art about at avid reader

November 14, 2011November 14, 201111 Comments

Last Friday I took part in the downtown Davis ArtAbout, exhibiting my sketchbooks and many prints at the Avid Reader bookstore on 2nd St. It was an early evening event, and I was at the entrance of the bookstore. I had promised to do some live sketching, and I did a little. My sketchbooks were displayed for members of the public to flick through, and that was a lot of fun, seeing people looking through my moleskines, which is a very different experience to looking at the drawings online. I had several framed prints as well, which are on display for the rest of this month, however they are displayed on top of the very highest shelves, well out of the way of lines of sight, so you may need a periscope.

A lot of people came, and thank you to everyone who stopped by! I talked a LOT, about drawing, about sketchbooks, about pens. I can be quite quiet and shy, especially when sketching, but get me talking about moleskines or micron pens and I can rabbit for England. The setting was pleasant though, with local ukelele player Gary (who I’ve known since I worked at the bookstore years ago) playing very peaceful music in the background. People who came in were very friendly, and my wonderful wife Angela was there as support for me (assisted by my ‘can’t-sit-still’ three-year-old son!), thankfully she knows all my spiel! I’m so glad she was able to be there for the event.

Here I am showing my long Davis Moleskine. Someone asked if I would consider selling it, perhaps for public display, but to be honest I love playing with it. I am going to do another, no really, in a different book with colour and longer scenes, but that is a project for the new year I think.

The event was all done by 7:30, and we all went home exhausted. I was asleep by 9! That was fun; thanks to Alzada and the Avid Reader for arranging this and hosting me! I will of course be taking part in December’s ArtAbout as well, as I will be showing my exhibition of new urban sketches at the Pence Gallery. See you next time!

avid reader, avid sketcher

November 11, 20111 Comment

This is the Avid Reader bookstore on 2nd Street in Davis. I used to work here, as the bookkeeper, for a couple of years after I first moved to Davis. It’s a real community anchor, and holds lots of events such as author signings and book clubs, and tonight it will be where I will display my sketchbooks and prints as part of the 2nd Friday ArtAbout. I’ll be there between 5-ish and 7-ish, there will be refreshments, and I will even be drawing stuff as well. I drew this one lunchtime this week, and finished it off this morning (it’s 11-11-11, and I have a day off! Staying in, framing pictures, listening to history and football podcasts and oasis, emptying dishwasher, eating noodles – it’s cold out). Anyway, I hope to see you at the bookstore tonight! My prints will be up until December 6th.

turn back time

November 9, 2011November 9, 20116 Comments

I hadn’t drawn for two weeks!!! I’m not joking. It’s very unlike me. Oh, I’d scribbled endless scribbles on whatever piece of paper was in front of me, but no actual drawings, actual sketches, until I finally broke the hiatus on Sunday and cycled about looking for something to draw. Eventually chose the Hattie Weber Museuem of Davis, which I drew before on a sketchcrawl but didn’t like much. It was closed, so no big schoolbell outside (my son loves to ring it).

Drawn on 10×8 Strathmore hot-press with uni-ball vision micro and watercolour. The clocks had gone back the night before. Our clocks go back later than yours back in England. This year I was actually caught out – I didn’t know that my fancy alarm clock was one of ‘them’, that changes the time for me, meaning when I wake up and see that it says 7:55, I think, oh it’s really 6:55, when in fact it’s actually five minutes to Spurs v Fulham! Still that was worth getting up early for, and I still technically had a lie in. Confused? I was. Spurs got run ragged by Fulham, yet still managed to win 3-1. Seven wins in Eight now, with the other being a draw. Come on you Spurs!

tents stand off

November 7, 20112 Comments

This is Occupy Davis. It’s not quite Occupy Wall Street, which of course occupies Wall Street, place of economy crashes, and not exactly Occupy London, no resigning Cathedral heads here, and (thankfully) it’s nothing like Occupy Oakland. This is in Central Park, Davis, a handful of tents huddled not far from the Farmer’s Market (which is a bit different from the Stock Market). There are some signs up, and they’re obviously settled in, with bookshelves and a big tarp to keep the rain off, and no need for portaloos – they’re right by the public toilets. A few of the Occupiers were sat about guarding the ship; I was going to go and speak to them, maybe do some drawing over there, but I didn’t have much lunchtime left, and to be honest I felt a little intimidated, so I kept my distance. Plus there was a dog wearing a scarf. I’m sure there’s a lot of support for them, this being Davis after all, and I’m certainly on the side of the 99% and a supporter of peaceful protests (especially against those being allowed to get away with destroying the economy). Camping down the park in the cold far away from those being protested against probably isn’t going to get the bankers to give back their bonuses. But good luck to them.

pete at the bookstore, 11-11-11

November 5, 2011Leave a comment

Mark your diaries! It’s eleven-eleven-eleven next week, whichever date system you use. If you’re in Davis, it’s the 2nd Friday Art About, an evening of art events downtown with music, food, activities and of course lots of art. And (for the second time this year!) I will be exhibiting some sketchbooks and prints at the Avid Reader bookstore on 2nd St. The prints will be exhibited until Dec 6, while the reception on the 11th will be from about 5:30 to 7:00 (after that there is some author event, not sure what). I will be sketching live (a ‘sketching demo’ I guess – code for, ‘i’ll be sketching anyway!’), and there will be sandwiches and wine. If you can’t make it, the sketchbooks will be at the Davis public library until the end of the month, and the prints will be at the Avid Reader. But there will also be an event at the Pence Gallery in December…

See you there!

pete in the library

November 4, 2011November 4, 201112 Comments

Exciting News! For the month of November, my sketchbooks and drawings are currently being exhibited in a public display cabinet at the Davis Public Library! I’m very honoured by this. If you are in the area, please pop by and check it out! The Library was redeveloped last year and it’s a really nice place to visit. Here are some photos I took on my iPod after setting it up (apologies for the quality, I’ll take better photos!).

