Last Christmas, 2025…

August 17, 2026August 17, 20264 Comments

And so it’s time to catch up with last Christmas 2025, and close out the posts of sketches from that long long year of sketches. There is no way I will end 2026 with the same volume of drawings, even though I have certainly been busy filling those sketchbook pages. 2025 was just an unusually productive year. Here then are some very festive scenes from Davis, while we are here in the middle of another scorching hot summer; “I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes, global warming is all around us…” Back in December it was really foggy, some of the thickest fog I’d seen in many years, but the shop windows of Davis brought a lot of colour as they usually do, with their annual contest to see which shop can be the most festively decorated. It’s usually this store that wins it for me, Bella Luna on F Street. Not a shop I go to myself, I’m not really into jewelry and stuff, though I really love how they decorate for Christmas and have drawn it before. I remember sketching their old location on E Street many years ago, when they were still called ‘De Luna’, and they are a longtime family owned Davis business going back to 1967. I think I did go into De Luna once to ask about cleaning my wedding ring, if memory serves. Anyway this was one of my favourite festive drawings from last year, drawn the day before Christmas Eve.

This one was from much earlier in December, another very festive storefront at Avid & Co, the kids shop branch of the Avid Reader bookstore a few doors down. It’s one of my favourite shops in Davis, and before my trips back to England I usually get something in there for my young niece. Plus some Lego minifigures for myself, why not. Before it was called Avid & Co it was known as Avid Reader Active, as the bookshop would keep its travel books in here, as well as toys and games for the kids. Long before that, it was a different toystore called Alphabet Moon, which closed in 2012 (I drew that too). I used to take my kid there to play with the wooden trains; Avid and Co still have a train table for the kids. Avid & Co has some kids books, but most of the children’s books are in the main store, downstairs at the back for the younger kids and upstairs for the slightly older kids. Back when I first came to Davis, my first job was at the Avid Reader and I worked a few times in their old Children’s bookshop branch on the E St Plaza, and then helped move it all to the main store when that closed down. As you can see here, the windows of Avid & Co were decorated with festive muppets; the Muppets Christmas Carol is one of my favourite films. I drew this while on our monthly ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ sketchcrawl. It was very cold and foggy that day but I braved it for the love of sketching.

Well well well, what have we here, Santa’s Firetruck? Santa likes to ride this through Davis during December to cheer up the kids, and while I have probably drawn this truck before at some point over the years, I don’t remember sketching it while dressed up for the Holidays. Santa’s sleigh is attached safely to the top, and I don’t think fire safety regulations allow for reindeers to ride along. I wonder if Santa gets to slide down the North Pole? I drew about half of this right there and finished it off at home, it was cold and there were a lot of lights, plus people had started taking pictures with Santa next to the truck, they asked if I also wanted a photo but I thought I’d better not, though I think Santa will agree I’ve been a good boy, and all I want is more sketchbooks, paints and pens please. I might make this into a card for this year, give to my co-workers. When my teenager was a toddler, firetrucks were all the rage. Our local fire stations used to actively invite the kids to come by and meet them, look at the big engines, and even give them firefighter trading cards with their names and pictures on them! Good memories. The fire service folk do a very good job.

Here is a sketch from our annual Holiday Party at work, I did a few but am not posting them all here. This one looks the most festive. We always have a nice party for the students, staff and faculty, with good food, games, bingo, ugly sweaters, hot chocolate and even a bit of singing, with lots of festive karaoke. This year was especially fun, and while I did not sing karaoke, I did bring my ukulele and sing one song, an Irish song by Brendan Shine, ‘Catch Me If You Can’. I have never done that before, twenty years of working there, but I think it went alright. It was because I was almost reaching fifty, there is that line in the chorus “I’m awful shifty, for a man of fifty, catch me if you can, me name is Dan, sure I’m your man”. Now, my name is not Dan, and I’m not your man, and I don’t think I’m that shifty, but I am now fifty, which seemed an ancient venerable age when I first started working here. Anyway here is one of my co-workers Olga announcing the White Elephant gift exchange game (I got a nice notebook), and one of our students Oscar singing Ozzy Osbourne in a very festive hat.

And so, back home. A few days before Christmas, my wife was getting on with some festive wrapping, ‘When Harry Met Sally’ was being played on the TV. We like to watch a lot of movies this time of year. I do love Christmas, so do our cats, and I made a very special Advent Calendar in 2025, it was basically a record store in a lit picture frame box, with shelves full of records, posters showing snowman bands (Snowasis, Taylor Snowdrift, David Snowie etc), and the records were numbered 1-24 and opened each day, with a chocolate inside, a hand-drawn album cover with snowman replacing the real artists, plus a QR code to a festive song by that artist. AI is never making this, mate. It was a Big Idea and I rushed to get it done on time but finish it I did. I should post about it sometime but I always forget; besides the advent calendars are always a bit personal. I look back at them all sometimes and go wow, I made a lot of those didn’t I. Some day I won’t. Every year I say, I’m not making one this year. I am probably not making one this year, until I get an idea in my head and run with it. Anyway.

And last of all, a sketch of the Christmas tree at my wife’s mom’s house, drawn on Boxing Day (just ‘December 26th’ here) after we had a nice breakfast at a local diner, and shortly before heading home. And that is all for 2025. I’d say ‘Happy New Year’ but I know what 2026 has been like. But from the wilds of the never-ending summer it’s good to look back at the foggy festive days.

