the rest of June

October 27, 2025October 27, 20251 Comment

And so, the last batch of Davis sketches from June. I have loads more from July. I wasn’t here at all in August though. These are not all just ‘house with tree in front of it’ sketches. They are however all ‘things I’ve drawn before loads of times’, except for one of them. And there are trees in front of one of the houses. Above is the old City Hall building I have drawn a million times, more properly known as ‘Historic City Hall’. It has been many things, a police station, a fire station, a city hall, a bar, a gallery for a bit if memory serves, a few restaurants, and now it is a not-actually-anything, since the last restaurant (Mamma’s) abruptly closed earlier this year. I think there was a sign on the door to that effect but I didn’t go and read it. I wonder what will go in here next; I worry it it will sit empty for a long time. It was built in 1938 in the Spanish-colonialist style by someone called P.L. Dragon, so it’s a lot younger than the now-demolished East Wing of the White House was. BTW, WTF. Outside is a unicycle sculpture, that being the symbol of the City of Davis.

Next up is another view of the side of the Dresbach-Hunt-Boyer Building, which is on the corner of 2nd and E Streets, and is one of the oldest buildings in Davis, dating from the 1870s (and therefore older than the White House East Wing was). William Dresbach lived here, and he is important because he was the first postmaster of what was then called Davisville, a position of such power that it was he who shortened the name ‘Davisville’ to simply ‘Davis’, presumably to save using bigger envelopes. I wonder if it will shortened even further to just ‘Dave’. I think I have been inside the mansion once, when it was an information or visitor’s centre for Davis and I was in there looking for leaflets to include in our student welcome folders years ago. I used to have to do that, go around trying to get useful leaflets. I remember one year going to the Chamber of Commerce (I think it was) when it was on 3rd Street and they refused to give me more than one copy of some downtown map of local attractions and restaurants. A tall serious man came out and stood in front of me questioning why I needed them, as if asking for five or six copies of a free map to give to prospective students was somehow highly irregular; it was a little intimidating. As I skulked away guiltily with just one map, I remember thinking, I hope you don’t ever need a drawing of Davis at any point because I will probably say no. I was so put off I never bothered asking again and ended up making my own information sheets illustrated with my own sketches, I don’t have those any more though as I do a different job now. Anyway back to this sketch, right outside is the real symbol of Davis, a bicycle drawn so badly that it looks like a piece of modern art. It is a strong contender for the worst bike I have ever drawn. When I joke about not being able to draw them I’m not kidding. Notice how I carefully avoided drawing the wheels on that bit of car as well. Remember that kids song, ‘The Wheels On The Bus Go Round and Round’? I could never remember the words, because I just don’t like wheels, I can’t draw circles. I don’t even eat Wagon Wheels. I even get annoyed watching Wheel of Fortune, but for completely different reasons, the latest of which is the new host Ryan C. Crest. Anyway, the green buildings on the right of the sketch are called Mansion Square. Almost twenty years ago, before I had my first job in Davis, I went for a job here at the SAT preparation center as someone that would help students get ready for their SAT. Having no experience whatsoever with the SAT I was not really qualified, and I had to take a mock SAT as well which I don’t think I passed, but I did have to do a presentation about any subject and if I recall correctly I went in and told them all about the English ghost legend of Black Shuck. Fascinating, but completely useless information. Back then, there was a massive tree that stood in the middle of the scene above, probably the tallest tree in downtown Davis, and it was leaning quite considerably to the left so they ended up cutting it down and chopping it up (no that’s not a metaphor, behave). I was worried it would fall eventually and I did draw it once, but now it’s just a memory.

This building above is a very new structure, about ten years old, next to the Coldwell Banker real estate building. I remember drawing it while it was being built in 2015 (see here) and also from across the street in May of last year (see here). I liked this angle looking down 2nd Street.