Many thanks to the kind folks at the Mary L Stephens Library for giving me this opportunity. I have more exhibitions in Davis coming up soon too, so I will announce those very shortly…

let’s sketch the park!

November 2, 2011November 3, 20111 Comment

It’s nearly time for another sketchcrawl in Davis! This time, we’re heading north to Community Park, starting at the Davis Arts Center and finishing up at the Davis Pubic Library.

This event is free and open to all who are interested in sketching! All you need is something to draw with and something to draw on.

DATE: Saturday, November 19, 2011
START: 11:00am, outside Davis Arts Center (corner of F St / Covell)
FINISH: 3:00pm, Davis Public Library (14th St)

Our last sketchcrawl was featured on the front of the Aggie a couple of weeks ago. We’ve also been spotlighted in Davis Life Magazine and by Aggie TV. The sketchcrawls are a fun way to get out and meet other sketchers, but also a way of really getting to know the city where we live, and explore it with our sketches.

(I will also be exhibiting some of my work at the library if you’re interested! It’s there now, I’ll post about it very soon…)

Hope to see you there!

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=300652183297546

Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/letsdrawdavis/

it was the fest of times…

October 28, 2011October 29, 20112 Comments

I haven’t been drawing much this week, but this is one from a couple of weeks back that I forgot to scan. My wife got me some Weihenstephaner beer, ‘Festbier’ (it is October after all), and to go with it she also got me one of the really big litre-sized beer glasses. I had to draw it! (My brown sketchbook as you may know is for beer and beer glasses now). Weihenstephaner is the oldest brewery in the world, and we visited it just outside Munich when we were in Bavaria in 2005. I really like their beer a lot. One of the reasons I went there is because at the time I was studying Germanic Philology, and had just written a paper about the competing influences of Old English and Old Gothic on the vocabulary of Old High German, specifically in the field of religion (they being the chief importers of Christianity in Germania), and one of the focuses was on the two words for ‘holy’, ‘heilig’ being the Anglo-Saxon inspired word (from ‘hálig‘), and ‘weihe’ being the Gothic preference (cf ‘weihs’). Ultimately the preferred English form gained most use, though some of the old Gothic-inspired words can still be seen in place names, such as ‘Pfaff’ and ‘Weihe’, as in ‘Weihenstephaner’. Interesting, I thought, so I went there and got a beer.

a city full of urban sketchers

October 27, 2011October 28, 20111 Comment

Wow, it has been three months since Lisbon! It’s quite incredible. The second Urban Sketching Symposium was an overwhelming experience, and it was so much fun to spend good sketching time with so many other urban sketchers from around the world, many of whose work I have followed and been influenced by for years.

During the Symposium, Portuguese journalist Patrícia Pedrosa filmed some of the workshops, and has produced a couple of great videos which bring me right back to Portugal. The first documents Day One, the second Days Two and Three. You’ll spot me I’m sure, the one holding his pen in a funny way and crouching distorted on the ground. Here they are: I hope you enjoy them!

Urban Sketchers 1 from Patrícia Pedrosa on Vimeo.

Urban Sketchers 2 from Patrícia Pedrosa on Vimeo.

See this post over on Urban Sketchers. Thanks Patrícia for producing these!

i’ve been lost, i’ve been found, but i don’t feel down

October 24, 20111 Comment

This is the old Tank House, the one that used to stand, minding its own business, in between the Hunt Boyer House and the Varsity Theatre downtown on 2nd Street, until one day when Mishka’s Cafe decided to move from one block away (didn’t like the neighbourhood) into a new purpose built building, right where the Tank House was taking up valuable commercial space. It was moved last year, to the other side of the Hunt-Boyer, cutting down an old ornage tree in the process (and I drew it too – see below). It was never a good location, and made that whole corner look clunky, but this was a beloved old historical piece of Davis. Then, recently, it just disappeared. I presumed it was gone. So you can imagine my surprise when I came across it on our annual visit to the pumpkin patch on Saturday, at Impossible Acres Farm on the edge of the city.

Even more surprising was that it was cut in two. Accoridng to a little informational leaflet provided by the farm, this was due to the difficulty in moving it over the trees. I can’t blame them, it’s not exactly something you can stick on the roof of the car is it. The Tank House, along with the Mansion, was built in about 1871 by the first postmaster of Davisville, William Dresbach. The leaflet also tells us that “this is a fancy, urban tank house, not a common farm one,” (before adding, “Ritzy!”) and they plan to restore it to old glories, use it as a tank house again, and preserve it as a piece of working Davis history, even planting the odd orange tree around it. I look forward to it, and will go out and draw it once it’s done.

Below is the drawing I did of the Tank House last year, in its temporary spot. I never got around to drawing it in the old location (which wasn’t in fact the original spot, having been moved there in the 1970s from its original spot slightly further from the Mansion).