December 2025 in Davis, California

August 16, 2026Leave a comment

I am still playing catch-up on 2025, but we are at December now. In other news I am all caught up with scanning my current sketches, but since I keep drawing more, there’s always more scanning to be done. I often wonder what it’s all for – a record of places and my time within them, fulfilling an urge to draw all the time that I have had since I was a toddler, a way to stay sane in these far from sane times, creating content to share with the world so that they may be inspired by them as I have been inspired by others (which was the whole idea behind Urban Sketchers), or maybe it’s like regular exercise that I need to stay fit. It’s all of those things, but it’s also because I just love to draw. Despite the thousands of sketches, I get self-conscious about my ability, that voice in my head that I am probably doing it ‘wrong’, the same voice I hear when I am playing my guitar or training for a race or working on a budget or even just having a conversation. It’s like those clickbait YouTube videos that are titled things like “You Are Folding Your Clothes Wrong!” or “You Are Listening To Music Wrong!” or “You Are Living Your Entire Life Wrong!” Hey, I was ALWAYS told I hold my pen wrong, and wow, did people like to point it out at the Sketching Symposium. The other voice is my voice saying, no you are doing it your way, even if it is ‘wrong’, and fortunately I listen to that stubborn little voice the most. Anyway, here is a two-page drawing I did in early December of the Yolo County Library, the Mary L Stephens branch in north Davis near my house, and I think I got it pretty damn right. It was late afternoon, I was at home that day and finished up early, and walked over to the library. The sun was setting and the autumnal leaves were amazing, they usually are in early December. Davis gets boring to me sometimes, when it’s really hot and there’s not much to do, but I love living here and I love that time of year. I stood on the street corner and sketched and painted until there was little light left; I had to finish off the paint at home, but I wanted to catch that sky, those leaves. The library has a lot of arches which is why I don’t sketch it very often (I don’t like drawing arches, just as I don’t like drawing circles, or feet, or hands, or dogs, the list goes on; for someone who loves drawing there’s a lot I don’t like drawing). I went into the library after this and had a good look through some books; I read almost the whole of ‘Abundant Harvest’ which was a detailed and illustrated history of UC Davis, it fascinated me, full of old stories and old photos. I realized also that this library has a pyramid roof, just like Burnt Oak Library, my ‘home’ library growing up. Here it is in a post from 2022. That cannot be a coincidence right? I think I had never really noticed it before. This library is bigger, though. They did make a display of my sketchbooks back in late 2011, shortly before my first solo show at the Pence, I had almost forgotten about that. A lot of time has passed since then, a lot of sketches, and a lot of improvement too, a lot of ‘doing it wrong’.

Ok, I have a lot of sketches from December because that’s the way it goes, so I might divide them into ‘December’ and ‘Christmastime’. One day I will get back to one post, one sketch, one story, but that day is not now, I have lagged behind too long. I drew the scene above while on our monthly ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ sketchcrawl in December. It was quite cold out as I remember. I drew a festive shopfront (of Avid & Co) but that will fall into the Christmassy post. This one is the Varsity Theater on 2nd St, I have drawn it many times before. If Davis were bigger and had more interesting things for me to sketch, I would still have sketched the Varsity about the same amount. There’s no point linking to old posts with Varsity sketches, new ones come along all the time, like Spider-Man movies. In fact my most recent one from July 2026 actually does have Spider-Man on it.

Here’s another from that day, sketched just across the street at the corner of 2nd and E. I liked the colour of all the trees, plus I liked that Jeep, and went to great pains to make sure I sketched seven grille slots as is the case for all civilian Jeeps, unlike the military Jeeps which have nine grille slots. I overheard someone saying this at the California Automobile Museum many years ago and it stuck in my memory. I kept thinking I should release a YouTube video titled “You Are Drawing the Front Grilles of Jeeps WRONG” and then shaming all those who draw 8 or 6 or don’t even bother counting. You will notice I didn’t bother drawing other car details (except for the Jeep’s distinctive circular headlights, and you know I hate drawing circles, but I had to get those right) and the other car barely gets an outline.

Christmas was coming alright, but I will include this one here. This is Mabel’s Market on D Street, in an old building that has been many things since I came to Davis, but is now a very nice shop; I really love their jam and like to buy it as presents for people. I like drawing that building though. I decided not to colour it in when I forgot to colour it in later, but that’s ok because the red stands out more, very festive. Also, it was very foggy at this time of year, it had been far foggier than usual, and so this is reflected in the lack of colours.

Speaking of D Street, well here is another one. The unusually thick Tule fog had finally lifted that day, and the bright mid-December colours really burst into life. I was just outside Mabel’s Market (in fact I had just bought some jam) and I drew Cloud Forest Cafe and the red phone box next to the Mustard Seed. It was so colourful I just had to stop and draw. It’s another scene I have drawn a lot, but after over twenty years here what do you expect.

On the day that I drew this, the now-closed Mamma’s restaurant on 3rd St (formerly Bistro 33, plus various other things). By the way I understand this location will soon be home to a noodle restaurant, and when I walked past the other day they have removed all of the red paint from those distinctive metal fences. Well at least I have drawn them here in that red.

Ok this one is late December, the building that is part of Newman Center on C St, just past 5th, in the Old North Davis area. There’s a bit of a crack in the building. I like all the brickwork though. I think we had just got back from Santa Rosa where we had been on Christmas Day and the day after.