Finally, the latest version of that funny looking building on G Street, where the kids clothes shop ‘Bubble Belly’ is found. This highly unusual structure has to be sketched every few years or so by me just to remind me how different it is to everything else in Davis. I mean I like triangles but these are huge. There is a tree in front too but it’s fairly subtle. If ever I get this book of Davis drawings made I would like this building in there. It’s another that I have never been inside, but since it is a store for baby clothes it’s unlikely I ever will. It’s been a long time since my one was a baby. That said, my family in England keeps growing with more babies, and the latest is my great-niece Beatrix who was born a few weeks ago, welcome to the world! I do miss the baby days though, seems like a long time ago now. There was this one shop in Davis called the Mother and Baby source which had a scale for you to weigh your baby if you didn’t want to keep going to the doctors, they were really nice. We had a lovely doctor as well, Dr Keremitsis, who sadly passed away many years ago now. If you visit Kaiser in South Davis there is a tribute to her on the wall, which is actually a series of my drawings of Davis, places she loved. This by the way is another reason I draw, so people can recognize the places they know, and remember their own stories. I have never been inside this building, but I bet there are a lot of people who have with their own personal memories. Ok that’s June out of the way. I do actually have some other sketches from June too but not from Davis so I’ll post those another time.

late July, downtown Davis

August 27, 2024Leave a comment

The Seawhite accordion sketchbook that I filled in the second half of July was very much a double A-side. The campus side, well that was We Can Work It Out, and the downtown side is Day Tripper. Or the other way round. The campus side is Strawberry Fields Forever, the downtown side is Penny Lane. Or maybe the downtown side is the B-side, the I Am The Walrus to the campus Hello Goodbye. No, it’s a double A-side, and this is side B of the double A-side. It starts off on 1st street with that big white Dutch gabled building I have drawn before. I realize now, this ain’t a double A-side, it’s an album, and clearly a greatest hits filled with old favourites (but surprisingly not the Bike Barn or the Silo). This is like the Red and Blue Albums condensed, all the greatest bits but for some reason no sign of I Saw Her Standing There.

Now I drew this out of order, not starting at the left and going right, but starting in the middle. In fact apart from that first one (which I drew last) I drew this all over the course of one weekend while my wife and son were out of town visiting family. The weather was suddenly a bit cooler after a really awful heatwave, so I took advantage. I went downtown on the Saturday afternoon and drew the Amtrak station below. I’ve never enjoyed drawing the train station, because those curves and arches always seem to get the better of me, but I had some shade and a big electrical box to lean on. You can see some haze in the sky, that was smoke from the Park Fire that was burning further up north. It didn’t end up drifting down this way thankfully, but it was a terrible fire. I drew this, and then went for dinner at Froggie’s.

You can’t have a series of downtown sketches without the Varsity Theatre slap bang in the middle of them. I spent the whole of the Sunday out there drawing, finishing off at home with the colour and hatching, and was quite tired by the end of it. You can see the poster for Deadpool and Wolverine in this picture in a couple of places, I had been to see that on the Saturday; fun, very silly, very violent. As you can see I’m using street signs and trees as dividers between the pictures. That’s something I did in the original 2010 accordion book. I think I’ve drawn the Varsity about 21 times now. I need to do an itemized list of which places in Davis I have drawn the most, and keep it like a league table.

Next up, the old City Hall, we’ve heard this song a few times too. It’s part of the restaurant / deli Mamma’s now, which I’ve still not been to.

And below, the old house on D Street in between the Pence and the Mustard seed, which I have drawn many times. It looks like it is called Mabel’s Market now, and I’ve not been in there yet. Ten years ago when it was an art studio and gallery space called Art-Is-Davis I took part in a small joint exhibition in there called Scene In Davis. That was a fun evening. I think the first time I sketched this place (in that 2010 accordion book) it was an Antiques shop.

And that’s your lot, I hope you liked this little tour through downtown. I did buy a second one of these sketchbooks which I will fill, not sure when.

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!

back to the old city hall on F

February 10, 2022Leave a comment

From one city hall to another. This is the old City Hall building on F Street, downtown Davis. Again, I have drawn this many times. It has a lot of history. You reel off the things it has been like the words of a song, it’s been a fire station, a police station, a restaurant, a bar, a gallery, and even a city hall. And now it’s empty, the restaurant Bistro 33 and its adjoining bar closing not long before the pandemic started. Recently it suffered damage by fire as well, and you can still see a great big hole in the roof (hidden a bit behind that flag pole in this sketch). I wonder what this building will be next? Maybe this building is the David Bowie of Davis buildings, always reinventing itself. Then again it doesn’t usually look too different externally so it’s not really David Bowie. It will probably be yet another restaurant, or maybe a frozen yogurt shop, because we don’t have nearly enough of them in Davis. Maybe it will be a Starbucks, because the one that opened down the street taking up the space of not one but two former independent shops isn’t enough. Who knows. Maybe it should be turned into a Star Wars themed cantina, it’s about the right size and layout. I love that one they have in Hollywood, the Scum and Villainy Cantina. I went to the one at Disneyland too, though it was a little bit packed and not a place to spend an evening. Speaking of Star Wars – the ‘Book of Boba Fett’. Oh dear. That show was a mess. He didn’t even have a book. At least we got to see a live action Cad Bane. I have a lot to say about that show, but I’ll save that for a different post. Perhaps instead of whatever it was they did, they should have gone the Beatles route and just made like a documentary with Boba and his old bounty hunter mates planning one last job. “Fett Back”. Yeah I’ll save this all for another post.

