ten years later

November 1, 2018November 1, 20183 Comments

On a corner of Old North Davis is a house I drew at the end of a crisp sunny October day in 2008. I remember I left work early that day, and cycled up beyond 5th Street, still then a fairly unknown country for a South Davis-dweller such as me, to the Old North neighbourhood, looking to capture some of its old America charm with the autumnal leaves. That sketch is below. I then posted that sketch on the brand new website called ‘Urban Sketchers’, on day 1 of the blog, for which I was to be the ‘Davis’ correspondent. The header of Urban Sketchers upon its launch featured one of my sketchbooks with sketches of San Francisco. In those days Urban Sketchers, the brainchild of Seattle-based sketcher Gabi Campanario, online sketching friend back when our online sketching community still seemed pretty small, had a few correspondents from around the world but grew fast, issuing a Manifesto and encouraging communities of sketchers to get together and draw their world, or rather ‘see the world, one drawing at a time’. It launched on November 1st, 2008; a decade later Urban Sketchers (USk) is absolutely huge, with countless regional ‘chapters’ globally, many many workshops and gatherings, and the annual International Urban Sketching Symposium, which started in Portland in 2010 (with around 80 participants) and was most recently in Porto in 2018 (with around 800 participants!). So, to commemorate my first post on that first day, I went back to that corner of Old North Davis, a much more familiar district to me now, being on my way home, and sketched that same old house, above. The tree in front has gone, though another younger tree has sprouted up just behind the fence. Obviously in 2008 the leaves turned orange a little earlier than this year. My son was just a little baby. George W. Bush was still president; Barack Obama would be elected a week later. Spurs had just sacked their manager Juande Ramos (after our worst ever start to a league campaign, 1 point in 10 games; think about that, when we’re complaining now about having only 21 points from 10 games) and replaced him with Harry Redknapp. How times have changed. Me, I’m still drawing the rise and fall of trees.

You can see the post I put on Urban Sketchers today at: http://www.urbansketchers.org/2018/11/a-decade-on.html

class of 18

October 31, 2018October 31, 2018Leave a comment

This is another view of A Street in Davis. When I say ‘A Street’ I don’t mean ‘a street’, I mean obviously it’s ‘a street’, but this is ‘A’ Street, like when you emphasize ‘The’ and pronounce it as ‘Thee’ like it’s the only one you need to consider. Ok enough of that. I have sketched this scene before over the years but not looking quite like this. That textbook store has been closed for ages, but that ‘Class of 18’ graffiti is new. Unless it’s from 1918 which it isn’t. Bit of roadwork going on here, a few bins. A lunchtime sketch drawn after a meeting. This will look different next time I draw this corner.

sketching the sketchers at uc davis

October 27, 20181 Comment

Last Saturday was the latest edition of the monthly Davis sketchcrawl “Let’s Draw Davis!”, back after its summer hiatus. The next one will be mid-November sometime. We had a good turn-out, and I started it off by inviting everyone to draw each other in a ‘portrait party’. Sketching sketchers is fun. I wanted them to be five-minute people sketches, quick as possible, and for the most part they were, but there was a lot of conversation. Did a LOT of talking! One person I was delighted to meet was Robert Regis Dvorak, who I had not met before and is a real art inspiration to talk to. It seemed like everybody (no exaggeration!) had been to one of his workshops over the years, he’s a really well known figure and art teacher. I should read his books sometime. He runs workshops and sketching tours all over, not just here in California but around the world. Nice guy as well. It was also a pleasure to meet and speak with Misuk Goltz (I thought she told me her name was Misuka when I was talking to her but others told me it was Misuk Goltz), she is also a well known artist. I was writing down things they told me but forgot to write that she was about to go and spend six months in Mongolia with her husband, which sounds really interesting.

We were in the study lounge of the Memorial Union, which has lots of places to sit and sketch others. I was trying to flit about and speak with different people. Above is Cindy, who I was initially sketching with her head turned to the side (hence the hair outline over the face) but changed when she changed view. Next to her is Alex, who works in video, and we talked a bit about stop motion animation. I’ve been doing some of that again lately. Maybe I’ll show you some, though it’s not showing-in-public-worthy just yet.

Above are Lynn Cohen, who I had actually met a few years ago when she bought one of my drawings at a show, she was very friendly and wore pants decorated with prints of her own sketches which was pretty cool. Then there was Dawn Pedersen, who wore a t-shirt from ‘Sketch-Con’ which is an event happening in Pasadena, I had never heard of it but it’s from Danny Gregory and Sketchbook Skool. I know a lot of the instructors in Sketchbook Skool and I’ve not met Danny in person but corresponded with him when I was in one of his books (An Illustrated Journey), so it sounds like something I’d like to go to, however I am coaching a team at a soccer tournament that weekend so can’t make it. By the way, our team which had started well lost 12-2 last week and 9-1 today, oh well. The last person I sketched there was Jay, who had a pocket full of Micron pens.

