tree by Turner Wright

October 24, 2023October 24, 2023Leave a comment

Another lunchtime, another part of campus, this was outside the Art Building, by the Turner Wright Hall, next to those Arneson Eggheads that look like they are in a one-way argument; a spot I have sketched before, not that that’s ever stopped me. I liked the colours. I’m drawing a lot at the moment, because (I think) it’s something I know how to do, and in moments when you feel like you can’t really do very much at all, that means a lot. Even if sometimes it feels like a waste of time/energy that could be spent better, it actually isn’t, and in the long term, well I have this huge body of art work to look back on, and people seem to like it. It’s never enough though is it. There always has to be another drawing. Like, do more, do better, try out another idea, another pen, another type of line. There’s no ‘finishing line’ though, not even the end of a sketchbook, because I tend to race towards the end of that sketchbook (I have about a third left in my current one) just so I can start a new one, that magnificent feeling of Page One. I’m drawing in these books, creating them and controlling the narrative, but I think I’m also reading them. Some sketchbooks, they are like novels you just can’t put down, you’ve drawn on one page and you can’t wait to see what happens next. The plot point might be “the Silo” or “the Arboretum” but it might somehow be the best sketch of the book, one of those ones that inspires you to draw a load of other sketches in a similar way – or not, maybe it will be a sketch that convinces me to give up on a certain palette or pen. All the sketchbooks just show the story of my life, the mundane, the world I’m in. I’m not that interesting, Davis might not be that interesting, but there it is, here I am, I’ll keep on drawing it (“everything is interesting if you take an interest in it” a younger man once said, hoping that would be his catchphrase, and it’s still true). This sketch shows I’m really into the trees on campus still, worried about them all after so many fell since last year. I decided not to colour in the trunk but let it stand out against the background colours. On to the next page.

more F street

October 22, 2023Leave a comment

I went down to F Street, near the Paint Chip, drew the view across the street, crunchy leaves already falling. Another view of Davis, that’s what you’ll see here. Really wouldn’t mind travelling somewhere actually and drawing some other streets. Gotta keep drawing. I keep thinking about that old old idea of publishing a book of Davis drawings, and why I’ve not gotten on that yet. I think that would be quite nice.

the joggers on the corner

October 21, 2023October 20, 2023Leave a comment

Another one from 10/10, this one was drawn after work, because I just needed to sketch some more while there was still daylight. I went downtown and decided to draw with the black fountain pen again, this time on the corner of 3rd and F, where those two statues of people running in opposite directions are, near the old City Hall (now an Italian restaurant and deli called ‘Mammas’). I stood and sketched furiously, and I enjoyed what I drew, it’s a colourful scene. It might even be my favourite sketch in this sketchbook. You know sometimes when you’ve not yet grown into a sketchbook yet, then one drawing feels like it kicks off a bit of confidence, this might be that one. That said, I’ve been a bit irritated with my sketching lately as well, but I get like that from time to time. There were a lot of people about, after a long day I wasn’t in much of a mood to enjoy the early evening atmosphere, and just cycled home when I was done. It’s a nice little corner this though, with that bench underneath the big old tree. I’ve lived here quite a long time now, and when I pass this way what I think of, bizarrely, is the day Michael Jackson died. We had come downtown that evening (probably off to Chipotle for dinner) and there were a bunch of people gathered here mourning Jacko, with some folk with their guitars singing some of his songs acoustically, I distinctly remember them singing ‘Man in the Mirror’. That was in 2009, that long ago? Of course when I first heard that Jacko had died I did admittedly assume they were talking about Jacko from the hit TV show Brush Strokes, and planned my own vigil where I played that song “Because of you, these things I do…” over and over with a cheeky chirpy Cockney smile. But it wasn’t that Jacko, Karl Howman remains alive and well (I presume). The restaurant behind that is now Mamma’s, that used to be Bistro 33, a nice restaurant that we went to a few times for work lunches years ago, I really liked their Creme Brulee. So the statues, they are called ‘The Joggers’ and were created in 1986 by Tony Natsoulas, a local artist who grew up in Davis (I think he works out of Sacramento), I like them. That reminds me, the Turkey Trot is coming up in a month. I have been doing some running, but not like before, my right leg is still aching a bit and I’ve been trying to not to do too much on it. I’ve given up the plan of beating my Labor Day run pace, now I just want to get through the 5k race in decent shape and make our usual trip to Black Bear afterwards.