Back to F Street. For a little time comparison, here we are going back thirteen years to January 2009 when I first drew this building…

where does all the time go?

February 8, 2022Leave a comment

I drew this panorama while stood outside the Davis City Offices on Russell Boulevard, on a chilly afternoon, drawing so many branches and bricks, but I coloured it in when I got home. This was once the old Davis Joint Union High School building, from 1924, nearly a hundred years ago. I’ve been inside only once, when I was invited by a former work colleague and fellow artist to watch (and sketch) a Davis arts council meeting. I just drew people talking. That was ages ago. A decade, maybe longer? A decade doesn’t seem so long ago now. Many years ago, a decade was like half a lifetime. Now it’s like the space between times I have drawn a building. In fact I think it was about nine years since I last drew the outside of this building. You can see that one at the bottom of this post. Where does the time go? A couple of weeks ago, I was watching that old Hammer Horror film “Dracula AD 1972”. Have you seen it? It’s a classic, albeit a fairly crap classic set in groovy early 70s Chelsea, man. It does have Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing playing the Count Dracula / Van Helsing roles they are so well known for. That’s Count Dooku and Grand Moff Tarkin to today’s kids. Or Saruman and, er, Grand Moff Tarkin. Anyway I was watching that film for the first time since 1992, back when it inspired the schoolboy me to write a musical called “Dracula AD 1992” for a school project. This was for an obligatory GCSE class I was taking called ‘Expressive Arts’, which had various modules, including music, art, dance, and drama. I don’t remember if I was able to take the Music part (maybe I just don’t remember it; despite playing guitar and keyboard, it wasn’t a subject I connected with); for some reason the Art section didn’t go that well (I remember it being totally different to my regular GCSE Art class, mostly because it was full of people who hated art and just took the piss), and as for Dance, well forget it. Pete doesn’t do dance at the best of times, but 15 year-old Pete definitely didn’t. So it all came down to Drama, the last part of the GCSE. I think my drama teacher wasn’t a huge fan of my previous work (like the “Don’t f**k with me I’m Robin Hood” song in my mini-musical Robin Hood), he tended to favour the serious over the absurd. But when he heard I was writing a piece based on Dracula he was excited and encouraged me to read the Dracula novel for inspiration. Great book by the way, but I didn’t want to do that, because my inspiration not Bram Stoker but was Dracula AD 1972, which to be fair is only marginally sillier than the novel. Still, it wasn’t a particularly good story I was writing – a man is driving up the A11 and decides to stop at a motel called the ‘Alucard Motel’. Yeah I got the backwards-Dracula name from that 1972 film, the character ‘Johnny Alucard’, that’s where the similarity with that film ended. At the motel, the guy gets freaked out by all the weird stuff there, and when he meets Dracula he runs away and calls the police, who send in Dr. Van Helsing. You can guess the rest. It was less about the story, more about the silly songs and occasional crap jokes. I wrote eight songs in total, and rather than play them live we pre-recorded them and played them on a fairly crap tape recorder on the night. Songs like “This Motel’s Giving Me The Willies”, “Freshly Impaled Village Maidens” and “Get Lost Dracula”. It was performed by me, my best mate Terry (who had wanted to give up the GCSE but stayed in the class as a favour to me so we could do this) and our classmate Matthew who played Dracula. We played it in front of the class and families, and despite being pretty ropy it went down really well and people laughed and cheered and even sang along. There were other performances that evening, but I overheard someone’s mother humming one of my tunes on the way out afterwards. I did loads of drawings for the project too, typed up all the lyrics, even did a couple of pencil drawings of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, (which I still have). I drew all of the props (like the big ‘Alucard Motel’ sign that we walked about). Silly and unsophisticated as it all was, it was at that point the best thing I’d ever done creatively and I was sure my old drama teacher would like this one. That summer I got my GCSE results, and well, I got an overall grade of “D” for Expressive Arts. Ah well. I get to talk about it lovingly for thirty years.

