saturday’s alright for sketching

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let's draw davis farmer's market

The sketchers of Davis (and nearby areas) got together again last Saturday for the sixth ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ sketchcrawl. About thirteen of us gathered and spent part of the day sketching around the Davis Farmer’s Market, and Davis Central Park. It was the same day as the Tour de Cluck, hence the sketch of the woman with that chicken thing on her head. I sketched some of the other sketchers; above are Marlene, Jenna, Victor and Alison (though it really looks nothing like her; I haven’t quite mastered that angle yet!). I need to sketch people for practise, and have been practising lately. I also a local singer David Hafter, whose version of Leaving on a Jet Plane was really brilliant. There he is below, with the guitar.
david hafter at farmer's marketperforming tommy

Also singing in the park, above right, were the cast of Tommy, currently playing at UC Davis. They performed six of the rock opera hits, and were largely brilliant (the two singing above certainly were, though I did a bad job of the uniformed man’s face). I don’t know why they sang Pinball Wizard in such Mockney accents though, as Roger Daltrey never did. Still, you should go and see them, it looks like being a very exciting show.
allan sketching cherries

And here is Allan, who I have sketched before on recent sketchcrawls, sketching cherries at the Farmer’s Market. Below, how it all looks on the page, for those who might be interested …

Lets draw davis...
More to come!

at last we will have revenge…

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hat
You’re in London, and you want something to do tonight, or this week. What you need to do is get yourself down to Baron’s Court Theatre in West Kensington to see The Revengers. It’s a play directed by and starring my good friend, the actor and TV presenter Simon Nader. Written by Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood, it opened last Monday to very good reviews (read this write up at Extra Extra) and is running for another week, closing on May 21. Tickets are £12.50 / £10.oo and shows are every day (except Monday 16) at 7:45, Saturday matinee at 2:00pm. Book tickets at 020 8932 4747.  
umbrella hilt
Exclusively for the show, I created some original drawings that were to be hung in the theatre as part of the set. Here they are! I like the boot. And the drawings are big, for me anyhow. Based on the play’s ‘Avengers‘ theme (the old British TV show, not the Captain America one), they’re in pen and ink, beautifully framed, and are up for sale if you want them.    wine glass
So head off to Baron’s Court and see some theatre, and maybe buy some art! In case you’re wondering, I am sadly not in London. But I am happily in Davis, and will see you tomorrow at the Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl…high heel boot

“The Revengers” Facebook Page

Orange Grill Productions website

blue babygap sandal

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16, blue babygap sandal

Number 16 in the ongoing series of my son’s shoes, in chronological order. these are the blue sandals, BabyGap. They were worn a long time for most of last year (only now getting around to drawing them). Copic multiliner 0.1 in a moleskine cahier.

the answer my friend is blowing in the wind

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sigma phi eta frat house, uc davis

I had to draw today. Being afraid of the outside world is getting me down. How come allergy season is lasting so long?? Wrap it up, folks, please. Anyway I braved it, itchy eyes and runny nose, and did pretty well sketching this frat house, Sigma Phi Epsilon. I had to do the colour later on though, because just to annoy me, a pair of leafblowers came along to blow all the leaves about and make things worse. I abandonded ship, but I had done enough and I might even go back and do another, to match it.

oh wow, the whole earth? that’s like, so heavy, man

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whole earth festival

Hippies and Davis go together like Strawberries and Wimbledon, and every year all the hippies come together for the annual Whole Earth Festival on the UC Davis campus. Day two is happening as I sit at home writing; I popped by the Quad yesterday lunchtime to check out what was going on. I didn’t fancy an eggplant and lentil wrap or organic lemonade, so grabbed a turkey sandwich at the MU and sat and watched the band that was playing. They were very jam-band/acid-jazz-ish, or at least what I consider to be such things (I’m not very good at categories), had several saxophones and one female back-up vocalist who kept singing “Yo-ho-ho-ho”, but I don’t think the song was about pirates. I tried to keep up with the main singer’s lyrics, it wasn’t exactly The Streets but I did make out the words “teeny-tiny tidy-whitie”, which I think is some sort of underpant. Perhaps it was tie-die whitie. There were a lot of tie-die t-shirts around, and a fair few sandals. No sign of Neil from the Young Ones, but I bet he was around somewhere.

lunch on

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in the silo

Another lunch-place sketch. Every day this week I have sketched a different place I’ve been eating lunch (all with a fountain diet coke in the foreground). This is in the Silo. I had Taco Bell. I don’t usually sit downstairs on the big long tables with the other people. Ok, it’s because of the overheard conversations. I left out the chattering folk in this one. Thankfully Silent Bob was at the end of the table. Or is it Silo Bob? Where will my lunchtime adventures take me tomorrow..?

curry on at the coho

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CoHo UC Davis

I sometimes have a dilemma – go to the Coffee House (CoHo) at the Memorial Union on campus and have their delicious Thai Green Curry soup, or sketch at lunchtime. I rarely have time to do both, as eating that very tasty (and very big) soup is a big deal that must be savoured. Yesterday I chose to do both. I’ve been meaning to sketch the new CoHo for a while. It was rebuilt and reopened last Summer (after I spent over a year without my lovely soup) and is quite an impressive place now. Not necessarily any easier getting a seat, but there are comfier options at least.

Sketched in uniball vision micro pen.

goodbye piccadilly, farewell leicester square

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tipperary pub, fleet street

You’ve got to love the old London pub. Sure, most pubs these days aren’t that old-fashioned, appealing to a younger crowd who need somewhere to spend the weekday hours from 5:30 to 11:00, while high beer prices are making the tradiitonal fans stay at home and watch pubs on the telly. There are still those that look the part, however, and here are a couple that I like. The Tipperary, above, is not somewhere I ever went particualrly often, but I appreciate its history – over three centuries ago it was London’s first Irish pub, and the first place outside Ireland to serve Guinness. It’s on Fleet Street, not far from the Cheshire Cheese. Below, The Ship, a proper Soho pub, one I used to go to many many times. It’s on Wardour Street, near the now-closed (and now reopened as a burger joint, I hear) Intrepid Fox, another beloved former haunt.   

the ship, soho

And you know what folks, these two drawings are available for you to buy on my Etsy store…and these pubs would look very nice side by side on your wall!

in our natural habitat

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habit burger

Osama Bin Laden was killed yesterday, shot in the eyes, his body taken and dumped in the sea (who was in charge of the operation, Luca Brasi?), and today American airport staff are on high alert (that’s now “elevated”, rather than “orange alert”) for joke after joke after tiring joke about taking their sodas and nail-clippers through security (hey, I got mine out of the way last night). Today, to celebrate, I had lunch at The Habit, a burger chain in Davis which does absolutely amazing chicken burgers. Of course, I was only celebrating the fact that it was lunchtime, and I usually celebrate that by eating food and having a fountain soda, but it’s May, a month which will probably now be renamed Can. The staff in here are friendly, though I was cheerily asked if I wanted my tray of food taken away while only halfway through actually eating it. Let me finish nibbling my fries! If it takes me all lunchtime, I’ll stay the course! I’ll leave no fry un-nibbled.