Every year the city holds an event called ‘Celebrate Davis’, in which loads of local businesses and organizations put up stalls at Community Park, food and drink vendors, musical performances, and then a firework show which scares our cats (we live nearby). This year they didn’t have the fireworks, much to the pleasure of the neighbourhood pets, instead having a big drone show. There was a little train for the kids to ride on, plus an inflatable forest. There was also an exhibit of classic cars by a local group of auto enthusiasts, and that’s what I was going over to sketch. It was really hot out, and I was feeling tired, but I like to sketch old cars, even though they are difficult, it’s a good challenge. I drew this blue Chevrolet ZL1, and was chatting to the owner for a bit. The car folk were a nice crowd, and very willing to share a story about their cars with people taking a look. I also drew the one below, a Chevy Camaro SS, but just quickly in pencil so it’s just the outlines, I decided not to ink and paint it.

I also drew the old red fire truck that was out in the main field. I grabbed a beer at the little Sudwerk stand (the guy selling me my beer recognized my accent as British and said he was a soccer fan (a fan of “the PreMEER League” as they say here) and I asked who. He said with a little embarrassment “Manchester United”, even after the terrible season they had been having, and I said not to worry, I am a Spurs fan and we have been even worse, but we’ll beat United in the Europa League Final (and we did). I stood and sketched the fire truck, going quickly in pencil. I like drawing things like this because it’s not just about the sketching, or the recording of an event, or even that I like fire trucks (though my teenager has long since outgrown the toddler-era delight of them, and I used to draw them back in those days for their amusement), but it’s like figuring out a puzzle, working on a bit of perspective, this goes there, that goes there, it all comes together. I sketched fast, my beer in its plastic cup was at my feet and likely to either be knocked down by the kids running around next to me, or invaded by ants who love a beer. (Do ants love a beer? I know that fruit flies like a banana but I’ll have to check on ants. I know they like the cat food, and if I leave the Nutella unguarded even with its lid on our kitchen becomes like Ant Glastonbury).

There was live music too, and while waiting for my wife to come over and join me for the drone show I sketched the band that was playing, they were very good. I think they were called ‘Immediate Spank’ and the best sketches I could get were from a distance and very very sketchy, as you see below. I was quite tired by this point, and focused on shapes and colours, the atmosphere. It’s quite fun drawing like that, but it’s also pretty much all the detail I could see. Interesting band name though. The sort of name I would forget and call something else, Immersible Tank or Immaculate Wank or something. Coming up with a band name is hard. The only band I’ve been in was at school, and we were called Gonads. That was my idea. Actually I was briefly part of another band at college which rehearsed a few times but never played, they called themselves the Lemon Sharks, but I didn’t really get on with them, I wasn’t a very good guitarist (they weren’t exactly Top of the Pops themselves) and my mates were not impressed by them, so that doesn’t count. Gonads on the other hand was chaotic fun, and we delighted in getting booed off stage every year at the big school variety show. I wish I could go back in time and sketch us, but I’d probably die of embarrassment.

And then we watched the Drone show, which was a first for Davis I think (did they have it last year? I don’t remember). We saw the drones rise from the field like an army of robots in a sci-fi film. We are very much in the future now, the idea of something like this did not exist when I first moved to America. They formed into the logo of the City of Davis, and then slowly formed into a series of other Davis related shapes – bikes, double-decker buses, a large deformed frog, it was fun guessing what was what – plus some logos of sponsoring businesses. It was fun, I enjoyed it. The fireworks are not completely going away, we still had them on July 4 (my cats hid under the couch), but this was a creative new addition to the event. After this, we took the short walk home. It’s nice living close to these events.