the trees weren’t blue

September 7, 2023September 7, 20231 Comment

It was lunchtime, I was cycling back from downtown looking for something new to sketch. I’ve drawn most of Third Street over the years but I don’t think I’ve ever drawn this little house, and I love drawing a picket fence with its repetitive pickets and close observation of the things behind it. I used a bit of blue paint on the trees to make it stand out a bit more (especially with the little bit of purple I’d used as well), though the trees weren’t blue, it’s more of a feeling. This is a typical looking little old house in this part of Davis, the old downtown before you get to campus. This was almost a month ago now. August flew by.

summer running

August 30, 2023August 30, 2023Leave a comment

Summer is already drawing to a close on the UC Davis campus. Oh sure, we have several weeks yet until Fall classes begin, but I’m ramping up my anxiety levels before the quiet times of summer end, trying to get those summer projects out of the way before the busy work begins. This panorama sketch was drawn a month ago in July; in a month’s time this same scene will be fill of people and bikes. That’s not to say summer is completely empty, we do have a lot of summer sessions classes on campus, so there is activity. Many staff are working remotely, though I am in every day except for the occasional day. This summer I have been working on my fitness, and have been up running in the mornings on most days. In fact August I have run a total of 56 miles already, preparing for the 5k Labor Day Run next Monday, I’m feeling well up for it now. And then I woke up early this morning to see that the AQI was up in the 150-180 Unhealthy level, due to red flag weather and smoke being blown in from fires way to the north. It’s really the first bad smoky sky of the summer for us, it’s that time of year again, and I’m really hoping it does not last. I’m really looking forward to this race, but I also don’t want to derail my running progress. Three years ago when we had that terrible smoke that lasted weeks, months, I had been up to then on my best ever running streak, even though all races were cancelled due to the Pandemic, the global situation made me focus on getting out and running harder than ever, and I was clocking in excellent times I can barely believe now – and then the sky filled with smoke and the air quality monitors said it was far too unhealthy to run, or do soccer practice (I was coaching at the time), so that stopped and I never quite got back to that level (though in late 2021 I did clock my best 5k time in the Davis Turkey Trot). This past month I’ve felt myself building back towards it well, and I’m hoping that by November’s Turkey Trot I can have a go at beating that 2021 score, or even the mythical pace of 2020. I do love running, and was really looking forward to getting out there today, but my lungs man, they’re quite important.

This view here is of the Silo, seen from outside Haring Hall, stood in the shade of a tree. The TLC is back there too, lovely building that is. A few red buses at the Silo terminus. Only a couple of people, very small but they are in there (for all you “but why don’t you draw people?” folks). I’ve not done quite as much outdoor sketching this summer in Davis, it’s been hot, and I’ve not been feeling up to it as much, but I’ve done a bit which I still need to scan.

couple of cadillacs

August 21, 2023Leave a comment

Here are a couple of turquoise/teal Cadillacs seen in Davis last month. One of them (the one above) is usually parked in a carport across the street from me, and not super easy for me to get a look at to draw, but one day all the residents on our street had to move their vehicles so the surface could be relaid, and this was then parked out on a street near the greenbelt. So I went out with my sketchbook and drew it. It’s quite a magnificent car actually. To a kid in north London the Cadillac was like some alien ship, you would just not see them in England, only on big movie screens and on old American TV shows. I do remember seeing one though, and it was a pink one from the 70s, parked in Burnt Oak. I think it made the local news. But American cars, especially the older ones, can be massive. You’d never fit one of these down my old street. They were things of aesthetic beauty though, weren’t they? These days, cars seem to all look the same. I daresay they probably said the same thing in the 50s. There is something really satisfying about seeing magnificent old cars though. The one below, also a Cadillac and in a similar colour, was parked downtown in Davis, and so I had to do a quick outline sketch of it, drawing the details and colours in later. I drew in pencil too which was fun, trying to do that a bit more. I don’t know enough about the year of model of these (I don’t remember seeing that on the car), so if you know, let me know in the comments. I love to draw classic cars; there was a classic cars meet-up in Davis last weekend, but I never went because I was feeling a bit tired on that day, and it was hot. I should go to the California Automobile Museum again sometime.