Further down 5th Street, another Old North Davis house, another ‘triangle with a tree in front’ special, two in fact, plus a special mention of a picket fence on the right there. Weather was nice. There had been a lot of very heavy rain over the Christmas.

And finally, Tres Hermanas on 2nd St, near the train station. We love this place at work, some of our favourite staff lunches have been here. It always makes me hungry for their enchiladas. This was drawn on the day before New Years Eve, and it was very cold and foggy again. So, apart from the few Christmassy sketches I will post next, that’s pretty much it for 2025. The question is, shall I go ahead and post my Toulouse sketches while they are fresh in my mind, and then go backwards again and play catch up for 2026? I say, yeah why not. Otherwise it will be 2027 before I talk about Toulouse, and hey I’m getting older, the memory is not what it was. I’m probably doing this all wrong.

November 2025 in Davis California

August 14, 2026Leave a comment

And so we move on towards the end of 2025 in Davis California. That was a long year wasn’t it. Don’t go back and tell them, 2026 is not any better. All you can do is what you can. I do my job, spend time with my family, and draw lots and lots of things. Sometimes I run. Last November I ran my second 10k and nailed it, getting my personal best time, ten minutes faster than the year before (my watch broke 17 seconds into the run so I had no idea of my pace, so I just ran faster and it worked). Then I went to work, and made a big teaching budget presentation to our faculty. In my post-run confidence I decided that day to run a half marathon by the next November. That would be this coming November, 2026. I have done a 10k since, and a 7k, and a 5k, and lots of running and then not running. And right now, three months away from the half marathon I told myself I would do when I’m 50, it’s more of a ‘having-a-laugh’ marathon. No way do I feel ready yet. Sure I can work at it still, and it’s a great goal. But mentally, I don’t know, I don’t know. I’m more on the ‘having-a-laugh’ side right now than in the ‘do it!’ camp. I will decide in a month. Still if there are any marathons for sketching, well I’m right there, because that I can do. The sketch above was on the first day of November, a bright day where I stood next to the Dresbach-Hunt-Boyer Mansion (I can never remember the order of the names) and drew the side of Mishka’s and the Varsity. I liked this sketch a lot, though I only coloured in a little bit, including that shadow, which I was very pleased about because I used a little burnt sienna in the mix with ultramarine, which I had seen someone do at the symposium and I’d never done, and it created quite a warm feeling to the shade. Look at me, mixing paints to find nice tones. While carry lots of paints around I have never been one of those people who gets super into paints and mixes, I am all about doing the drawing and colouring it in. After coming back from Toulouse now I am thinking about doing more paint stuff, maybe even getting better brushes, but that would mean looking after them, not putting them in my pencil case where the bristles get caught in the zip, that sort of thing. I always think, I’m not a good enough painter to deserve a good brush. Story of my life.

This one was drawn in the Arboretum, and that is a turkey in the foreground, that was just passing by with its turkey friends. We have so many in Davis, they just wander about. “Don’t people eat them? They would eat them here!” say people back in London, to which I say “No they don’t, obviously” and “No they wouldn’t, obviously”. This one was just minding its own business, digging up worms or whatever, and I drew the tress and Lake Spafford behind. I like the Arboretum, sometimes I get bored of sketching all the trees and then I remember, no I love sketching trees. Not so much all the foliage, but that’s like saying you like sketching people, just not the faces, or the feet or hands or clothes. Wait, I do say all that. I like drawing hair, and beards, and glasses are a big help so I don’t have to worry about messing up the eyes.

This is Bizarro World on E street, which I have drawn a few times before, because it is right there and I come down this way a lot. It’s a good comic store. They rent movies too but I have not done that. They have games too, and action figures, and cards, all that fun stuff. Second hand sci-fi and fantasy books too. When I was reading comics a lot I would go in there more, I’ve not been reading many comics for a while now though. I like drawing sketches like this, not always completing the colour, but really focusing on the perspective, especially as it goes down the alleyway.

Speaking of shops in Davis, here is one of my favourites, Soccer and Lifestyle. To my massive surprise, I was passing down 2nd Street one day and it was GONE. Now this was one of the first shops I ever went into in Davis, on that day in Fall 2005 when my wife was interviewing at UC Davis and I was walking about the downtown, seeing if this was somewhere I’d want to live or not. A lot hinged on that, if I had said “nah, Davis is too far away, too flat, and the downtown shops are rubbish” we would probably not have come here, well maybe. As it was, I went to the Avid Reader bookshop, Bogey’s Books (which is where Bizarro World now is), and Soccer and Lifestyle, which clinched the deal for me. The fact Davis had a shop dedicated to selling football shorts, my obsession? I chatted with the owner, who complained about Kappa not supplying in the US (Spurs were Kappa at the time, before Puma, Under Armour and now Nike), and I decided I really liked this shop and Davis was alright, as it goes. Well we ended up moving here and the rest is biography. So when I saw the shop was empty I panicked. (Would we have to move to a city closer to where football shirts were sold?) But I read the sign that said they had moved to 3rd Street, just a block away, phew. I do really like their new location. In fact I sketched it inside during the World Cup in June. The last kit I got there was the 2026 Japan away kit, that one is lovely. Anyway I drew this one shortly after the new location opened, it’s right next to Dunloe Brewing, which is where the old bike shop used to be, B&L? I forget the name now. I probably drew that. Just past that is Zia’s I have drawn that place a couple of times. I have this idea of making a book of all the shops in downtown Davis, mixed in with sketches of the people that run them or at least work there, that would be a really fun project and way to connect downtown. Everything changes.

