the space between us

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RMI building

The Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at UC Davis, sketched from afar on the Old Davis Road. Pass by it every day, always wanted to sketch from this spot, beneath a shady tree at the other end of the vinyards, planted a couple of years ago or so. UC Davis is a leading institution for viticulture and enology. California has a lot of wine-growers. I like this sketch; it illustrates the colours of Davis, the local ‘palette’, and gives a nice sense of location – not just northern California in the middle of July when the grass is ochre and the sky is permanent blue, but my actual location while sketching it, sat distantly among the foliage.  

Tomorrow my location will be even further away, as I’ll be flying off to England, and then to Portugal…

tomorrow never knows

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paint box

When it comes to packing for a trip you have to be strategic. Clothes, well that’s quite easy for me. I travel fairly light, I know what I like and there it is, I’m packed. I’ve been packed for days. Art materials, well that’s a different teapot of sardines. Even though I should have it down, I have to pore for ages over which pens to bring and which to leave behind, which pens still kinda work ok and which have worn down nibs but are good back-ups for the more intense cross-hatching of those trees I need to draw. My Winsor and Newton Cotman paints have been filled with all manner of possible colours for a while, but since drawing the above sketch – in my new small red moleskine, which is acting as a kind of journal / place for smaller quicker sketches for the upcoming London/Lisbon trip – I have added another paint to the set, Prussian Blue, because four blues just wasn’t enough. “You Never Know,” that seems to be the catchphrase. Just look at all the pens which made the final cut! That is mental, no truly it is mental. I am trying to cover all my bases, but I’m probably going to shave quite a few off this. Still, it is the 2nd International Urban Sketching Symposium, and when it comes to my sketching needs, You Never Know.

Art gear for lisbon

meet the new boss, same as the old boss

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view from bainer uc davis

I sketch this every six months, once in the winter, once in the summer. It’s been a routine since about 2007. Sometimes I do a lot of detail and it takes me a couple of lunchtimes, and other times I go quickly and do the lot in one fifty-minute sitting. Above is one of the latter. I did it last week using a green micron 02 pen and a black micron 05, colouring in watercolour as always.

To see the one I did in January, with all of the previous ones in the same post, have a look here.

bricks, guns, candy (and dollar bills on the ceiling of a bar)

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jacksonville city hall

More from Jacksonville, southern Oregon. I sat beneath a shady tree and sketched the historic city hall. It is very peaceful around there, the chirruping of birds only broken by the families of visitors humming by on Segways. I sketched this with the uni-ball signo pen, and as I was about to add a tentative wash the pen said no, I will run. You can but but I can’t hide it. So it stayed black and white. You can colour it in if you like (just don’t use watercolours or sharpies on your monitor).  

far west gun exchangejacksonville candy machine

I had to draw this antique gun exchange. With all of the antlers and horns on the front of the shop, I wondered if it was really supposed to be a gnu exchange. You homo sapiens and your gnus. I also sketched a rather interesting candy dispenser, with glamourous looking shiny beads on it, in the window of a clothes store called La Boheme. It seems to fit nicely with the  clothes I sketched before.

Jville Tavern

When I came here on the same day last year, I finished up the afternoon by sketching in the JVille Tavern, accompanied by a nice local beer (Ashland Amber Caldera). I setched this bar from the other side last year. This one was sketched quickly in my small red moley, and spattered with some paint afterwards to add an interesting effect. Those things inexplicably pinned to the ceiling are dollar bills, not butterflies.

hit the road, jack

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overlooking jacksonville, oregon

I had my bike with me in Oregon, so I cycled to Jacksonville. I went there on the same Sunday last year, and was retyrning to sketch the things I’d missed last time. It didn’t take long to cycle there, and it was a beautiful journey, much of the road running alongside a creek, with rolling hills, vinyards and even a snaowy peak popping out aboce it all. I had to stop at one point to sketch the view above, overlooking Jacksonville. As sson as I entered town, the sketching stool came out and I drew the First Presbyterian Church, a lovely wooden building which dates back to 1881.

first presbyterian church, jacksonville
Jacksonville church

jacksonville fire hydrant

And a fire hydrant; why not. More to come…

for now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring

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black sheep pub, ashland

Ashland in southern Oregon is famous (very famous) for it’s popular (very popular) Shakespeare Festival. This town is Bard friendly, and the British theme pops up here and there, such as in this pub, the Black Sheep. Set up a steep wide staircase off the main drag, this big pub serves fish and chips, beans on toast, and other such grub. They also have an old red phonebox; I think there are more red phoneboxes in American pubs than on English streets these days.