three shots of Davis

October 20, 2023October 20, 20234 Comments

Here are some images of Davis. This triptych of downtown places – the City Offices, the historic City Hall, and the Amtrak station – was commissioned by the City of Davis to bring to South Korea, to the city of Sangju, our ‘sister-city’ in Korea. There it was presented last week to the Mayor of Sangju, Yeong-seok Kang, by the vice-Mayor of Davis, Josh Chapman, heading a delegation from Davis visiting Sangju to strengthen our civic and cultural ties. That was posted on Instagram. I had a very short time-frame to do it, and so worked on it most of one Sunday (after a Saturday afternoon scouting the locations downtown), plus a couple of early mornings and a late evening or two, and getting it all done just in time for its trip to Korea. Quite an honour to be an artist representing my city in another country (well my drawing is, not me in person), maybe some day I will get to draw Korea. I’ve seen quite a few international sketchers I know sketching out in Korea the past couple of weeks, such as Paul Wang and Sylvain Cnudde. My oldest friend from London, the mentioned-in-previous-posts Terry (Tel) who now lives in Japan, he did spend a few years living in Korea selling books and getting into adventures, he said the food was very spicy. One of my favourite footballers of course is from Korea, Heung-min Son, our beloved Sonny, and I always get a “Come on you Spurs!” from Korean students in Davis when wearing my Tottenham shirt. So I’d love to go and sketch there someday; I don’t know Sangju though, the sister city of Davis. My son tells me that the High School sends students there on an exchange trip each year. (Funny enough I was his exact age when I did an exchange trip to Austria back in 1991). Still, I’m so busy with work right now that I could not have gone with my drawing to Korea, the academic quarter is a bit too busy. I learned that the next Urban Sketchers Symposium will be held in Buenos Aires next year, Argentina (land of my other heroes Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa), I had thought of attending or even applying to teach a workshop or lecture (which I’ve never yet done at a Symposium, mostly because I’m not confident anyone can really learn anything from me), but it’s in October, so I won’t plan on going, it’s always an awkward time. I missed out on Auckland in April this year due to the tricky timing. I do always long for a sketching trip, but at least one of my drawings flew across the world this past week!