And finally this is another panorama, down on the corner of 2nd and G Streets. I have drawn panoramas here before, but this one was done during one of our Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawls, we had a good crowd with us that day. I used that tree with its reddish bark as the anchor in the middle for this sketch, and let the world unfold around it. You can see some sketchers there on the left. The trees were already quite autumnal, it happens a little later here than in some other places. On the left corner is Froggy’s / Tommy J’s, I have not been in there for ages but I remember they have delicious chicken burgers in there, I mean really nice. There is a sign to the right of the centre there that tells a little bit of history. This part of Davis is the oldest part of town, and used to have a kind of gateway arch here many decades ago.

November 2025 was actually 20 years since I moved to Davis (November 5th actually). I already commemorated that at the time with the following two posts:

Check back soon for December…

FYAC Urban Sketching, Fall 2025

August 14, 2026Leave a comment

Last Fall, I was invited to lead a ‘First Year Aggie Connection’ (FYAC) group on campus, under the theme of Urban Sketching. The FYACs are a special program for first year students on campus at UC Davis, offered on a whole range of subjects, and my one was of course all about drawing Davis and the campus. They are a way for first year students to get to know other first years with similar interests and also learn a few things too. It was not a for-credit course, but I did provide handouts with tips and tricks on different themes we’d be covering each week. I selected different places to sketch, and we would just get together, draw them, and then look at all our sketches afterwards. It was nice, very informal, and I was well impressed by all their work. In the very first session, I had them do a portrait party, sketching each other for a few minutes. Here are some of the sketches I did during that quarter.

The UC Davis Eggheads. I made a handout telling them all about the Eggheads and where to find them, and we drew these ones, Yin and Yang, outside the Arts buildings.

On one day it absolutely poured down, so we stood in the shelter of South Hall and drew the big trees outside. The them was trees that week anyway. There is one of the sketchers keeping dry from the rain.

The Bike Barn is always good to sketch, as you know I like drawing triangles. I think the theme was about composition that week, but I didn’t really think too deeply about composition in this sketch.

I did enjoy the week we sketched out at Wyatt Deck, in the Arboretum. That was very peaceful, and I sketched some of the other sketchers.

This was at the Memorial Union, by the campus bookstore. I can’t remember the theme now, probably perspective, but I didn’t have a lot of time to sketch to it was really about adding in a little bit of colour. The point of the course was to explore different places anyhow; many of the students were quite new to Davis. We didn’t really explore away from campus though.

This is Rock Hall, which we drew from the Student Community Center.

This was fun though, on the border between campus and downtown, on A Street. Not ‘a street’, that’s “A” Street. I drew the stop sign, with all the bikes whizzing past ignoring the “Stop” bit.

And this is Hart Hall, which we drew in late November. This was a really fun way to introduce new students to Davis and urban sketching, and I will be doing the same again this coming Fall in another FYAC, but maybe with a few other locations and themes thrown in too.

October 2025 in Davis California

August 7, 2026Leave a comment

And so on to October 2025, sketches in and around Davis. I might have already posted this particular drawing already of the Newman Catholic Center on 5th Street; it was blue but had just been painted a cream colour. Another one of those trees that I like.

This was a house being built on B Street and 7th, it’s probably finished by now. I like these in-progress construction sketches because they will never look this way again. I also liked the colours, red, gold, green, the colours of my dreams, or maybe that was a song.

There’s another from A Street, the corner of 2nd, I didn’t colour it in but this is very ‘start of October’. You’ll have to take my word for it. I like A Street, it’s that liminal space between the Campus and the City, the two worlds of Davis.

Another one from Old North Davis, corner of 6th and B, this is a nice old house. I don;t think it’s in John Lofland’s excellent book on the area, which I do consult a lot. I did learn not too long ago though that John Lofland had sadly passed away, which was sad news; I had never met him, but I really like his book about Old North Davis and the histories of many of the buildings around there. Thank you for the book, and rest in peace. Anyway I drew this while heading home one day and finished it off and coloured it in at home. It always reminds me of the Davis Turkey Trot which usually starts on this very block. I did the 10k again last November, and made the probably foolish decision to try the Half Marathon this year. I may regret that!

This is that place on D Street which was the ‘Secret Spot’ for a while, but is now something else. I drew it when it was pink, it has been other colours. I sketched a lot in early October. I sketched a lot in 2025 in general.

This is the Davis Farmers Market, sketched at one of our monthly ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ sketchcrawls. We have held a lot of sketching events there, there’s always a lot to draw. Here are a couple of sketchers, Suma CM who I have met at several Symposia over the years but never met in California (where she also lives), she was visiting Davis that day. Marlene Lee is also here, she co-organizes Let’s Draw Davis with me. I keep talking about making our group an official Urban Sketchers chapter, join the club proper, but never get around to it.

This is Community Park, near where I live, and it’s the view looking up towards the toilets. On the left is the dog park. I’ve spent a lot of time in this park over the years, with all the soccer coaching and parenting, the Davis World Cup, other big local events, or just passing through on the way home. I appreciate all the parks we have in Davis. It is good to live somewhere with so many parks and green spaces, that isn’t just focused on cars and long long roads that only cars can really use. It’s Community Park because it is really used by the community, and the local library is here, Davis High School is on one side and North Davis Elementary on the other, with Rainbow City playground and the Davis Arts Center up in the other corner. Yeah, a lot of my life and my family’s life has been spent in and around this park alright. I’ve also done a lot of running events passing through here. Yeah I love this park.