Above are AJ Tauber, who is part of the Oahu Urban Sketchers (and has been to the Davis sketchcrawls before), showing us her sketchbook at the final gathering; I sketched this one super-fast. There is also Rick Karban, an entemologist at UC Davis who had recently been in England at a sketching workshop from Roisin Cure. He was interesting to talk to, particularly from the point of view of someone who’s been in Davis a long time now and seen all the changes. And finally, below, Freeborn Hall, which I sketched while chatting to sketchers at the MU. I had to draw at least one building, but I sketch so many UCD buildings (as regular followers will probably have noticed) that there was no rush for me to sketch a few more, sketching and chatting to people was more fun. I always get that feeling though after talking to lots of people, I hope I didn’t talk too much nonsense. Especially as I was encouraging people to write down what the people they were sketching were saying. Be careful what you say, it’ll end up in the sketch!

You can see what some others sketched by visiting the Let’s Draw Davis Facebook group page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/383785982124525/

waiting for green curry fried rice

October 26, 2018October 26, 20182 Comments

Thai Canteen on E Street, Davis, one of many Thai eateries in our town. I sketched this while waiting for my green curry fried rice to arrive. It was worth the wait.

bum bum

October 25, 2018October 25, 20181 Comment

This is another scene from UC Davis, showing the side of the huge Shields Library, with the metallic sculpture called “Bum Bum, You’ve Been Here Before”, which is by the artist Tio Gianbruni. I don’t think it’s ever appeared in any of my campus sketches before. There’s a lot of public art on campus, many sculptures. We’re a campus with a rich history of sculpture. ‘Bum Bum’ is found near the Arts Annex. I drew this in dark green pen. I like the dark green. Those red flowers make it feel like Spring, but it’s very much Fall. Mornings are getting cooler, though daytimes are still very much sunny and in the 80s. Shields Library is named after Peter J Shields, son of an Irish emigrant and Gold Rush rancher, who was one of the founders of UC Davis. When I first moved to Davis, before I was working at the university, I would come to the library and read medieval language books, riding on the back of my recent studies in the subject, though I never carried on. Shields is massive. Lots of places to read in peace. I miss spending hours on end in university libraries, doing research as best I could. My undergrad was spent in the large library at Queen Mary in London, which was always busy but had a great video library section (I did a course in German film). My Masters was spent mostly in the quiet corners of the Maughan Library on Chancery Lane, one of the main libraries for King’s College London, and I spent many hours every day there (though my best friend worked on the same street and there was a pub right across the road). I also spent a great deal of time in the medieval literature corners of the huge Senate House library, the central library of the University of London, near Russell Square. That really became a home from home while writing my MA dissertation (about the antagonism between English and French in the middle ages). In addition to Middle English and Old French I studied a fair bit of Old English (particularly the alliterative poetry, much of which I’ve forgotten now), Old Gothic (Wulfila and his bible), Old Saxon (the Heliand), and Old High German (Althochdeutsch; I did read the actual Abrogans, the oldest thing in German, at the beautiful Stiftsbibliothek library at the Abbey of St.Gallen in Switzerland) (I love telling people that) (makes me sound clever). Now, I draw pictures, and remember library time and dictionaries of languages I never learnt properly.

you took your last chance once again

October 12, 2018October 12, 2018Leave a comment

This is Guilbert House, on A Street in Davis. Not any street, but A Street. I don’t just mean ‘a street’, no I mean the street is named after the letter ‘A’, or at least I presume it’s named after the letter ‘A’, unless it is named after a famous person who was just called ‘A’, like ‘Q’ from James Bond or ‘T’ who played ‘B.A.’ in the A-Team (who were not just ‘a team’, etc and so on). I like to think of myself as a man of letters. I have sketched this building before you will be flabbergasted to hear, after over a decade in Davis I do on occasion draw the same thing more than once. This town isn’t very big. So, this is another lunchtime sketch, with colour added afterwards.