Ashland is a nice place. It was already a hot day and we went for a stroll through Lithia Park. While my son played at the playground, I sat by the heavy gushing creek and drew the sketch below. There were notices all around that on one morning the week before, a cougar had been spotted in that very park. That’s a mountain lion, not the other type of cougar. It gave tips on what to do if you see one – don’t turn around, make yourself look big, try not to make it laugh etc – and it reminded me that there are a lot of wild animals about in America. We’ve had mountain lion sightings in West Sacramento. Last week news reports told of coyotes in north Davis killing a cat. I saw a great big centipede in the bath once. Gotta be careful. Give me British beans on toast any day, much safer… 

lithia park, ashland, oregon

go tell it on the mountain

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mt shasta, from weed airport

Sketches in my little red moleskine (I like to carry a smaller book for these very quick more scribbly sketches now) on the trip up to Oregon last Friday. It’s a long hot journey, and we usually have to stop once or twice. One place we like to get out and stretch our legs is at the Weed Airport (yes, it’s really called Weed, and boy do they make a deal out of their mildly amusing name), beneath the most incredible mountain I’ve ever seen (perhaps even more so than Mont St. Victoire), Mount Shasta. It’s a hundred degrees on the first day of July, so it’s refreshing to see so much snow on the peak. Sketchbooks out. Of course, I now share my paints with my son, so he likes to get his own stamp on my sketchbook now. There is his version of the mountain and the sun and the plane just below there. Beside it, a windsock, you gotta draw the windsock.

mt shasta by lukewindsock at weed airport

in car to oregon

but come ye back, when summer’s in the meadow

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medford, oregon, at sunset

It’s that time of year, and over the July 4th weekend we went to southern Oregon to visit family. It’s a long drive up; northern California really is quite vast, though Medford is only just over the border. The state of Jefferson, some people call it, a state that never was. It’s nice up there, lots of hills and mountains in the backdrop, and a very different feel to Davis. I sketched above while my son and his great-grandma fed the kitties, and the sun went slowly down beyond the trees. Crickets chirped, a couple of horses brayed, there was a dog barking in the distance. In addition to this there were police sirens and the sound of a speeding motorbike but that just added to the rural feel. I’ve got quite a few sketches to scan and post so I’ll get around to them at some point.

i’ll be digging lumps of gold

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big digger on campus

Another one for the boy. This Big Digger was parked on the UC davis campus on Thursday lunchtime, and I sat in the sunshine, lathered in sunscreen, beneath my big black shady hat and sketched it. The fields are the usual end of June brown, despite Tuesday’s shock out-of-character deluge (end of June Brown? she plays Dot Cotton doesn’t she?). We say brown, but it’s yellow ochre, more like gold. California is the golden state after all. I was going to sketch the Robert Mondavi Institute from beyond its vinyards (next week) but this industrial brontosaurus just roared out to be sketched. How could I resist? Drawn with micron pigma 05, coloured with watercolour, on the last day in June. Wow, already June has become July…not long until a certain international symposium..!

get shirty

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giants shirt at davis sport shopmexico shirt at soccer & lifestyle

After the argument about my rights as an urban sketcher, I decided to draw other window items that I thought would look good on my sketchbook page. It’s all about balancing out the sketches on the page for me – I like my books to have that composition. After two very feminine items, it was time to move onto the sporty shirts. I don’t think I’ve ever been into the Davis Sport Shop on E Street, but if I ever decide to get a baseball jersey (and since we’re such big Giants fans now) it’s good to know there’s somewhere downtown. This item was next to an Oakland Athletics shirt, but I left that one out (though I am told that the A’s owner is a Tottenham fan, which is to be commended). Next I went down to probably my favourite shop in Davis, Soccer & Lifestyle on 2nd Street  (in fact it was discovering this place, a shop which primarily sold football shirts, that swayed me towards choosing to move to Davis in the first place). I had to see the new shirts that had just arrived – Milan’s one is nice, I like the thinner stripes, but am not sure about all the white detailing. The new Barcelona kit had just arrived too, and it was the player (rather than replica) version, slightly tougher and more durable, and more expensive to boot, but I can’t say I like the odd design of the new Barça shirt, it’s either one for the ‘what were they thinking’  threads or ‘cult-design-must-have’ sections in future football kit forums. I’ll save all that for a future ‘footy-kits’ post, you get them every year on petescully.com – I am in fact a huge football shirt (or ‘soccer jersey’) geek. Keeping with the ‘in-window’ theme, I drew the current Mexico shirt; they had just beaten the US in the Gold Cup final with an amazing goal by Tottenham’s Dos Santos.