This is First Street Real Estate on, well it;s on 1st Street. I like the shape of the building, it’s good to draw. I like triangles and a tree in front, that;s what it all boils down to, if I was an AI which I’m not (let’s make that clear right now) then just a tree with two branches and a triangle behind it, that’s basically most of my drawings. Like the rhythm of a joke, it’s the way you tell ’em. Years ago, I held an art show here, they very kindly hosted me for one of the monthly 2nd Friday Art About events here in Davis. It was one of my favourite ones I have done (also the last, I don’t really do those shows much) and a lot of people came, talked about sketching, sold some prints, and the people hosting were really nice as well.

Ok this will do for the October Davis sketches; I did others, but those were part of the First Year Aggie Connections group that I led during Fall and I’ll post those separately. I also have a bunch from our trip to Oregon. This one though was just before Halloween and Dia de los Muertos, in fact this was specifically for “Dia de los Muertos for Pets”, it’s a little book box and pet treat box, there are dog bowls beneath it, and so on my early evening walk up on the North Davis Greenbelt I stopped and drew it. It was a warm evening. Anyway I had been there about 15 minutes, there were a lot of walkers and cyclists about, when one lady on a bike approached ringing a bell. I was at the side of the path close to the box, not in the way, but she was turning and I think didn’t want to go around the back of me, but bank the corner. At least that’s what I gathered when she got off of her bike and deliberately walked in front of me making me move backwards into the path, grumbling that I am in her way. I said I wasn’t in the way, I was at the side of the path and the ten or so other cyclists had no problem passing by. “You are standing in the middle of the path!” she yelled. “Well I am now, because you just made me move, but I wasn’t.” I had been standing right next to the pet box, as is obvious from the drawing. She went off still complaining that I was in her way and that she had to get off of her bike. It was quite bizarre. As a sketcher I always try not to block any paths, and be considerate of those passing around me. People just having a bad day I guess. I went back to my spot and finished the sketch. Anyway, that was October in Davis. There will be a couple more October posts, then I’ll do all the others, or I might take a break and post the Symposium sketches, and then get back to 2025-2026.

September 2025, Davis California

August 7, 2026August 7, 2026Leave a comment

Alright, alright, alright. Time to catch up, before I start posting all the sketches from the Toulouse Symposium. I am not even halfway through scanning them all yet anyway. As mentioned in this post from June, I have a long list to get through, so let’s get cracking. I might keep the storytelling to a minimum, just look at the sketches and imagine what I was thinking about when I drew them. Let’s take a look at my Davis sketches from last Fall… Above, the opening page of a new sketchbook, and it’s that building on the corner of A Street (that’s “A” Street, not “a street”, I may have made that distinction before but it’s worth repeating) and 1st Street, which used to be a frat house, and at this moment in time it was painted yellow and the name ‘James A Kidd Foundation for the Arts’ was written above the door, for some reason, because shortly afterwards and to this day it is not written there any more. I don;t know what the building is going to be but I see people coming in and out, I don;t really need to pay too much attention to it. I like the shape of the tree in front. This is one of those ‘Fall quarter is about to begin, let’s start ramping things up’ sketches, and it was a busy Fall for me, no doubt. Busy is good, I like busy, but I appreciate the quieter Summer times as well.

Now here is a frat house, or maybe a sorority house, I don;t actually pay that much attention. For someone who prides himself on paying attention to the city and drawing all the changes over the years, being a real ‘interested’ sort of person, I do actually skip over details about what places are for or how things work. I do not, for example, have any idea how fire hydrants actually work, yet if you search for fire hydrants and sketches you’ll probably find me right up there on the lists. Or at least, until AI took over the world. I really like that Jaguar parked there. This was drawn on C Street, next to Central Park, while a Crafts fair was going on. I was talking for a little bit with one of the artists whose stall was nearby, I think they recognised me. I do like September sketches though, there is this ‘late Summer, not quite Fall’ air to them, it’s still hot, it reminds me of the first September I spent in Davis a year after arriving in America. Wow, September 2025, I just remembered, that was 20 years after I moved here. That’s a big deal. I love California, it’s a good place to have spent the majority of my adult years, the grown-up bits of my adult years.

Here’s another one from that week, drawn in the portrait-format sketchbook. This is the Belfry on A Street, I have drawn this building loads of times over the years, it’s an interesting shape and good to sketch.

The corner of 3rd and D, another one I have drawn loads before. Why do I keep sketching these buildings over and over? In case something changes. Something usually does, and then I have a record of it in my sketchbook. It’s like my purpose is to document the world. Maybe I should do a book. I’ve been saying it for years but never get around to it, a book of Davis sketches. I think people would buy it. I probably have a sketch for every day of the year in Davis, like one literally done on each calendar date. You definitely feel the different times of the year here. People say we don’t really have ‘seasons’ like other places do, it;s just summer and then a bit cooler, but it’s not true, the times of the year here are very distinctive, it;s just that summer is very long and very hot.

This was drawn at the Pence Gallery’s annual Art Auction, I sold a couple of pieces there last September. That’s Natalie, the director, speaking to the people at the gala event, and there is one of the musicians. I didn’t draw a lot that evening, just had a glass of wine, some food, looked at all the lovely art, and went home. This in fact was the day I celebrated 20 years in the USA. I thought it was the 26th but it was the 27th. I think a lot about that day.

