a hatful of silo

August 23, 2012August 24, 20126 Comments

Sketching has been sporadic lately, but I have been doing a little. Above is a quick lunchtime sketch at the Silo, UC Davis, where I often eat my lunch. On this day I sketched; other days I just eat, read, listen to podcasts, or in the case of yesterday I spent my time writing hilarious captions against photos of hairy pretentious bands in a local free magazine. That was fun. But anyway, this got me thinking about how many times I’ve sketched at the Silo – a LOT, I’ve worked at UCD for six and a half years now, blimey. So here is a selection of sketches of the Silo area from over the years.

(Above Left: March 2008; Above Right: April 2008)

(Above Left: Feb 2007; Above Right: July 2009)

(Above Left: Feb 2009; Above Right: Oct 2007)

(Above Sept 2010)

(Above Left: Feb 2010; Above Right: March 2012)

(Above May 2011)

(Above Left: March 2008; Above Right: July 2009)

(Above: Feb 2012)

(Above Left: August 2007; Above Right: Jan 2008)

(Above Left: June 2011; Above Right: May 2011)

(Above Left: March 2009; Above Right: Sept 2007)

(Above Left: Sept 2011; Above Right: Oct 2011)

Thanks for sticking to the end! This isn’t even all of them, and doesn’t include all the South Silo, Bike Barn, Outdoor Adventures ones, the whole Silo Complex. This represents a helluva lot of Grill’d Stuff’d Burritos.

the varsity, but bigger

August 22, 20121 Comment

Hey remember a couple of weeks ago I went and drew a panorama in my Moleskine of that stretch of 2nd St with the Varsity Theatre? I intended to redraw it larger, in colour, and submit it to the Pence Gallery for their annual Art Auction next month. I got cracking on it this weekend past, and learned an important but obvious lesson – larger drawings take longer to do. But it means you get to spend more time enjoying it!

Which meant a couple of late nights, but I couldn’t sleep anyway. I drew on a large sheet of thick Strathmore watercolour paper, whose inherently rougher feel than my watercolour Moleskine made my micron pens cry a little bit, but the uniball signo dx um-151 super-accurate-fineliner-pen and the trusty laugh-in-the-face-of-watercolour-paper uniball vision micro came to the rescue (yes there should be a superhero comic about pens, and I might write it) when the microns were starting to feel the strain, like relief pitchers. I took photos for a step-by-step, in case you absolutely have to know whether I drew left to right or right to left or middle to out (it’s that one, though I painted it in reverse order).

And here is the final thing, framed and ready to go. Larger than I usually draw, at roughly 10″ x 20″. I hope it sells!

let’s draw america’s coolest campus!

August 17, 20122 Comments

I wasn’t able to schedule an August sketchcrawl (and boy, was it hot this month!), but Let’s Draw Davis in September instead! This time we will meet on the very calm and quiet UC Davis campus – calm and quiet, before the thousnads of students return shortly afterwards! UC Davis was recently ranked ‘the coolest school in America’, and how much cooler would it be if we all sketched it? A lot cooler!

We will meet at the Silo, in the middle of campus. The Silo itself probably won’t be open for food, being the weekend, so you may want to bring a packed lunch. It’s an interesting area to draw, and we can meet at the tables bewteen the main building and the Bike Barn. From there we will sketch around campus, on your own or in groups, before reconvening outside the main doors of Shields Library (or just inside if it’s too hot) to check out each other’s sketchbooks.

START: 11:00am, @the UC Davis Silo (map)

FINISH: 3:00pm, outside Shields Library (map)

If you can’t find your way around campus, I recommend visiting the UC Davis website where they have an excellent online campus map: http://campusmap.ucdavis.edu/. Why not check out the UC Davis Virtual Tour as well?

As always, everyone is welcome to join in, regardless of sketching ability. All you need is something to draw with and something to draw on, and once you start looking you’ll be amazed at what you find.

Hope to see you there!

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at the old ball game

August 13, 2012August 13, 20122 Comments

We went to see the San Francisco Giants play again yesterday, second time in a fortnight, and my third time ever. And this time they won! With bases loaded in the 8th inning and the Giants two runs down to the Colorado Rockies, new boy Hunter Pence hit a home run right into that crowd there in the middle of the drawing. The place went wild. Look at me, understanding what is going on, sort of. I am still learning. I am learning that garlic fries might be a good idea but they stick with you a bit. I am learning that when the pitcher is on deck to bat next and there are two outs already, the opposing team walks the current batter because the batting pitcher is less likely to make a hit, and so you have to boo them. Wow, I feel like the scarecrow at the end of Wizard of Oz. I also figured out, all on my own with no help or looking at the answers, that those big yellow poles, which I thought were cellphone towers or something (this is AT&T Park), are the boundaries within which a ball is ‘in’ or ‘out’. It makes sense. This was a good game, the Giants won, we were happy, a nice family day out. My young son got to hit the ball in the mini-version of AT-&T Park they have in the fun area (up near where the big Coke bottle is; that is actually a series of tunnel slides). He got a home run and was well pleased. After the game, all the kids under 14 got to run the bases on the real field. After hundreds of degrees in Davis, it was upper 60s – low 70s in the city, and I was actually freezing cold in the shade. This is a spectacular ballpark though, one of the great stadia in one of the great locations, and it’s just so much fun. Especially when the Giants win.

small steps, giant leaps

August 11, 2012Leave a comment

Right now at the Pence Gallery in Davis is a great show called ‘If The Shoe Fits’, which is all about Shoes. I was invited to display some of my shoe drawings, and as some of you may remember I have been drawing every one of my son’s shoes since he started wearing them, all in one book. So I redrew some, this time with colour, on Stillman and Birn Gamma paper. Above is the first shoe he ever wore, at age zero, the Robeez rocket shoe.