little bit of star wars early in the morning

October 20, 2023Leave a comment

I was up very early, as I’ve been doing, and I needed to sketch something, again, as I’ve been doing. So I drew the Lego AT-ST, in that gray paper sketchbook I haven’t drawn in since those early pandemic days, using the fountain pen that I’ve just started using again for the first time in a few years. This October has been a bit annoying and I’ve generally been feeling a bit stressed, and that has actually led to me sketching more. Hooray for being busy and stressed out! Anyway. I love Star Wars, by the way. I really enjoyed the Ahsoka show – slow start, I was getting irritated by all the arm folding and long pauses in the dialogue, but it all picked up. A few unresolved threads in there I felt but it was great seeing Anakin especially in Clone Wars form. Thrawn was exactly as hoped. I loved that it was genuinely a sequel to the last season of Rebels, the animated show I really loved. (I was a huge fan of Clone Wars too, and enjoyed Bad Batch; that revisited final season of Clone Wars was maybe one of my favourite Star Wars things). The fight choreography in Ahsoka was a lot better, though it’s easier to animate two-handed lightsabre fighting than to act it. still the lightsabres looked a lot less like glowsticks than in some previous Disney + shows. Speaking of, I could have a lot to say, but life’s too short, and I am awake in the middle o the night after an unexpected 3:30am wake-up. Mandalorian – I liked the first season, though it left me a little cold (a bit too style over substance); the second season I enjoyed a lot more with some great characters showing up, and had the best ending; the third season, sheesh, what the hell was that episode with Jack Black, honestly awful. Book of Boba Fett – started ok, got progressively shitter, and ended so terribly, but the slow chase scene on those ridiculous colourful mopeds was a low point for Star Wars until that Jack Black episode in Mando 3. I loved Obi-Wan Kenobi, sure there were a few choices that went the wrong way but on the whole it was a well planned out show (there were no episodes where we took a break from all the characters and spent an hour on some other story about a boring guy getting a desk job – FFS, Disney Star Wars) and it was a series that I really enjoyed. But I’m a massive Revenge of the Sith fan. And then there is Andor, a show with some beautiful moments, but was Too. Bloody. Long. And Too. Bloody. Boring. Star Wars for people who don’t actually like Star Wars. If it had dropped all at once like Netflix, instead of very slow weekly episodes that didn’t have proper endings, and you could watch it all together, it might – might – have been more enjoyable. Too many characters, too slow scenes, very hard to care about anyone at all (with the notable exception of Andy Serkis’s character), especially not the title character who was so uninteresting I thought his name was ‘and/or’, it was a show that if it didn’t have ‘Star Wars’ on the title would probably be a lot better off, but people like me would not have watched it. Honestly I watched it all, but my family took to skipping episodes (especially those ‘middle of the story’ ones) and I didn’t even have to recap, because there was nothing to recap. All those episodes, I was wondering if there was an editor’s strike or something. Too many not very interesting British actors playing side characters acting in that very boring way you see on the worst kind of ITV drama, and do you really need to see how someone gets from one place to another every single time, sat on the bus with them, walking across that hill, dudes this is Star Wars and we have places to go. And then there is Cyril. I know that isn’t how they spelled it, but they have a guy called Cyril who loses his job, obsesses about a woman in uniform (who takes pills to pull all-nighters working on solving a case like in all the serious detective dramas), goes home to live with his mum, eats bowls of cereal in her kitchen while she badgers him about a job she can get him with his uncle or something, and he gets that job and sits at a desk in a cubicle in a big office, and obsesses about the woman in uniform he fancies and about ‘and/or’ he wants to get back at – who wrote this show, Morrisey? This isn’t Star Wars, it’s a low budget Channel 4 drama set in the north of England that occasionally says the word ‘space’ or ’emperor Palpatine’ when it is nudged and remembers to. And people on the internet love it, they’re all “it’s my favourite Star Wars!”, because they don’t want kids shows, they want serious and slow and dark and grown-up (and people called Cyril who eat cereal and work in a cubicle), and that’s fine, keep it, and if you like it good for you, it’s good to like things, I like a lot of things I’m sure you hate (like the Phantom Menace), but Andor is only Star Wars because it says it is. Anyway enough of all that, I’m going back to bed.

RMI

October 17, 2023October 17, 2023Leave a comment

This is the Robert Mondavi Institute (RMI) of Food and Wine Sciences at UC Davis, very close to where I work. I’ve drawn it a couple of other times, and am surprised I don’t draw it more because it is an interesting building. I stood in the middle, in the Good Life Garden surrounded by all sorts of flowers and foods, and drew the view looking east. The sky was dramatic that day; I couldn’t stand in any shade, so when the sun came out I would hide under my hat with my collars up, like a spy. Those limes in the foreground looked nice. This October is getting me down man, getting me stressed. Needed to stand in a big garden for a bit. I actually went to a meeting in that building over the summer. When I say it was in that building, it was actually mostly over Zoom, I was one of three people there in person (including the host) while everyone else were little faces on this big screen. I was taking notes, but being in person I couldn’t do that thing where you’re looking at the screen nodding as if you’re paying attention, but actually getting some other stuff done. It was pretty awkward being one of the only people actually there. That was summer though, now most of our meetings are in person again, and it’s less awkward when you’re in a room full of people. I have been the only one on Zoom though, in a meeting last year when I was in London, and if you’re the only one, generally you are a big head on the big screen instead of a small head among many others. I probably looked like Holly from Red Dwarf.