Anyway the point was, when I watched Dracula AD 1972 in 1992, it was a twenty year old movie that was from some ancient history culturally (most things I liked were), and yet now, 2022, that is THIRTY years since 1992. That was a bit mind-boggling when I thought about it. 1992 when I was a gangly schoolkid is closer in time to when I emigrated to the US in 2005 than 2022 is. Dudes. Time is a scary old thing. Probably worse for a vampire. Imagine what it’s like for a vampire? Maybe I should make an updated version, “Dracula AD 2022”. Dracula is banned from Twitter and creates a new account as “Alucard” and starts trolling Van Helsing online, yeah you can see how this one is going. Maybe I’ll wait for 2032.

plus c’est la même chose

September 24, 2021Leave a comment

A few weekends ago, I went down to the city for the day. It was my third trip to San Francisco since June, that is, my third trip to San Francisco since months before the pandemic even began. Making up for lost time, making the most of an opportunity to get out of Davis, catching up on the sketching for this year. Lately I have found it harder to fit the sketching in, what with the heat, the soccer coaching (I have been tending to spend lunchtimes desperately trying to plan practices), and also the thing about having drawn everything in Davis and the need to go and draw something new. So, I went to San Francisco, and drew some things I have drawn before. It was a Sunday, and I arrived in the middle of the city right by the Westfield on Market, where I made a beeline for the Lego store. So much great stuff. It was also lunchtime by this point, so I went to the Food court. Now on the way down, my wife had mentioned to me, oh by the way I think San Francisco requires you to show your vaccination card to get into anywhere to eat. Um what? I didn’t bring it, I had no idea. Thankfully I remembered that I had a scan of it uploaded into my UC Davis profile, which I was able to access because, for sure, they checked them before entering the food court, where I had a delicious chicken philly sub. That saved me from a day of eating Snickers bars from train station vending machines. Anyway, well fed and ready to sketch, I headed out into Market Street and looked for a building I last drew about nine years ago. It is the big one with the dome, no not that one, the smaller one with the green dome and a big sign saying ‘The Hibernia Bank’. I’ve always just called this the ‘Hibernia Bank Building’, meaning I assume it’s actually called something else obscure like the ‘Howlett-Summers-Grey Building’ or ‘Number 1 Jones’ something. But no, it’s called the Hibernia Bank Building, and it dates back to 1892. Yes, before the Earthquake in 1906, which it totally survived, probably giving it all “call that a quake?”. Well it had a bit of damage in the fire but not too badly. The architect was a man called Albert Pissis, but I’m not going to make fun of his name, that would be taking the p-, er, that would be taking the mick. It’s a great looking building though, placed at an angle against Market which cuts diagonally through the edge of the grid. Below, that’s the sketch I did back in 2012, obviously from a few steps further along the street,

Okay, back from 2012 to 2021. Did I ever imagine nine years later I’d be sketching the same thing, but this time on the other end of a pandemic which has done what it’s done? No of course not. But drawing the same thing again over a period of many years does provide a kind of constant to anchor yourself to in time. Yes, I rewatched Lost recently, I love that oddball Faraday. When I was done with this sketch I decided I’d take the Muni up to the Inner Sunset, sketch around the Park. I had to stop though to take a look at the San Francisco City Hall. There was a market going on at UN Plaza, so I stood in the middle of the sunlight for a few quick minutes and sketched the big dome, which is the other big dome I referred to earlier. That was foreshadowing. Actually its not really foreshadowing if it’s not really a big event is it? It’s more like a callback. A small reference made earlier to a small reference I would be making later. I don’t think there will be any more of those, so don’t worry if you weren’t paying attention. So City Hall – this was where my friends James and Lauren, visiting from England, got married back in 2015, with me as the only witness. A beautiful day in the city that was, one I will always remember. The interior is pretty breathtaking, beneath that big dome. Now though, Civic Center Plaza is home to a huge homeless encampment, which is mostly fenced off.

