Tottenham Hotspur beat Arsenal today, 2-1. To those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry, this isn’t a post about the footy/soccer, but I just wanted to say that. AVB very much In. Anyway… this is a desert agave, sketched at the UC Davis Arboretum last week when, in my busy days of program reviews and mountainous inboxes, I really needed to go and draw something organic at lunchtime. The Arboretum has such an abundance of interesting foliage that I really am blessed it is mere steps from my office. In fact, the next Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl (I wasn’t able to organize one in February) will be at the Arboretum, I think. Saturday March 16th, from 11-3, starting at the Arboretum Terrace and ending at the Wyatt Deck. Details to be posted soon. In the meantime, I’m off to celebrate our victory in the North London Derby.
Tag: davis
space oddity
During the busy days it is even more important not to stop sketching regularly. It helps to focus and normalize your thoughts, if only for a short while. I must admit, despite being ridiculously busy in 2013 I am feeling quite sketchbook prolific, fitting them in when I can. The nice weather and wintery trees have helped enormously. I took two thirds of a lunchtime to sketch one more slice of 2nd St (continuing the block I have been sketching this month), with this picture of Odd Fellows Hall. This is a, well, um, they hold gigs here occasionally, I know that. I’ve never been in here, perhaps I’m not an odd enough fellow, though that is up for debate. I stood and sketched quickly, and added the colour later on at home. Anyway, like a Monopoly player I am busily ‘collecting’ my Davis street blocks, and this side is pretty much done, yeah just the end of this building but you get the idea. Here then is the (near) complete block:
I should draw the other side some time…
the head that wears the crown
I just realized that when I posted the drawing of the Antiques Plus building on D St the other day I went on about it being Presidents Day, when in fact it was just Sunday. Presidents Day was on the 18th, and on that day I cycled over to the other side of the park near where I live and drew St.James’s Parish Church. This modern building has been on my “oh yeah I forgot about that place, I should draw it some time” list for quite a while. Well, not without good reason, it’s interesting enough but a lot wider than I expected. I sat in the sun and scowled at the wind but now I have marked it off. There are a few more churches and religious buildings to draw in Davis, though not of particular architectural significance. This one, while not exactly the Sagrada Familia, at least has an unusual spire, almost like a modernized chess piece. It almost looks like Burnt Oak Library has been given a new crown (admittedly that will only really make sense if you are from Burnt Oak, which while some of you are, most of you are not, but as Alan Partridge might say, you get the general idea). This was sketched in brown uni-ball signo um-151 pen with Cotman watercolours in a watercolour Moleskine, one which is very nearly finished.
waiting for the moment to find me
Last Monday was Presidents Day. For those who don’t know, Presidents Day is, well, just a day off. Unlike British summer bank holidays, my experience of Presidents Day is usually nice sunshine, perfect for some urban sketching. I had it in mind to sketch bigger and slowly, take my time on the details, and after an hour and a half or so (without colouring) a big drawing of Dairy Queen, I moved on. I’ll post the DQ pic when it’s finished. What else to draw? I wasn’t sure. so much of Davis to sketch, but so much already sketched. Sometimes it is about catching a building at the right time of day. Well, I’ve drawn this a few times but never quite how I wanted to, but in this late winter afternoon sunshine the setting was just perfect. This is Antiques Plus, on D Street. I love this building, in fact most of these buildings in this little quarter of Davis are sketchworthy. I used Micron pen size 02, and the picture is larger than my usual sketchbook size, at around 8″x6″ or so, on Canson watercolour paper. Because the sun was going down, I had to do most of the colouring-in at home, with my trusty W&N Cotman set (and for me, it is ‘colouring-in’, really: I don’t consider myself a painter, I’m much more about the drawing, the linework, though I do vastly prefer the drawings to have colour as it brings them to life). On the right is the Pence Gallery, and on the left is the Mustard Seed. I’ve now drawn most of the buildings in this block too, just a few more to go…
Speaking of the Pence Gallery… exciting news, I will have a mini-show there on the wall of the stairwell this coming April. This may well be one of the pieces displayed!
and mark it with a pin
The weather is so nice these days that it’s hard not going out and sketching the whole time. I did manage some yesterday lunchtime though. I have wanted to sketch this downtown building for a while, and sketched the one next to it recently. These are the offices of Lyon Real Estates, and usually hidden behind trees, except on these nice Winter days when trees are bare. It still wasn’t easy though, with cars in the way, and I stood holding my sketchbook awkwardly trying to get it all in before the end of my all-too-brief lunch. Eventually I will have sketched all of 2nd St.
arty party
Last Friday, at the end of a ridiculously busy week, I went over to the Davis Art Center (helpfully located a few minutes from my house) for their latest “Arty Party”, organized by Shelly Gilbride and Ariana Rundqvist. It’s the second one, and there will be more so check out the Davis Art Center’s website (http://www.davisartcenter.org) for details. I sat down and started sketching people (something I enjoy more and more), starting with this couple Alex and Jon Bieda. While I sketched, well-known Davis artist Heidi Bekebrede, who was also sat at the table, sang the “Davis song”, a song about Davis which I think anyone who has lived here will certainly get (you can see a video of the song here on Youtube). Very cool to have it sung in person by its singer. I was going to sketch more people, but they all started drifting off, and Friday night was catching up with me, so I spent the rest of the evening talking urban sketching, Boal and art projects.