bull’n’mouth

October 16, 2023October 16, 2023Leave a comment

I went downtown on Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago; I had a big drawing to do on short notice, and had to scout out a few locations to preliminary sketch for it. Of course this was the day we finally decided to have some rain, after another seemingly endless hot spell, finally some cooling down. So while it was raining, I decided to pop into the Bull & Mouth, the pub which is formerly the location of De Vere’s Irish pub on E street. I had not been into Bull & Mouth (it might be ‘Bull’n’Mouth’, I’m not sure) since it’s opening; De Vere’s originally closed at the start of the pandemic, as so many places did, before a fresh paint job outside in the summer of 2021 followed by a slow reopening later that year; I went back in once then for dinner with my wife, and that turned out to be the last time because it closed down again shortly thereafter, this time for good. The spot has been closed ever since, until this summer when the new Bull & Mouth took over the space. I had not been in yet, so I took this opportunity to finally check it out. I was pleased to see that it still looked a lot like De Vere’s, but with a few added TV screens (thankfully not overbearing), a lot of different wall decorations, long displays of beer cans above our heads, and the wording on the long black strip above the bar now referencing something about bulls rather than what it said before. The fantastic old wooden bar was brought over from Ireland when De Vere’s first opened in 2011, I remember going in there that first week and drawing a panorama while in the middle of the busy place. On this rainy Saturday afternoon, it was not too busy but there were a few people at the bar and I took a seat and ordered a beer. The guy behind the bar recognized me, “it’s been a while!”, it certainly had, about four years since I’d been in there for a beer and a sketch (dinner with my wife in 2021 not included). It didn’t feel that different from De Vere’s. I don’t know what it’s like in the evenings (I don’t go out much in the evenings any more). I had to do a sketch of course; first I worked on my prep sketches a little for the other big drawing, I was still working out the composition of that one as it was of three Davis locations all in one (I’ll post that soon), and then decided to play with the Lamy Safari fountain pen, I had not used it for a bar interior like this. It worked well, moving quickly across the page, and I added a bit of a wash too, though it took the ink a little longer to dry I think in the slightly damper air of that rainy day. I had a couple of very nice beers, and then once the rain had stopped I went across the street for a milkshake (diet be damned) and walked home (there’s my exercise). The last day of September.

green and brown food truck at the silo

October 16, 2023October 16, 2023Leave a comment

There are more food trucks at the Silo these days now that the quarter is in full swing. I ate lunch, and stood in the shade to draw this one, which I think sold coffee and ice cream or something, I didn’t inspect it too closely despite drawing it for half an hour. I couldn’t really read what it said. Not very investigative of me I suppose, I was in a hurry, I had other things on my mind. I just liked the colours of it. I just wanted to do a quick sketch with that fountain pen, that was fun.

a little little chef

October 15, 2023Leave a comment

This little chef is found by a path on the North Davis Greenbelt, next to a very well-kept garden with lots of interesting features (that I am always a bit too nervous to sketch; it is a bit ‘as seen on TV’ and I am scared of the person who creates it coming out and chasing me away) but I could not help to sketch this little chef. He is very little, and maybe a bit more plump than I have drawn him (which I did with the Lamy Safari fountain pen with carbon platinum ink). I never knew any chefs that look like this, though I did know a fairly rotund cook once (I think called Ron? It was a long time ago when I was a very young waiter), lovely chap. I was a waiter when I was a teenager, going on many catering jobs with my mum in places all over north and west London, usually synagogues, often people’s houses, the odd conference centre, one time I even did a catering job at the Houses of Parliament, serving tea and sandwiches to some people at a Jewish Single’s party hosted by an MP. One time I even served tea and wine at the Israeli Embassy. Wow, this was a long time ago, the mid-90s. The little chef does remind me of the 90s though, specifically the ‘Little Chef’, the restaurant chain much loved by motorists around the country. I maybe ate in one once? We didn’t stop in them very often, the occasional service station on the way up north maybe, but I do remember going to the ‘Happy Eater’ when I was a kid, and throwing up violently right after eating some of their alleged food. If you are from Britain and remember the Happy Eater, it was another restaurant you’d find off the motorway but its logo was of someone putting their fingers down their throat, I kid you not. The clue was there all along. It reminds me of a similar chain restaurant in France, ‘Flunch’, named for the sound you make when vomiting into a bucket. However the Little Chef was a notch above these places, from what I understand. Actually everything I know about the Little Chef comes pretty much exclusively from my correspondence with a friend of mine (Jacki) who worked at one in the mid-90s somewhere in the Cambridge area, we would write to each other a lot back then, proper letters on paper like in the old days (before emailing, decades before social media), and she would tell me all about everyone who worked there, the people that would come in, everything. Except about the food, come to think of it, I presumed it was good because she wouldn’t tell me about anyone being violently sick, as I had been in the Happy Eater that time. I think it was a good place to work. I enjoyed reading all those letters, and would write back with my own stories about working in the Asda Coffee Shop, or serving triangle sandwiches to Ronnie Corbett at a gallery (which I did once, and he was utterly fantastic). So when I see this little chef as I’m on my walks or runs on the Greenbelt, I do think of those tales about the Little Chef back then.