everything’s “A” ok

July 28, 2023July 28, 20232 Comments

Another post-trip sketch before I dive into the latest British vacation adventure. This was drawn on A Street in Davis – not “a street”, I mean obviously it was drawn on a street, but “A” Street, which is because the street was named after the letter A, and there’s a B, a C, a D, an E, an F, a G, the list goes on. There’s no Z Street though. Zed’s dead, baby, Zed’s dead. A Street is kind of like the A Team of streets – it backs onto the university, where students receive a “B.A.” yeah, stay with me. It’s the point where the university and the town “Face” each other, yes. Plus the other two. Since this is also the boundary where the smoke-free university ends, you’ll sometimes find a few relegated smokers sitting on the naughty step here, including occasionally a man in a bad crocodile suit with a cigar and a big grin saying something about loving it when plans come together (I made that last one up). A Street. Anyway now that’s out of the way, this is a view I have sketched before on probably more than one occasion, the building is called Guilbert House, and makes a nice sketch. Finishing a sketch like this, all in one lunchtime, is satisfying, there are different colours in play, different shapes, dark areas, interesting shadows, textures, a motorbike parked at an angle where I won’t make the wheels look all lop-sided (much), some bins conveniently in the way of the wheels of the parked car so I won’t mess those up either, and it just says old downtown Davis to me. I’m happy with how it turned out. Looking over my sketchbook sometimes I’m often a little hard on myself, sketches where I know I didn’t have enough time, or if I had to finish them later and they look a bit forced, or if I just didn’t get perspective or linework or the colours quite right, or if a subject matter clearly started to bore me mid-sketch (oh boy, does that happen sometimes). But I love it when a sketch comes together.

bull’n’mouth

July 28, 2023July 27, 2023Leave a comment

My first time out of the house after we got back from the UK, spending a week indoors sick, I felt pretty good on the Sunday afternoon so I cycled downtown to do a sketch. I drew on E Street, the view of the former De Vere’s Irish pub, the best place to sketch and have a pint, which closed shortly after reopening in 2021 after the pandemic-enforced closure. They had just repainted all the outside into a nice new red – I sketched it in June 2021 – but it didn’t last too long, and they decided not to renew their lease, and focus on other things. Big shame for Davis, but time moves along. We heard there was going to be another bar opening in its place called Bull’n’Mouth, but this was being said for so long with no sign of any new pub that I was starting to think it was a load of, well. Then as I passed by I saw that doors had finally opened on this new place, though on this Sunday afternoon it was closed. It seemed that the opening hours were still pretty limited, starting at 4pm, and not every day. I think they are starting to open for lunch now, I heard this week; I’ve not actually been in there yet. So I decided to draw it, with the new sign up. Didn’t colour it in, but it did me good to get out with my sketchbook, document more change in this town.

sketching shadows

July 27, 2023Leave a comment

Before posting the sketches from the recent vacation (I am still scanning them all), I’ll probably post some more recent ones. This was sketched from the living room couch, as I was up early to watch the Formula 1, the British Grand Prix. I got sick at the end of our trip, enduring a painful couple of flights home, and then when we all got sick next day it turned out to be the Covid, the first time any of us have had it. It finally got us (thanks Britain!). We’re all vaccinated, so it wasn’t a very strong case (apart form that couple of nights when it was painful to swallow), but with the travel exhaustion I was feeling pretty knocked about. On top of that, my ears from the flight took almost a week to get back to something like normal, my hearing was totally off, the longest that’s ever taken. We just sat at home, getting hot, our ancient air-conditioning system from the 1970s starting to leak (but not actually fail – it’s kept us cool for years, never broken down). We had to just run it for very short periods so it would not leak, and the weather outside, well summer in Davis in the time of Global Boiling. So we eventually bit the bullet and got the local air-conditioning experts in last weekend to replace it with a brand new system, cost a bit of dosh, but well worth it. The new system is great, much quieter, more energy efficient (we hope), and was installed on a day when it was 107 degrees Fahrenheit outside so came just in time. On the morning I sketched this though, it wasn’t so bad, it was 7am, I had the window open, and that morning light that pours over the houses we back onto looked perfect for just drawing the shadows, so I just painted this quickly. Max Verstappen won the Grand Prix, as he always does now. We had doughnuts, and despite not feeling well, it was nice to be back on our couch, watching the racing.

do something pretty while you can

July 24, 2023July 22, 2023Leave a comment

To finish off the batch of sketching that I did in Davis between my UK visits, here are a bunch of lunchtime drawings from UC Davis of places that all kind of look the same. Some of them are the same place, just different sides of the building. The one above is the Bike Barn; the one below is the other side of it. I’ve drawn all these before, nothing to add really.

