joining the dots

January 13, 20134 Comments

Cold sunny Saturday downtown in Davis, there are so many great cold-day shadows about that some urban sketching is impossible to resist. I think this is the last house in this row on 3rd St that I’ve not actually sketched. Maybe I have. Anyway after getting my hair cut (you don’t need to know that unless it somehow explains my sketching…my head was a bit colder than usual, sharpened my focus, I don’t know) I stood outside Newsbeat and sketched as quickly as I could. It was chilly and I had to walk home listening to 3rd century crisis Rome.

Hey you might be interested, here are all the buildings in that little stretch of 3rd Street. Now I have completed the set, it feels like Monopoly, I can start building hotels. If I’m in Davis any longer, eventually I’ll be able to geographically join up all of my sketches. It’s like a sketched version of Google Street View.

all around the world i’ve been looking for you

November 7, 2012Leave a comment

A small break from the Portland sketches (many more to come!), to bring you something I sketched on Saturday afternoon. This is International House, aka I-House, one of Davis’s great institutions (for foreigners such as me). I have been meaning to come by and sketch for a very long time, and finally on Saturday I did, and a nice building to sketch it was too. I haven’t personally been to many events here in the past but I really should. A few years ago when my son was a baby we came to a potluck party here for internationals, which was nice. I brought trifle (that didn’t sit there for very long! My trifle is lovely, I’m not kidding) and we chatted with a friendly German couple, but that was it really, I was shy and didn’t speak much. Still, I like being an international. It’s nice and you get to travel.

As I sketched this I listened to the latest History of English podcast, which was about the Greek word horde that has filtered its way down to English, and I was especially pleased because there was a mention of Wulfila (or Wulfilas; it means Little Wolf), the fourth century Gothic bishop whose translation of the Bible from Greek to old Gothic provides us with our earliest example of a Germanic language, and an East Germanic one at that – I loved studying that. Wulfila’s my hero – though his choice of Gothic vocabulary may have been heavily influenced by the Greek rather than what was in general use among the Goths, his work is a massive resource to Germanic philologists. It has been a few years since I read about it all though.

In other news…well done Barack Obama!!!! Re-elected President tonight! Knew you could do it!

gateway

September 20, 2012September 20, 2012Leave a comment

The academic year is almost upon us. September moves along so quickly, like a juggernaut, and suddenly BANG! and Davis is chock full of cyclists and orientations and events and people. It’s a little like awaiting an invading army, if it were an army who has never ridden a bike before. The weather is now in the 80s, finally, so still warm and sunny but not ridiculously hot. I needed to sketch at lunchtime yesterday, and so took myself off to near the old Boiler Building (whose demolition is imminent), and sketched one of the gateways into campus. I listened to a podcast about Eleanor of Aquitaine while I sketched this. I have been listening lately to a series of podcasts about the History of England, by David Crowther, I recommend them as a good and enjoyable listen, so far. Anyway, I sketched this in my Moleskine.

Hey guess what, there was a great article published in the Davis Enterprise yesterday by Tanya Perez which gave me a nice mention, you can check it out here: “Are we there yet? What is the greatest talent of all? The one you don’t have” Cheers Tanya!

come up to my lighthouse

September 5, 2012September 5, 2012Leave a comment

Santa Cruz Lighthouse, on the cliffs overlooking Monterey Bay and the Pacific Ocean, as well as the city of Santa Cruz itself. this little lighthouse is home to the Museum of Surfing, dude. There is a plaque outside explaining how three very dapper looking Hawaiian princes brought the royal sport of surfing here. I didn’t have time to really look around, as I was still in agony from sunburning my feet the previous day, but wanted to sketch it; last time I drew it was on our previous trip here in 2007. This is a beautiful spot. Huge waves crash right up cliffs to the left, and surfers young and old dance about on the crests and currents, while pelicans and seagulls fly overhead. Sealions pop their heads above water too, to see what all the fuss is about, and sometimes you can spot whales in the distance.

old vedanta temple

July 27, 2012July 27, 20121 Comment

At the corner of Filbert and Webster in San Francisco’s Cow hollow neighbourhood is a very peculiar looking building. I noticed it on a previous trip to the city and wanted to go back and draw it. This building is the Old Vendanta Temple, topped with exotic domes and adorned with fanciful windows, yet still retaining that sense of old San Francisco. Well, this is old San Francisco – built more than a century ago, it was said to be the first Hindu temple in the Western hemisphere (according to this interesting piece on sfcityguides.org). I sat acros the street behind a telegraph pole (my only shade) and sketched from the domes down, which was fun, but by the time I was messing about with the windows I was getting a bit antsy and wanted to stop. I prefer the unfinished look of the sketch though, it tells more of a story and leaves details to be filled in by the brain. Plus it gave me time to go looking around the shops on Union Street. After the morning at the Tenderloin, Cow Hollow with its flash cars and fine heels and fancy bistros where it is brunch all day is the exact direct opposite.