when the world is shite

October 13, 2023October 13, 20231 Comment

It’s Friday the 13th today. I mean, it feels like it’s Friday the 13th every day, except Fridays are usually good. Look, the world is feeling pretty shite right now isn’t it, it’s hard to deal with the news everywhere, it’s hard enough to deal with daily life going back and forth. I’m not even glued to the news, and try to limit social media for the weight it places on you mentally, but the world keeps happening. I try to deal with it by putting a pen on a piece of paper and looking at something while moving the pen around and making a pattern that looks like the thing I’m looking at, and I find that relaxing, and sometimes when it turns out well I feel like I’ve achieved something positive. A small achievement every day can make a difference, even if it’s a small difference. I wasn’t in a great mood last Saturday for whatever reason, and though I did get out for a first decent run in a while (my leg’s been hurting, limiting my running) I pretty much stayed inside, watched the football (Spurs won again and hey, we are top of the league! That’s definitely not shite), watched the Rugby World Cup (I’ve been getting really into that) and then decided that I really needed to get out for a bit in the late afternoon to do a sketch and pick up some Octoberfest beer. It was still really hot, mid-90s, and not massively comfortable sketching weather. I got a cold drink at Newsbeat and went down to 2nd Street, stood outside El Patio Mexican restaurant, and drew the Hunt Boyer Dresbach Mansion on the corner of 2nd and E, one of the really old historic buildings of Davis. Or Davisville, as the town – not yet a city – was known then. Actually it’s the Dresbach Hunt Boyer Mansion. In my sketchbook I’ve written Hunt Dresbach Boyer which is totally wrong, but I’m getting forgetful. I wasn’t having a great week. The Dresbach was William Dresbach, the first postmaster for Davis, and it was apparently he who shortened the name from Davisville to Davis, probably envelopes were really small then. I’ve always found it a bit hard to draw, partly because that tree is always in the way. I didn’t go over and look at the City’s official seal which is right outside, and was recently raised above the ground, I should sketch it some time. When I say seal, it’s a huge round bronze plaque, not an aquatic mammal, or a singer from the early 90s. There were a lot of people around, it was late afternoon/early evening on a Saturday, and a couple of different people did say “Come on you Spurs!” and “Nice shirt! Tatten-ham!” to me as they passed, I was in my navy shirt from 17-18. Well we are top of the league now (don’t know if I mentioned that). That violinist who annoyed me that time was over the crossroads, but there was also a pianist playing in the little plaza by the mansion making some nicer music to fill the air. Still I mostly listened to podcasts about history, football, the Beatles, I don’t remember which now. I ended up feeling a bit too hot and sticky, and not really in the mood to soak up the downtown atmosphere, so I ended up stopping after all the penwork was done. I got a couple of Lego minifigures from the Avid Reader, some Hofbrauhaus beer from the Davis Beer Shoppe, and cycled home to finish the painting. At least I did a nice drawing. When the world is a big horrible ball of rubbishness, look for the good bits, and focus on them. Not everything’s shite.