I’ve drawn this here big dome before, but I’m not going that far back. It’s further back than 2012. Ok, you’ve twisted my arm. Here are a couple – the first was done in, gulp, 2007, while the second was in a much more recent feeling 2009. Oh mate. I have been sketching San Francisco since 2006, and it turns out that’s a long time ago. Like, when I first sketched San Francisco, it was as far away in time from now as it was from when I was a gangly fifteen year old at school playing guitar and obsessing about Spurs and spending my Saturdays wandering about London or in libraries reading books about languages and drawing big fantasy buildings and writing silly stories. Haha, ok when you put it like that, maybe I’m not too different. Anyway here they are.

I did go to Inner Sunset but I will leave that for another post, because I can tell you need a sit down after this hike down memory lane. I think when you decide to head off on that trail, the memory lane, you need a guide to tell you if it will be ‘easy’, ‘moderate’, ‘difficult’ or just ‘bloody painful to think about’. I look at pictures from the olden days, the long long ago, and it gets me a bit sad. You can’t pause time, can you, it just won’t let you. (Admittedly we did try to back in March 2020, and we would have gotten away with it, but the months since just slid by like a shot of whiskey on a long saloon bar. Speaking of which, my next post will feature My First Interior Bar Sketch Since 2019, which is quite a milestone. You’ll have to wait for that though.

Speaking of waiting – nice callback there* – when I first arrived at Richmond station for the BART train into the city, I had to wait for 29 minutes for a train, 29 minutes that felt a lot longer than 29 minutes (just like years, the first 29 last forever, then after that you’re on a speeding train that ain’t stopping till it stops), so I got the sketchbook out, and drew. The sketch took about 15 minutes, because I needed time to fiddle about with my iPod deciding whether to listen to an audiobook or a podcast, and also there was an odd man loudly muttering nearby. Plus ça change…

(*Sorry not a callback, that was a segue)

au revoir, city hall

June 24, 2020Leave a comment

Social distancing. Masks. Second wave. Spike. Testing. Contact tracing. We’re entering that odd phase where things are reopening, kind of, but we aren’t all in the same sort of ready yet. I know I’m not particularly ready for the world yet, but I don’t know if I ever was. This next few months will be hard. Still staying in, working full-time from my bedroom, yet occasionally having to be around groups of people for various things (such as youth soccer tryouts), everyone having different levels of social comfort, and different expectations, it’s a bit uncomfortable. But I will get back out with a sketchbook. I’ve already started, but working from home I’m less inclined than when I work at the office, because I can spend lunchtime on the couch watching the restarted fake-crowd-noise Premier League. I’m teaching my son French too, which is fun, as my French is very rusty. I suppose absolute beginners French I can still just about handle, although I told him to learn the French numbers rather than the Belgian ones, even though the Belgian numbering system makes more sense and is easier to remember. Come on, ‘nonante-neuf’ is easier to explain than ‘quatre-vingt-dix-neuf’. This will be a summer without travel to places where we can practice it though, so no real-life ordering pains-au-chocolat for breakfast at the boulangerie. I thought about using Tricolore to teach him, you remember Tricolore, the textbook we all used at school, where we learned our way around La Rochelle. In the end I went with another simple book, and I’m also creating a bunch of handwritten exercises on my iPad using cartoons of cats that I am drawing. A cat called “Ronron”. I think I’m enjoying it the most, but then I loved learning new languages as a kid, this whole idea that other words and ways of thinking existed beyond just the ones I experienced. German is still my favourite foreign language that I learned, and I’m getting back into learning Italian, which I did a GCSE evening course in while we still lived in London. Enough about language. I’m still watching Shakespeare at the Globe on YouTube, the Midsummer Night’s Dream production was funny, as was the Merry Wives of Windsor, one bloke in both was Pearce Quigley, he was very funny and his comedic northerner style of performance worked great in that intimate Globe setting.
But back to Davis. I suppose I should post here my pre-Covid sketches, of which there are plenty. I may be totally slowed down on the sketching front now, and officially months behind the same point last year, but I started fairly furiously. However I will just post one here now – the Old City Hall, Davis, also known currently as the City Hall Tavern. Well I say currently – it was announced recently that this bar, along with the longer standing restaurant Bistro 33 on the other side of the building, will not be reopening. I’m sure the coronavirus is partly to blame, but the building did get new owners recently and the lease for the restaurant and bar was expiring anyway. Still it is always a shame to see local businesses close. I have drawn the building many times, and I’ve drawn inside the bar a few times too, although it’s been years since I ate at the restaurant (I liked their creme brulee). I wonder what it will be next. Knowing Davis, a frozen yogurt shop. Or another bar and restaurant. I do know that it used to be a police station, and a fire station, and this part was used as a gallery space when I first came here. Oh and of course it was the old city hall.