Another tree in front of another house, this time on 4th Street, that’s Cooper House I believe, but I really like that tree. Maybe I should give a workshop on drawing trees. I have decided I want to be able to identify trees by looking at them, I even bought a box of flashcards with different trees and their leaves on them so I could learn them. Again it’s that thing where I love to draw things but lack that extra detail of knowing what they actually are or anything about them. Like, my mind says, “you’ve draw it haven’t you, that’s enough information for now, draw something else”. I feel like it was like that in Toulouse as well, I looked up the street names later, and am still figuring out the names of the buildings I sketched. Anyway I like these trees that get a kind of orange colour on their bark, it looks good.

Finally, from the same day but sketched after work when I went downtown before heading home, this is at the corner of 1st and E Streets, I like this little house and the way that path leads up to the door. I think it’s a dentists or a realtors, I really don’t know (see what I mean, it’s not like I don’t care what things are, I just like sketching). Next up: October 2025…

with the crowd on G St, watching the footy

July 11, 20263 Comments

And so, in the end, it was not to be for the US Men’s National Team, commonly called the USMNT (they really need a nickname). Three weeks of hope and glory, days in the sunshine, and definitely maybe. Admittedly a lot of the good feeling had been unnecessarily dampened by the whole red card-suspension-phone call-suspension not-so-mysteriously suspended thing. Belgium were well up for it, in their Magritte-inspired kits, “ceci n’est pas un carton rouge”. In the end, the US players were just not as good as the Belgians, Champions League players against MLS. Maybe the whole unnecessary charade got in their heads, but they were not up for this game, even with the Seattle crowd behind them, who only two weeks ago had seen them swat Australia aside, MLS players against A-League. All three hosts went out in the same round, but not in the same way. Canada punched above their weight but were ultimately undone by the best team in Africa, Morocco; Mexico had a barn-storming game against England at the Azteca in one of the wildest matches in the tournament, loved by both sides, and unlucky not to get a result; the US lost 4-1 with a whimper, even with their new star Balogun on the field. None of the nonsense was his fault, really. A lot of people were not unhappy that the US went out, but it is a shame for all those fans of soccer here, but hey, now you all know what it’s like, “it’s the HOPE that kills ya”, they say, ain’t that the truth. If England are like the Spurs of international football, the US men’s team is like the Crystal Palace (or until Palace started winning things last year), or maybe the Newcastle, but with fewer shirtless fans. I don’t know. I really liked the 2002 team, with big man Friedel in goal, Brian McBride as the American Teddy Sheringham, and the youthful energy ball Landon Donovan (I’m not gonna make any comments about his barnet), plus Alexei Lalas already had retired along with his beard but hadn’t yet discovered the podcast, which hadn’t been invented yet. That was the team I watched with my then-girlfriend-later-wife from California, and they beat the mighty Portugal 3-2 in a super wild game. The USMNT now have some more well-known players, household names over here like Pulisic, and the other ones. That wavy red and white kit was popular, not as popular as that Mexico kit, but a lot of people were wearing it. Maybe they still will, now they have been knocked out, or maybe fans will go back to one of the less see-you-coming-a-mile-off kits.

We watched the game downtown on the big screen at G Street. They have been setting it up for the US games, along with a special Davis Soccer Fest full of activities and music, making use of that public space we have down there now. It’s a good community, Davis, and there are people out there that really make stuff happen like this, and people that are out to support it. I wanted to make sure I was there this time, so we went down and saw that the crowd was about three times bigger than the one for the Australia game a couple of weeks or so before. Was that only two and a half weeks before, it felt like a year, this World Cup has gone on for so long. I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t World Cup. It Has Always Been World Cup. Even when it ends, it will never end, and you might go four years without a bloated money-grabbing morally bankrupt World Cup and you might think that the days of the bloated money-grabbing morally bankrupt World Cup have finally gone and we can all move on to some other sport, when suddenly the bloated money-grabbing morally bankrupt World Cup is back but this time even more bloated and morally bankrupt, but still we eat it up, we love it, because we remember Maradona and Pele and Nobby Stiles dancing. I am sick of World Cup, but I love World Cup. If you want a vision of the future, imagine a football boot stamping on a man’s ankle, forever, frozen in a VAR check that can never be decided. Hydration Breaks, me arse. They are advert breaks, nothing more. If they are going to have them, at least have them at moments like they used to do on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, you know, when Chris Tarrant (or whoever hosted it here) would have them answer a question, final answer, and then say “we’ll find out after the break!” Well the ref should do that when issuing a card, put his hand in his pocket, slow as you like, and then look at the camera and say “see you after the break!”. There was a moment in the France Morocco game when I genuinely thought the ref was going to do that, just as Mbappe was trying to take his penalty, he kept stopping it, and making him wait. Maybe he should have phoned a friend.