Next one, the blue Van’s shoe. I liked these ones. This is from age one. By then of course he was walking and running.

Finally, a shoe from age three, in fact the first shoes he ever chose himself. He has good taste. These got a lot of wear, before the feet outgrew them.

All were drawn on that S&B Gamma paper in either copic multiliner or micron pigma pen, with watercolour added. If you want to see (or buy) these, and a lot of other great shoe art from some amazing artists, go down to the Pence Gallery on D Street in Davis.

Those feet just keep getting bigger and bigger…

bad weather for ducks

August 9, 20122 Comments

It is too hot. I’m sorry Davis, but you have to sort out these summers. Hundreds, and getting hotter, so KCRA3 Weather Plus Chief Meteorologist Mark Finan says (you have to use his full title or he makes it get even hotter). This lunchtime, I went down to Putah Creek and stood beneath the shade of a big bridge and drew it. There are all these little wooden barriers, dams even, up and down the Creek at the moment. A whole crowd of ducks pulled up at one point, stared at the wooden board quietly, looked around at each other, and then started quacking furiously. I could translate what they were saying as WTF?!?! (Or QQQ?!?! in duck-txtspk) It was like in Donald Duck, you know when he gets angry and goes red and steam comes out of his nostrils and he boils up into a rage, it was like that but with about twenty-five ducks. Actually it kind of reminded me of a bunch of commuters. Now they would have to get out of the Creek and walk, oh QQQ, it’s hundred quacking degrees and I have to quacking waddle? For duck’s drake. Actually, being the Olympics I’m wondering whether it’s not some sort of dressage or hurdles thing, perhaps they are expecting the ducks to jump over them. Not quacking likely.

in the middle of our street

August 7, 20125 Comments

On Sunday I had to get out to draw. I cycled downtown and stood on a bench (yes, stood, so I could see over the large vehicle in the way) on 2nd Street and drew a famiiar scene, but this time as a double-page spread in that lovely brown pen I have. I do like drawing these panoramas. This took about two hours, maybe less, stood in the shade on that bench. The funny thing about standing so high is that people don’t look over your shoulder quite so much. One other thing about sketching these panoramas is you have to scan them in two sections, stitch them together, and then they are so hard to post. If you want to see a bigger version, click on the image above. Below, you can see how big it is in real life. And the thing is, I intend to redraw this as a bigger and more colourful drawing.

Here is a close up of the middle section, for those who can read the tiny writing and are interested in the movie times…

still standing

August 6, 2012Leave a comment

Another one from the boiler building, which is still standing. I sketched from the back today, this big old window, full of texture and detail. I don’t know when this building is finally going under the sledgehammer, but apparently it is soon. Still standing…

little giants

August 5, 2012August 5, 2012Leave a comment

My wife and I went on a date night to see the San Francisco Giants last week, playing against the New York Mets. It was a long and interesting game, going into extra innings (unfortunately! We had a long drive back to Davis but stayed until the end, unlike many others). The Giants ended up losing 8-7, which was a disappointment, but it was a back-and-forth game. I quite like the Mets; they’re that New York team that isn’t the Yankees, and I always think of them fondly, as a bit like Manchester City (before they got all that money and won the league). I did try to chant “You’re just a small town in France!” but nobody seemed to get that one. We were sat in club level, and enjoyed garlic fries and beer and ice cream, and a great view. In club level they have an amazing display of Giants memorabilia, including the 2010 World Series trophy, along with historic bats and baseballs (I sketched one of the game balls from Matt Cain’s perfect game), and an intriguing series of ‘bobbleheads’, those odd reproductions of famous players which often get given away on special game days. I sketched a few from the World series year of some of the well-known players from then (all still prominent Giants). Those bobbleheads never really resemble the players they’re supposed to be – that one of Buster Posey is just well off-base, for one. It was a lot of fun looking at all that stuff, and I could have sketched all night, but there was a game to watch, and garlic fries to eat.

when the sun shines, they slip into the shade

August 2, 20122 Comments

Lake Spafford, in the Arboretum area of UC Davis, sketched on a lunchtime, a not very interesting lunchtime, one in which I head out on my bike and go, so what am I going to draw? There’s nothing I want to draw today. No, not that, done that, no not that, too much greenery. Actually, no, I will sketch that, I know I ‘only just sketched’ that but that was actually 2007; god I feel like I’ve been in Davis a long time, and these long hot summers are really getting to me. Seriously – you go to San Francisco, less than an hour and a half away, and pass through some sort of invisible force field where it suddenly gets thirty to forty degrees cooler. They should make it illegal, this heat. Oh, it’s just the Sun exercising his right to free speech, the Sun is people too, the Sun has a right to bear UV Rays. Where I’m from we only let the Sun out three or four times a year and even then it has to behave itself. Actually where I am from the Sun listens in on your phone conversations and goes through your bins. So anyway, I sat in the shade, like this fellow here, and sketched away. I’m freckly, I have red hair. I am not anti-Sun, I just believe in traditional weather…