Why do I sketch? I ask myself this all the time. Well not all the time, but every now and then. And I might have a different answer each time if anyone asks. The answer itself may evolve over the years, but the actual reason never does. Do I question myself, question my need to sketch all the time? Yep, absolutely. It’s why I like urban sketching symposia and sketchcrawls and those things, because it’s helpful to meet other people who sketch, learn why they do it, not feel so bad for needing to sketch all the time myself. Sketching does relax me, helps me stop and focus. It can frustrate me too, when I hit those walls of “all my sketches look the same” or “why can’t I make it feel a bit more effortless?” but sometimes when it hits exactly what you want it to and doesn’t take very long, I feel amazing afterwards and feel like I can accomplish anything. I do love drawing; I sometimes feel like I am too obsessed with it, when I get irritable because I’ve not been able to sketch, or if I have three pages left in my sketchbook but really want to fill them with something interesting, and not just of the same buildings near work or stuff around my house, or the living room. One of the reasons I draw is to capture a moment in time. “To remember, in case someday I forget” is how I have put it in the past. So with this in mind, all of these drawings from campus maybe reflect a bit of that. The ones above, look they look like several other sketches I have done of those buildings before. But what if next year they put new signs up, or replace all those flowers with bike racks? This sort of thing’s happened, and my old sketches show the area how it used to look. The one below has part of the under-construction new wing of the Chemistry building in it, already looking slightly different to how I drew it in the sketch in the previous post. It will look different again in six months. The are to the left looked different just a couple of years ago. This was also sketched on the first day of Commencement, the graduation ceremony days, and walking by in the left is a professor in their black professorial robes, you can tell what time of year it is because of that.

I do question myself though, what if I just stopped and told myself I didn’t need to sketch any more? Or not sketch as much, just sketch occasionally and not worry about filling up all these books? Spend more time thinking about other things. I do use the time during sketching to think though. I also listen to podcasts, audiobooks, music. When sketching the building below – K. Esau Science Hall, which I don’t think I’d sketched before – I was listening to the audiobook of Lockwood and Co (just finished that series, it was very good), and I finished this whole sketch in my lunchtime, and that felt pretty good. Besides, I sketch in my spare time so that I can keep my skills up, so whenever I do a drawing for money those skills just roll right back out. My style looks like me, I always try to make improvements or rather move towards how I want the drawings to look, while balancing the fact that this is how my eyes see, my hands draw, and often a drawing is reflection of how I physically and mentally am at any given moment. If I’m uncomfortable when I draw, it comes out. This world is a crazy and overwhelming place, so many issues and terrifying things vying for my attention, politically things seems to be dragging towards horrible again (or the horrible lot would have us believe), and I know there is good in the world, it’s just that I need to go into my sketchbook sometimes to focus my mind on what’s right in front of me.

I dunno. There may come a time when my hands go, or my eyesight packs in (on our way there, lads!), or the supreme court makes it illegal to draw pictures of fire hydrants, or whatever. I have not been active in the social media sketching groups, the Facebook groups and what not, though I post on the Instagram and still occasionally on that Twitter (and I still post all my stuff on Flickr like it’s 2007), I’m not all in with the groups any more. I just write and focus here mostly, like when I started, before Urban Sketchers. I’m less visible these days I guess, and I’m ok with that, I’m just getting on with the act of being a mostly-daily but always obsessed urban sketcher, telling my little stories, written to myself.

Next up, sketches and stories from the June trip back to England, as well as eight days in Scotland. I have more stories to tell. Then there’s a load of drawings from my day out in San Francisco last weekend, avoiding the heat, searching for the last few pints of Anchor Steam in the world. I’ll probably need a rest after wall this, but as it stands I’m still a couple of pages from finishing Sketchbook #47, and I like to finish a sketchbook in good time, so I can’t rest until it’s done. I need to catch up with the scanning though…

Chemistry Building latest news

July 23, 2023July 21, 2023Leave a comment

I have this compulsion to draw the construction projects on campus – it gives me something sort-of new to draw, and I can pretend I have some sort of special purpose or something, like I’m some sort of official documenter of change on this campus, when really I’m just obsessed with filling my sketchbook and find drawing relaxing. When I get a good lunchtime sketch done I feel satisfied and it propels me to be productive for the rest of the day. That’s what I tell myself anyway, but I remember noticing that in times when I was super busy at work, I also got more sketching done in my spare time than at other times of the year. Like in some Januarys, always one of the busiest times of the year, I would be drawing these big panoramas almost daily. Anyway, this is yet another update of the Chemistry Building’s new wing. As I write, the whole thing is now covered in orange. They covered it in green, then in orange, and the end result will be white, so the Irish flag is fully involved in this one. Incidentally, when I was in Scotland I witnessed some of the Orange marches for the first time ever, both in Edinburgh and in Glasgow, that was interesting (but nothing to do with the Chemistry building). I’m not sure when this building’s construction will be fully done, but rest assured there will be a sketch of it posted on this site, because I can’t help myself can I.