But I love the Davis community, coming together to watch the game like this. In my first summer here in 2006 it felt like nobody cared about the World Cup, except for my mate in the football shirt shop, and some of the faculty in our department. The only channels I could watch it on were all in Spanish, and as I didn’t speak Spanish it made it much more interesting, and I picked up some interesting vocabulary (I already knew ‘gooooooooooooooooooooooooool’, of course, but I loved that every time David Beckham would get the ball they would call him “Beckham, El Spice-Boy!” and laugh. It was one of my favourite World Cups, 2006, ending in that amazing Zidane headbutt to end his international career. One of our faculty did not get live TV but had a VCR, so I used to tape the games every day and bring them into him to take home and watch them later, and he’d bring me a tape back each day to do the same. I still have that video tape, in a drawer in my office, and now none of us have VCRs it is a little historical artefact, and one day centuries later someone will find that tape, invent a new VCR to watch it, and wonder why the Mexican commentators kept calling that English player “El Spice Boy”, maybe they will assume he was some sort of galactic spice trader before taking up sports, I don’t know. This is the sort of thing the World Cup brings up, it truly is the beautiful game.

I drew all this while watching the game, but I added in the colours when I got home, because it was quite crowded and I was stood next to a tree and next to my wife. I draw fast and wrote down what I could. We did however go home for the second half, having seen enough, we watched the rest sat on the sofa, and I wrote down some more of the commentary. It was good to be around the fans though, all rooting for the USMNT (they need a better nickname than that). I like sketching big people events like this, especially if they are all dressed in bright colours, and especially if they all stay where they are for a while. Oh well, USMNT, we’ll watch the Women’s team next, at the Women’s World Cup in Brazil in 2027, a nice normal size World Cup of 32 teams, as it should be. This World Cup though will keep on going on, and on, and on, until in the end all that is left are the ants and the dust, and then, England will finally win it. It’s coming home.

“No Pulisic? No Problem!” USA on G Street

June 28, 20263 Comments

“USA! USA! USA!” they were all singing. It was just after lunchtime, the Juneteenth holiday so we had the day off work, and the pedestrianized block of G Street in downtown Davis was full of soccer fans, most of them dressed in USA gear to cheer on USMNT in their group match against Australia. Win this, and they go through to the knockouts. There was a big screen set up, and loads of people on their lawn chairs, which every soccer-mom and soccer-dad has in the back of their car. It was hot, and very sunny, so I sketched under the cover of my hat and some hastily applied sunscreen on the back of my legs, drawing on the last page of my sketchbook which I had pre-splashed with some ‘Inktense’ paints. I had to change positions a couple of times, and then just headed into the shade completely. There were some Australians, but the US were playing in front of a soccer-crazy Seattle crowd and were pretty dominant, even though their Main Man Christian Pulisic was not playing; “No Pulisic, No Problem!” announced the excited commentator. When they scored, a massive cheer erupted, and chants of “USA! USA! USA!” echoed across downtown. I wondered to myself if anyone would start replying “USB! USB!” and thought that might be a good thing to sing at a Chargers game, and then the US got a second goal, scored by someone called A. Freeman, the #16. I thought to myself, they have missed a trick there, A. Freeman should have been Number 6. (As in “I am NOT a NUMBER, I am A. FREEMAN!”). Someone I know (Adie) was wearing an Alexei Lalas USA ’94 shirt, #22, so he had to go into the sketchbook. He had not grown the beard (funny story, right, I actually did grow the beard back in 1999 mostly as a laugh but also partly to annoy someone). I always wanted that kit back in 1994. I did consider wearing the one USA national shirt that I own, the very smart one from 2006, but the thing about shirts from the 2000s is they don’t really work on 2020s Pete. It is curious that my football shirts from the big and baggy ’90s still fit me but nothing from about 2002-2010. Oh well. We didn’t actually stick around for the second half, instead going to McDonalds for some massively overpriced chicken nuggets that came with commemorative World Cup cups with players on them (We got Pulisic and Lamine Yamal). We watched the rest at home, but it was a done deal and the USMNT topped their group with a game to spare in this unusually designed World Cup format. They would go on to play against Turkey and lose late on, but it was a meaningless match, if any game is really meaningless. They will play again in the Round of 32 on Wednesday against Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the big screen will be out on G Street again.

I had gone down to G Street a little early, to check out the Davis Soccer Fest. This has been set up to happen before the US games, and also before the World Cup Final, where there are lots of soccer related activities, including a big dartboard where you can kick a ball at it to score points (I didn’t give it a go but I sketched it). It is organized by Davis community Soccer, who are a new group in town run by many of the same people who have run soccer in Davis for a while now, from the AYSO and AYSO United organizations, of which I was a member; I coached for years and was one of the original coaching team for United but retired in 2022, though I am still on the Davis World Cup committee, and design the World Cup logos and medals. Davis Community Soccer started this year, though it was a surprise to me (since it is effectively replacing Fall AYSO this year, though Davis AYSO has said it’s not going away) and I’ve not had a chance to talk to anyone involved about it all yet, but good luck to them, I hope it’s a success. I like their logo, it reminds me of the one I designed for the 2022 Davis World Cup a bit, I like that retro font. It’s nice to see them create fun stuff like this as well, and so as I sketched I did get a chance to chat with Sam and Adam who I’ve not caught up with in a while. They had a tent pitched up where kids could get soccer tattoos. It was a really fun event for kids, with others playing soccer tennis further up the street.