i’ve got nowhere to go and so i follow my feet

July 24, 2012July 24, 20125 Comments

On Saturday, I took the early train down to San Francisco for a day of sketching and walking. I like to do that from time to time, just head down to the city and explore, before heading back. On this occasion I took the Amrtrak to Richmond and then the BART to Powell, intent on visiting the big Blick art store on Market, and then sketching this building – the old Hibernia Bank building, on the corner of Jones. I have never drawn it, put off by, well, the local Tenderloin personality shall we say. This building always reminds me of Marc Taro Holmes though, who has painted it so expertly on a number of occasions (such as HERE and HERE). The building has been due for redevelopment for some time now, and is still boarded up, but as one passer-by mentioned to me, it survived the earthquake in 1906, and do I have a dollar? Several people stopped asking for change (I presume they meant change of the monetary kind, rather than like change as in widespread reform or revolution, though they may have taken that too). As always in this part of the city there were lots of ‘shufflers’, people ambling about hither and thither with no particular place to go. There are a lot of panhandlers around here, and a fair few drug users, and one or two frequent drinkers; this area has long been an unfortunate byword for social problems. But the number of people who stand about on street corners just yelling at people or growling does make you feel a little uncomfortable. I drew for almost an hour before I’d had my fill, and then decided, for some reason, to walk through some of the blocks which were probably the shadiest and most dodgy-character-filled, especially on this Saturday lunchtime. I found myself trying not to stand out too much, by pulling crazed faces and growling at my feet, as if I was in that scene in Shawn of the Dead trying to fit in with the zombies. It must have worked, because I passed a rudimentary soup kitchen and the kind lady serving offered me free soup and fresh water. Eventually, I started to leave the shuffling, yelling Tenderloiners behind as the hill I was climbing went sharply upwards: Nob Hill. I stopped and drew a fire hydrant which had been comically wrapped in police tape. Someone had also stuck German football stickers to the top, but they can’t be seen. This city is an experience.

against the grain

July 9, 2012July 9, 20122 Comments

We spent a quick weekend in Medford, southern Oregon; I wasn’t feeling too well, however, so didn’t do a great deal of sketching. I did get out for a couple of hours one afternoon though, to Central Point, where it was very hot and there wasn’t much shade. I really wanted to draw this building, this big grain tower, but didn’t want to dry while drawing it. Eventually after much walking about, I crossed the railroads and drew it from the back, finding a tree to sit beneath. It was right beside a gas station which I think is the gas station of choice for police cars, as quite a few stopped there while I was sketching. I listened to the local wildlife, blackbirds chirping away, a young couple arguing loudly all the way down the street (“if you don’t walk as fast as me you’re walking home a single woman”, the charming man yelled at one point). These industrial buildings dotted the landscape, and I wanted to sketch them all, but I will tell you the most important thing to consider when doing an urban sketch – find somewhere comfortable to sit or stand first!

‘the house!’

April 24, 20122 Comments

This is The House, a building at UC Davis near the tri-co-operatives, a part of campus I had not explored before today. I cycled around there looking for something to sketch, and found this pleasant little spot. (I sound like Alan Whicker or someone) The House is home to CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services), who do a great and necessary job on campus. The House has an imaginative name (a bit like The Barn, sketched recently), but I keep imagining it being bellowed by Christopher Lee, “The House!”

student community center

April 20, 2012April 20, 20122 Comments

A newer building on campus, the new Student Community Center, opposite the Silo. Sketched yesterday lunchtime. There has been a lot of redevelopment in this part of campus since I came to Davis. Drawn with a copic fineliner (fairly well used) in the gamma S&B sketchbook. Decided against colour.

The weather is heating up, it was 88 degrees in Davis yesterday and very warm at night. Picnic Day – tomorrow – will be a warm one this year…

dome sweet dome

April 12, 2012April 12, 20122 Comments

Here’s an example of a drawing I did ages ago, and for some reason or other forgot to post: the Domes at Baggins End, Davis. Built in 1972, there are fourteen in total, a cooperative stduent housing community. I sketched here at the end of July, the last week in which people were living in these strange Tatooinesque buildings, or so it was thought at the time. Just a week later they were empty, uninhabited for the first time in thirty years. Nobody here but us chickens (and there are quite a few chickens; as I sketched, they gathered around me to take a look, and peck the ground at my feet). Last academic year, the UC Davis powers-that-are decided that the Domes were not fit for habitation, and declared they would not renew any leases. As you might imagine, the Domes residents past and present were none too pleased. A ‘Save the Domes’ campaign was begun, plans were put in place, and eventually they won, and the Domes were once more open for new leases. As of Spring 2012 many improvements have been made, to both the site and the Domes themselves, and this most Davis part of Davis lives on! I must go back and draw again some time.

Find out more about the Domes at daviswiki.