get fresh on the weekday

October 7, 2018October 8, 20183 Comments

The start of the Academic Year at UC Davis always brings busy times. I like it; after the long hot summer it’s nice to have all the people back. A lot of people, a lot of new cyclists, a lot of young drivers. People dress well in those first couple of weeks, dressed to impress new classmates. All the sorority houses along Russell that I cycle past are bursting with outfits and hairstyles. I haven’t been downtown much lately but this is also when people go out to restaurants and bars in huge groups; they’ve all just met each other and don’t know who will be their best buds yet. This is what I’ve seen over the years in this college town. By about November the cycling crashes will slow down, the homework sets in, the leaves become crispier. On this day though in the first week of classes I sat in the shade by the food trucks at the Silo and sketched this temporarily located Peet’s Coffee truck which was busy offering people a free cup. I don’t drink coffee, and I also spell ‘Pete’ properly (this must be another American spelling like ‘color’ and ‘aluminum’). It was nice though to see something new at the Silo, something different to sketch. ‘Cold Brew’, I suppose this is some sort of cold coffee? I don’t know. That large ‘Nitro’ looks like a beer. In fact not knowing that this was Coffee I might assume this was a beer truck, if such a thing were allowed on campus. Brings me back to British universities, those first weeks of the academic year there, now they had a lot of beer on campus. In many UK unis the campus is built around the pub. The student union bar at my old uni, Queen Mary, was the Draper’s, and I remember back to 1997, that place would get messy. None would get so drunk as the rugby team though, going there on a Wednesday night you’d see the players there, large heavy-shouldered public-school types (America: ‘public’ school in England means ‘private’ school, yeah our language makes no sense occasionally), vomiting into buckets while stood on the table and then carrying on drinking. ‘Fresher’s Week’ is what we call the first week of the university year, ‘Freshers’ being like ‘Freshmen’ in the US (just less gender-specific). God I’m glad I’m not back in those days.

panoramtrakstation

September 26, 2018September 26, 20183 Comments

Saturday afternoon and I needed to sketch more. Yes yes I have drawn everything in town and want a new perspective on the same things, I am not feeling super creative right now though, and finding little comfort in the usual sketching, i suppose I am just in need of another long journey somewhere far away with lots of interesting streets and angles, somewhere like Porto for example (but maybe without the tired legs). There are still views to discover here though. I have drawn the Amtrak station before, of course I have but never while stood behind that circular fountain feature outside of Tres Hermanas on 2nd St. So that is what I stood and drew, while listening to a History podcast (two guys talking about the extraordinary history of ordinary things, such as the ‘history of the lean’, or the ‘history of clouds’, a really fresh perspective not only on history but on observing the world and universe itself – the sort of thing I should really be thinking about more, in fact you might say it has inspired me to think more like that, or rather, it’s inspired me to do that tomorrow. Next week). I needed a panorama. I must say I am using the softcover Stillman and Birn ‘Alpha’ landscape sketchbook and, while I do love the paper, I can’t wait to be done with this book. The softcover is starting to bug me. I need the hardback again. My next cued-up book is another Seawhite of Brighton book, then I’ll likely use the hardcover Alpha again. The softcover is fine if I’m sat at a table, and its slightly smaller scale means I can draw a panorama more quickly than in the slightly bigger hardcover. The way I stand though, it becomes awkward keeping it open, especially as I get further into the book. So, I’m looking forward to finishing it, which means I need to draw a lot more.

I’d really like to publish a book of Davis panoramas, that’s my intention. I’ve not worked that out yet, but I do have quite a few already. To see this one more closely, either move your face really close to the screen, or click on it and a larger version will pop up.

45 degrees at the university of beer

September 21, 2018Leave a comment

This is another view of the University of Beer in Davis, California. I was there at the end of August, as I needed to go downtown to spend some time in the Avid Reader bookshop. I haven’t been in there in a while, and was in the mood where I just wanted to look through all the literature on the shelves. I bought a copy of ‘War of the Worlds‘; I’ve never read ‘War of the Worlds’, and when I opened the book the first word I saw was ‘Edgware’ so it was a sign I needed to read it. I actually worked in the Avid Reader years ago, when I first came to Davis. I still love the smell of the books. I thought about sketching in there, I haven’t done that in a very long time, but it was getting late so I went and sketched this bar a block away. I had wanted to add more colour, but was taking so long drawing. I had a couple of very nice beers there though. This was a test of perspective, with vanishing points at 45 degrees, and some curvilinear lines. Wonky in places (nothing to do with the tasty beverage, more to do with the tedium of drawing long lines. There seemed to be a fair bit of 1990s music being played. Including that utterly tedious Two Princes song that was on the radio constantly in 1993. This bar is pretty typical of Davis – busy at some points, almost empty at others, then a bit busy again, then very few again, so I drew whoever was standing or sitting when I looked in that particular part of the space; I suppose I drew the average number of players. University of Beer; see also the ‘College of Cider’, the ‘School of Shandy’, the ‘Polytechnic of Porter’, the ‘Institute of Inebriation’, the ‘Academy of Ale’, etc and so on.

and so, september

September 14, 2018September 14, 2018Leave a comment

The first day of the AYSO Fall soccer season, and my son’s game was being played later in the afternoon on this hot Saturday. Also, the Nations League – the new competitive international competition – had just started and England were going to play Spain. So before this feast of football I took myself down to the Farmers Market to do a little morning sketching. I drew in black, and added the colour with a little bit of coloured pencil. It’s been a while since I sketched here, and said hello to a few locals I know, and ate a nice pain-au-chocolat. Speaking of football, I have not yet done my annual MS Paint inspired run-down of the Premier League kits. I’ve been busy this summer, still trying to catch up. So it’s nice to come down and do a bit of sketching.