Here are some more of the crowd. I drew the USA fans there while I was stood in the shade on the sidelines. That reminds me, the USA will celebrate its 250th anniversary this July 4, I don’t know if you heard. I may actually try to sketch the fireworks this year, to mark the occasion, I will need some more gel pens to sketch on dark paper. While 250 doesn’t seem that old to a Brit, it’s worth getting a nice cake for, and I never liked it when I would turn 30, 40, most recently 50 and there is always someone older going, hah you’re so young, wait until you’re my age. For July 4 I might even try to squeeze into that 2006 USA shirt if I can. Below, some of the other shirts on display, a Scottish fan in a kilt waiting, Scotland were playing later that day (spoiler alert, they lost the game, but they won over the city of Boston, and that’s what really matters). There was a young lad in the 2002 Brazil shirt, I think he was a USA fan but that’s a great top. The guy next to him was in a red USA away kit from about 2011, that was a nice one. There were a lot of other kits on display, but overwhelmingly the current USA home kit was most common, the one with the red wavy horizontal stripes like a flag. Will they win it this year, the actual World Cup? I mean, nobody really thinks so, because they just don’t do they, but well, they could. Their group was not hard, and their route to the quarter finals is not exactly filled with heavyweight teams, and with the big West Coast crowds chanting “USA! USA!” (except for those few confused LA Charger fans singing “USB-C!”) they just might pull it off. The Women’s team have done it enough times. If they do, well it’ll be ‘Hydration Breaks’ everywhere. Maybe when they have won ‘FIFA’ as they call it, they can get rid of penalty shootouts and replace them with that thing they used to do in the early years of MLS, when they would have someone run from the halfway line to go one on one with the keeper, the best Americanization sport has ever seen. But that won’t happen because as we all know deep down, this year, 60 years on, Its Coming Home.

Watching Haaland in Soccer and Lifestyle

June 28, 20261 Comment

The World Cup continues. Still during that first round of group games, I went to the local football shirt shop, Soccer and Lifestyle, to watch the second half of Norway vs Iraq. I sketched the store; the last time I had sketched inside was in the previous location was also during a World Cup, but back in 2014, twelve years ago. That is a long time ago. I drew this all while the game was going on, but coloured it in at home. There was a woman in there wearing a yellow and green Mali shirt, with ‘F Kanoute’ on the back, which I though was incredible. I really liked Freddie Kanouté, who played for Spurs for a brief period in the mid 2000s, and I told them I actually saw him play and even score, at White Hart Lane in 2004. There are a lot of good shirts in that shop. I bought my shirt for the tournament there, the Japan away kit, a couple of weeks ago. That one is white with a black collar but has really nice colourful pinstripes. They were out of the USA shirts already, they had sold out before the first USA game. There is a ‘Soccer Fest’ on G St before every US game, and a big screen is set up to watch them. We saw the second game there (I’ll post the sketches later). The USA home shirt this year is a zany affair, red and white made to look a bit like the flag waving, and be reminiscent of the amazing 1994 kit. I don’t like the 2026 one much, but if they do well, it’ll probably end up iconic. The game that I saw in the shop was a bit one-sided, with Norway being the one side, not surprising since Haaland is on the team.

So, flashback to twelve years ago, watching France vs Switzerland…

Hop you are enjoying the World Cup. It’s big and bloated and there are too many games, and I hate the ‘hydration breaks’ which are just blatantly obviously advert breaks (well done America, you broke soccer), but there have been some good moments already. Messi closed out the group stage with goal #6 for him, and DR Congo won their first World Cup game (against Uzbekistan admittedly) to qualify for the knockouts. The ‘Round of 32’ started today, and Canada beat South Africa with a late winner. There are a lot of games still to come, a lot of ‘hydration breaks’, a lot of Beckham and Messi adverts…

there’s never enough time for all the time in the world

June 25, 2026Leave a comment

Hello everyone! I am so far behind on posting, it’s hard to know where to start. Going from where I left off would be a good idea, I suppose, but maybe not. I was hoping to have caught up by now, but I have been finding it difficult to sit and concentrate long enough to write posts to go with all these sketches, and I’ve not slowed down on sketching, not on your nelly. I also want to be writing about this World Cup that is going on right now, draining all attention and giving me headaches, but we are already near the end of the group stages. In the past I would have done a run-down of every team with a little drawing of their kit, but there are so many teams, I did not do that this time. I did make a lot of decorations including a big detailed wall chart. But for my own purposes, I’ll list here what I need to catch up on posting before I do all of that, in or out of order. This feels a bit like an annual appraisal, like I have to do at work, but it’s good to organize myself and remember what I’ve done. So where was I last, I was in Pasadena last September for the big Oasis show. So after that…

September sketches in Davis
Fall 2025 First-Year Class on Urban Sketching
October sketches in Davis
Oregon trip October 2025 (Corvallis, Portland, Multnomah Falls)
November/December sketches in Davis
Christmas 2025 sketches
Also, my 2025 Advent Calendar
San Francisco January 2026
January sketches in Davis
London February 2026
Cotswolds February 2026
February/March/April sketches in Davis
Picnic Day 2026
Art Brut SF show April 2026
Pence Gallery Urban Sketching Course May 2026
May/June sketches in Davis
Montreal / Formula 1 sketches May 2026
Pride Sketches June 2026
San Francisco June 2026
Various Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawls
World Cup 2026 sketches

Doesn’t seem too much to catch up with! Ok, this will be my planning list. That’s quite a lot actually. It’s just that this summer I am going to the Urban Sketching Symposium in Toulouse, another big adventure, and I always come back from those with way too many sketches and buckets of inspiration to draw more. Anyway to start off with, here is one of the first sketches I did after the Supergrass/Oasis weekend. It’s the Natsoulas Gallery on Russell Boulevard, the one with the big cat and the big dog outside.