staff from UC Riverside, and they shared with us some of their “E-Knowledge”, their use of certain databases and websites to gather up student data. The first presenter dressed in a Superman outfit (or maybe Supergirl, minus the Supergirl costume adjustments, I’m not an expert, I’ve been reading a lot more Marvel lately than DC)

The final workshop attended was the most interesting by far, albeit disturbing. “Surviving an Active Shooter”, presented by the UC Davis Police, is unfortunately in the United States of America an all too real factor to consider, as we saw tragically at UC Santa Barbara last weekend. Mike Valenzuela was the main presenter and he showed us all a variety of scenarios and types of firearm. I was official sketcher so I didn’t have to take part in the exercise on how to run out of the building. The videos we had to watch were scary to say the least, but the tips they gave on survival, and the mantra of “RUN-HIDE-FIGHT” (very much in that order) were very strong. I would recommend anyone to take a course like this, and many thanks to Mike, Mary, Tim and Janet for offering this workshop. I absolutely hope I never have to use what I learnt.

These last couple of sketches are of some UC Davis staff I know, my former department colleague and one of the conference organizers Elizabeth Dudley (I had to include her camera as she is a great photographer), also a keen cyclist and foodie – check out her website, the Cycling Foodie. I must thank Elizabeth, as it was she who recommended me as the official sketcher to the organizing committee (after I had left it too late to register, doh!). Cheers Elizabeth! Below is Cris Breivik, a long-term academic counselor who works with Elizabeth in the L&S Dean’s Office (who I’m sure I have I have sketched before at a meeting or previous conference). He is very well-known on campus and even has a banner devoted to him (it’s near the Silo). I think I captured him quite well.

And so that is that. I enjoyed this UC Academic Advising Conference, in both my daily work and my sketching capacities, and am pleased I had the opportunity to live in both worlds for a couple of days. By the way, the UCAAC posted all the sketches on Facebook in this full set: “UCAAC SKetches by Pete Scully” Cheers!

UCAAC 2014 – part 3

May 23, 2014Leave a comment

Day Two of the UC Academic Advising Conference opened with a series of brief ‘TED Talks’. What are TED Talks? I showed up a but late to find out, and was somewhat crestfallen to discover that it wasn’t a series of storytimes with teddy bears (yeah I know, what was I thinking, but I watched Playschool as a kid, Big and ittle Ted, Humpty, Jemima, Hamble etc and, well I don’t know, but anyway it wasn’t anything like that. Forget I mentioned it.) Ok, so apparently they are academic presentations which are short and delivered at breakneck speed on various subjects to popular audiences, at least that’s the impression I got.

The first one, which I walked into a few minutes late, was by Prof. William Ristenport from Chemical Engineering, and was all about coffee. Science stuff about coffee. UC Davis made headlines recently because it was doing some sort of sciencey thing about coffee which apparently made people very excited because, you know, they drink it. I don’t like coffee personally so I see this sort of excitement in the same way as when people get excited over pictures of dogs wearing clothes, but I daresay the coffee scientists and enthusiasts enjoyed this one. The time limitation factored and everything was presented at high-caffeine speed so I wasn’t able to take many notes but it was interesting and Prof. Ristenport did a good job of entertaining everyone. And yes the students who take part in these coffee science sessions do get free coffee which I’m sure makes all the difference.

Again, I didn’t write many notes in the next TED Talk, given by Jonna Mozet, who is a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology in the School of Vet Med. It was about diagnosing mystery illnesses and explored epidemiology in the wild among animals, and was interesting but a bit above my head.

The third one was really interesting, given by Marilyn Ramenofsky, an adjunct professor in Neural Biology, and a former world-record holding swimmer. Her story spanned the decades and she told us about her years as a swimmer, medalling at the 1964 Olympics, and breaking the world record for the 400m freestyle. She fell in love with Biology and now researches bird migration at UC Davis. I think everyone loved her talk most, lots of people were talking about it afterwards.

Finally, there was a talk given by James Housefield, Professor of Design at UC Davis. I have conversed with James via email (about sketchcrawls) before but hadn’t met him until now, and I really enjoyed his talk (although he did make everyone hug each other at the start which – see previous post – is not really my thing). This was a very lively talk and as you can see I was getting into the people sketching by that point and took a lot more notes. “Embrace the Unfashionable!” this was his mantra.