exit pursued by a beer

September 7, 2016September 7, 201614 Comments

cityhall-tavern-aug2016-sm

A couple of weeks ago or so it was Davis Bear Week. I was really excited about this as a lover of bears (but not an “ursophile”, that means something else entirely), and was looking forward to it for weeks, months really, working on my bear-costume, eating nothing but honey, stealing picnic-baskets, pedantically telling people that no, a panda isn’t a bear, well ok they are related, fine, but no a koala definitely isn’t a bear, just making sure I knew all about bears ahead of Davis Bear Week. I watched all the different Bear shows – Paddington, Superted, Care Bears, the Sooty Show, the Berenstain Bears (which I don’t even like), re-runs of Children-In-Need (just for Pudsey), Rainbow (just for Bungle), I even watched “We Bare Bears”, even though it is the most boring cartoon in the history of television. Sharks have Shark Week, but down here it’s Bear Time.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I got downtown, dressed in fur with big claws and teeth and whatever else bears look like, and saw everyone else dressed as slightly drunk human beings. Did I get this wrong? I tried looking it up on my phone but my long bear-claws couldn’t work on the touch-screen, and my marmalade sandwiches had made everything in my bag sticky. So after a while I got up on my hind legs again, and popped into Woodstock’s Pizza of all places, humming “If you go down to the woods today” to myself, as I had heard they were having a bear-themed trivia night and special bear-promotions. It turned out to be nothing of the sort, the promotions were just for Anchor Brewing and the quiz was all about AAAAH I get it, “beer”. Not bear then. I got back on all fours, lowered my grizzly snout, and shuffled backwards outside again.

Now obviously, I didn’t really dress up as a bear and shuffle around town. This story is only partly true (you have to guess which bits), and I probably could have shaved about two-thirds of it away before telling it, many of you will have no idea about who Sooty or Bungle or any of them were (look up Superted on Youtube though, Superted was truly brilliant – makers of “We Bare Bears”, take note, take plenty of note) but it was Davis Beer Week, and that turned out to be just as disappointing as going to what you think is a big bear-party but turns out to be a drunk-human-party. Sure, there were some promotions and tastings and free glasses you have to pay for (the Anchor one, you buy a glass and from your second pint the already-quite-expensive beers were a bit cheaper and you get to keep a cheap glass you had no intention of carrying home). On the whole though it was not really any different than any other night in Davis, that’s how it seemed to me. I sat in Woodstock’s and listened to the beer trivia quiz, some very hard questions mixed with some very easy ones, while I read Jonathan Wilson’s book “Inverting the Pyramid” (a history of soccer tactics), not even bothering to draw, and I have never sketched inside of the Woodstocks bar area. I left and pondered where to go next, but everywhere was a little bit packed, so I chose City Hall Tavern ,as it was relatively quiet, and they at least had cheaper prices on local beers. I chose a Berryessa Plastic People Pale Ale, which was nice. I got a big table all to myself (it wasn’t that busy) and finally got to sketch the whole of the bar. If you have seen any of my previous sketches of City Hall Tavern I have usually been closer to the bar, and sketched only in pen, but this historic old building needed a bigger interior sketch. I’ve drawn it so many times from the outside. The problem is, looking around, the decor really is just too dark. Too much black paint, mixed with red curtains. The spinning wheels on the ceiling were a fun idea when it first opened, but the decor really seems to cater to the few hours on the few nights a week when the music goes up and people dance a bit. Most people sat outside. As I say, it wasn’t that busy. Except when I got up from my table to get another drink, when it seemed like about a million people piled into the bar, so I couldn’t see my stuff still on the table while I waited for my pint. When I got my pint, I was given a pitcher as well (charged for two beers), which yeah, not what I asked for (or even the right beer), but I don’t blame the barstaff as they were frantically trying to deal with the sudden rush of thirsty people (none of whom were in bear costumes). I gave the second beer to a guy who had started chatting to me (“you’re fr’m Lond’n? Aw cool, have a nice v’cation!”) and went back to finish my panorama sketch – better add a lot more people now, no problem, I like drawing people now after all. Within five or ten minutes of sitting down the place emptied again, just a few people once more. The Annihilation Wave had probably moved on to wherever the next place that the Davis Young move along to. The lighting changed around a lot, lots of purple, bit of blue, then yellows and reds, going with the music (which was rather eclectic – they played Jive Bunny!?! I recognized it immediately with a shudder, my Mum used to play that all the time at parties in the late 80s). I added all the paint there and then, including some of the old splatter technique, and was happy with the results; I think it reflects the place very well. I finished my second beer and was done, exiting (though not pursued by a bear) taking my sketchbook and my imaginary bear costume back home again. Another Davis Bar Sketch.