You can see the rest of the in-construction sketches of the Chemistry building, and all previous ones pre-reonovation, at: https://petescully.com/tag/chemistry/.

davis world cup 2023

July 22, 2023July 21, 2023Leave a comment

I got back to the US in time to take part in the organizing committee for the 2023 Davis World Cup. We handled the gear, medals, pins, logos, website, etc. I had done most of my work (which was the design) some time ago, but while I was away the stickers, medals, pins and t-shirts had arrived. The Davis World Cup is a youth soccer tournament that has been going for many years, involving teams from regions across northern California aged from U10 to U19. I started designing the logos in 2019, having coached a team in the 2018 tournament. I do spend a lot of time trying to come up with ideas, trying to make them a bit different (so many tournaments use a pretty bog-standard vector logo these days, some variation of a shield and a ball). I wanted this year’s to be very different to the round retro Top of the Pops style logo I did for 2022 (which was just the 2020 logo re-used since 2020 was cancelled), have an actual player on it (non-gender specific, and I could change the kit – the main design had a Brazil kit), and make it look fun, make it look like an event which is for the kids. I have a new logo already thought up for next year, a different retro style, but I was really pleased with the 2023 logo and it gave me a lot to play with. The design above is the one we sued for the colourful stickers each player received. They also got metal pins; although we did not provide t-shirts this year, they could buy those from the on-site vendors.

I didn’t sketch much at the tournament (I was all sketched out from the London trip), but I did draw a quick one at a game we went to check out at Nugget Field. I didn’t watch many games this time at all in fact, and my own son’s team wasn’t taking part. Still it is always great helping to make this fun tournament happen every year, and I’m glad to have been able to create a look for it that I think was pretty popular. Here are the two main versions used on the t-shirts, one of which has a Mexico style kit:

Learn more about the Davis World cup at: https://www.davisworldcup.org/. We’ll be back in 2024!

temperature’s rising

July 21, 2023July 21, 2023Leave a comment

This is a big motorcycle in front of the Varsity Theatre in Davis, drawn in the period between trips to the UK. I was pretty busy in those interstitial weeks, work-wise, but I got some sketching done. Got to fill those sketchbooks. This was early June. Now it is mid-July and the temperatures are all up in the 107s, which is really oppressive. We are having our air-conditioning system replaced tomorrow, on one of the hottest days of the year, because our current one has been leaking. Not a lot, but enough to be a worry. It’s really old (it’s from the 1970s apparently, one of the oldest left in the units in our neighbourhood) but has worked well for so long, previous occupants never needed to replace it. It’s overdue though, and the new one will hopefully be a lot more energy efficient. Very expensive to replace though; the fun of homeownership. You cannot live without air-conditioning in Davis, or anywhere in the California central valley. This place gets super hot. I remember my first summer here, 2006, it was the hottest I had ever been. I was working in the evenings at the Avid Reader bookshop on 2nd Street, very close to where this was drawn, and there were power outages in parts of town so people were going out in the evenings to wherever had cool air-conditioning. So our little bookshop was packed. It was a community event, almost. I don’t remember if we sold a lot of books on those evenings but I spoke to a lot of locals. Now the building across the way, the historic Varsity Theatre, that has the distinction of being the first building in Davis open to the public that had air-conditioning. We have been freezing our butts off in cinemas ever since. Speaking of cinemas, or movie theaters as they prefer to say here, one of the other two in Davis closed recently. Those other two are Regal cinemas, often showed the same films, and were just a couple of blocks away from each other. It was the one I liked to go to that closed, unfortunately, the one with better stadium seating, and hardly ever anyone there. I’ve definitely been to see films there where I have been the only person, which is great for me, but not really solid business. No wonder their sodas are so expensive, it’s the only way they can stay afloat.