roll out the map
This building, on the corner of 2nd and C in Davis, is one I have drawn before, one which looks so much more interesting in the wintertime when no leaves are blocking the view. It houses the offices of Lyons realtors, I believe. I think I will draw the building next door as well, while the weather is so pleasant. I am starting to think more and more about joining up the dots in Davis and drawing every bit of this town, to be glued together in one contiguous massive sketch map. One other way to find all of my Davis sketches (or 250 recent ones, at least) is on my Davis Flickr map.
historia est vitae magistra
Here is another lunchtime sketch with my lovely brown pen. This is Hart Hall, UC Davis, one of the more historic buildings on campus. Many years ago it was the Animal Sciences Building. To me, it looks very Mediterranean, and with its cypress trees lining the entrance it reminds me of Rome, which was appropriate as I listened to an episode of the History of Rome podcast while sketching it (this sketch took about 20-25 minutes). I am getting very close to the end of that podcast series now, and I can heartily recommend it. Which one did I listen to while sketching this? The one about the Sack of Rome by Alaric and his Visigoths. There is a name for a classic album and a long-haired metal band if ever I heard one. Learning about Rome this past month or so has been very enlightening. When I first started working at UC Davis my former department chair told me that the organization of UC was modeled on the Roman Empire, and I can certainly understand what he meant. Now though, my desire to see Rome is greater than ever. You see, like Barcelona, it’s one city in Europe I have always yearned for but never actually went to, and now we live in the US it is, you know, quite a bit further away. Now though I would certainly sketch Rome a lot more than in the past, and when I think of sketching Rome I think of fellow Urban Sketcher Matthew Brehm, who travels to Rome each summer to teach location drawing to his students, check out his excellent work. As for the Rome podcast, at the time of writing Alaric is long dead, Rome has been sacked again, Attila and his Huns have come and gone, but Rome’s Western Empire still limps on, like a massive rock band (Augustus and his Caesars) that has long had its day but still plays in the odd pub and makes embarrassing appearances on “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here”, while the guitarist who left on creative differences (Constantinople and his Byzantines) continues to sell album after hit album for another thousand years. Rome, the city itself long irrelevant to the Empire, is nearly done with. Sure, one day the Pope will hold an audition for a new tribute band, eventually crowning Charlemagne (of ‘Charlemagne and his Franks’ fame) as lead singer. For me though, there are just a few podcasts left until the end, and I’ll miss it. So check out the History of Rome podcast, by Mike Duncan, available for free download on iTunes.
cooper house, just like that.
My second one from the afternoon of Martin Luther King day, this is Cooper House on 4th Street, one of the prettiest old buildings in downtown Davis. I have sketched it before, a few years ago, but have always wanted to come back when I had a bit more time to savor it, and in the later afternoon, when the light would wash the house beautifully, allowing the leafless branches to cast their long patterns. Or something to that effect. I stood outside the Chinese restaurant opposite (the Silver Dragon I believe it is called, I have never been there), and sketched away. I had my little stool, but I wanted to able to see over the cars parked on my side of the street. Downtown Davis was full of flags for MLK day, a public holiday for many people (myself included, but not all, as many workers were still at work. A woman who works in this building stopped and said hello as she passed. I understand (from Davis Wiki) that the Cooper House is about 80 years old or so, built in the old Georgian colonial style, and currently it is the workspace of therapists. Well let me tell you it was therapeutic to stand and draw this building. I don’t know who it is actually named after, some old landowner or farmer or someone, so in the interest of making things up I’m going to say that it is named after the late great comedian and magician, Tommy Cooper. Why not. That’s who I think of whenever I walk by.
And in the spirit of things, here is one of Tommy Cooper’s old jokes.
I went to the doctors. He said ‘I’d like you to lie on the couch’.
I said ‘What for?’
He said ‘I’d like to sweep the floor’
“may I have some of your tasty beverage to wash this down?”
Taking a lunchbreak during a very very busy work week, I walked down to a spot in the shade of the bike path near Old Davis Road to sketch once more the Robert Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine and Beer and All Sorts of Other Fun Stuff. I always forget the correct name but that’s what I call it, and I had a tour of the facility last summer, and it really is a very interesting place. They have very scientific wine tasting auditoria and are home to some of the best enologists in the world. Seriously, these guys know their stuff, and not just the enologists, but the other food researchers too. They know their beer too, and have a whole new section devoted to beer science.The wine in California goes without saying, of course, but I love the beer out here, as you may have guessed. Now back in England if I say American beer, most people I know will think Bud-bleurgh and other such nonsense. No, no one thing I can say is that Americans, especially out here in the West, really do know and love their brews. Anyway with thoughts of a nice cold one at the end of a week of cold mornings, sunny lunchtimes and hectic workdays, it was nice to relax and concentrate on all those lines and windows.
Funny to think, when I started working here, when I started sketching Davis, this building didn’t even exist. Now I see it every day, and I still like it.
petescully 