turning the wheels

October 27, 2015October 27, 20153 Comments

It was time for another bar sketch. After a Saturday of AYSO soccer, pirates versus knights battles, Disney Infinity super-hero smash-downs and the occasional lightsabre duel, I headed out in the evening to do some drawing, read some comics and have a few beers. I love being a grown-up. Since I have a new book out (available right now!) in which I talk extensively about drawing bars in low light, I felt I should add to the sketchbook a little more, so I popped into the City Hall Tavern, which I last sketched two years ago, to again attempt their bar area with the bicycle wheels on the ceiling. Ice Hockey was on the TV (they just call it ‘Hockey’ here; similarly they say ‘cubes’ instead of ‘ice cubes’, ‘cream’ instead of ‘ice cream’, and ‘stares’ instead of ‘icy stares’ whenever I make this joke). They get so aggressive and fighty in Ice Hockey. For a game in which you are essentially just skating around trying to hit a small disc that won’t stop moving, players seem to get unusually angry, angrier than in most sports. Perhaps it’s because they dress head to toe in armour and carry huge sticks, it brings out the medieval warrior in people. Maybe the sport needs to change its image a little, and rename itself ‘Nice Hockey’. Ok, from now on I am calling it ‘Nice Hockey’ in the hope that it catches on. And those stares I get when I do will be called ‘Nice Stares’. So, back to the sketch. I sat on the opposite side of the bar to when I last sketched this bar, for a slightly different angle. I follow City Hall Tavern on Twitter, and I notice that they are using one of my sketches of their bar as their header image (I think I said ok to that), but they have removed whatever was on the screen and replaced it with an actual shot from a real basketball game. Hmm, no, not really a fan of that. Replace it with a shot of Harry Kane scoring for Tottenham, maybe, or of Jose Mourinho huffing as Chelsea lose again, perhaps. Anyway, I tried a couple of different beers, one was a Gose Wheat beer (tasted like Strongbow), the other was a Sudwerk Aggie Cruiser, which was nice too. Lots of people were coming in drinking cocktails as part of some local bar crawl event that was happening. By the time I was done with my sketch, all the City Hall bar patrons were standing and chatting and dancing, and so I popped down to De Vere’s for a comfy seat and one more wheat beer to read a couple of comics (“the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl” if you’re interested, and it’s great) before walking home.

Here are my previous City Hall Tavern sketches (inside only; I’ve sketched the outside building since way before it was a bar):

July 2012

October 2013

January 2012

turn turn, i wish you would

November 6, 20134 Comments

And another bar sketch for you, this one from a few weeks ago at the City Hall Tavern, into which I popped after sketching the Wealth of Nations band. Nice beer. Revolving bicycle wheels on the ceiling. Two and a Half Men was on the TV, for some reason (hence the blank TV screen, I simply cannot reproduce such unparalleled artistic genius on paper). Above the bar, a quote Benjamin Franklin once said to help bars sell more beer (“Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy,” he said apparently, but I suspect he said that about a lot of things). Bars like random beer quotes. That one by George Best about spending most of his money on women and beer (and the rest he just squandered) is often decorated proudly on pub walls, unflinching in its sad irony. I had the ‘Hell or High Watermelon’ beer. Halfway through sketching, the bad TV went quiet (hooray!) and the tables were cleared from the centre of the room (booo!) to make way for some sort of space for people to move around to loud thumping music, so I had to relocate to the bar to draw the details there. As the more well-dressed-for-a-night-out people started coming in, I finished up and called it a day. Another bar sketch done.

Incidentally I still have a few first-run copies of my short self-made bar-zine on my Etsy store, “Davis Bar-By-Bar“. I plan to print more and make further volumes, and if I ever get time, put together a book. Ah, time gentlemen, please.