uncage the colours, unfurl the flag

May 12, 20128 Comments

Here is another of the drawings I did for the Garden Tour last week. There were already two other artists in the garden painting this part of it, so I joined them after a while to draw this colourful section. The garden I was in at the home of a well travelled lady – Ms. Gilardi – originally from Middlesex, which was nice, as so am I. The little red bridge had been freshly painted, and the pond had a fake bird next to it, presumably to ward off real birds who may try to swipe the fish. I don’t really know my plants – I can tell a daffodil from a cactus but that’s about it – but there were lots of many different plants. Ms. Gilardi has only lived there for five years, but in that time has produced an incredible garden. Along the outside fence is a row of gaily painted bicycles, one of which I had drawn before (this one, back in January). Most visible, and popular among local Davisites, is her tall flagpole, which sports a different flag each day. She keeps all of her flags hanging on hooks beside her house, diligently labelled. On this day the flag was of particualr meaning to her, being of the place where her family originally came. Can you guess the flag? (I’ve always wanted to go there!)

I drew this on the Strathmore hor press watercolour paper, with a pigma micron and watercolours.

“are you ready to dance dance davis?”

May 8, 20121 Comment

If you’re in downtown Davis tomorrow at about 6:15pm, keep a look out – there will be dancers!

“Dance Dance Davis”, a community based dance project led by Shelly Gilbride, will take place as a flashmob, a very large flashmob, tomorrow May 9th at 6:15pm, somewhere in downtown Davis. Shelly, who is coordinating the project with her own PDA: Public Dance Acts along with the UC Davis Institute for Exploration in Theater, Dance and Performance, invited me to document the event with some sketches, and so this past week I attended a couple of rehearsals with sketchbooks in hand, and though I wasn’t dancing myself, wow what a workout!
The first one I attended was at the Davis Art Center (now only five minutes from my house!). Most of those in attendance had no experience of dancing, but had plenty of enthusiasm. Shelly eased them into it painlessly with some simple warm-ups, before moving into the pre-prepared dance choreography. Now when I say pre-prepared, this is the fun part – every single move was ‘crowd-sourced’, that is, not just inspired by but actually created by the people of Davis. Going around town, Shelly would stop people and ask them to strike a pose, a gesture, perhaps one that reminded them of Davis. Each was noted and woven together, and as she taught the attendees at rehearsal she reminded them, this dance is written by the people of Davis, by you.
Everybody was made to feel comfortable, to feel part of something. This is exactly what I like to see in community based art projects – dance is not only the realm of your Barishnikovs and your Swan Lakes, it’s something everyone can have fun with. Like I say, I wasn’t dancing because I was sketching, but with all that energy around me I was as good as dancing. Using the smoother paper of my large Moleskine (the ‘Paul Wang’ one, my ‘big ideas’ book) I let my pens do the dancing and sketched as quickly as I could. I am used to things standing still (fire hydrants, etc) so it was nice to let myself go.

The final rehearsal was on Monday evening at the Mondavi Center. There must have been 200 people there, dancers of all ages from the quite young to the nearly old. There were cupcakes and cookies and this time the band, Jenny Lynn and her Real Gone Daddies, who played live. One young girl said to them, “you sound just like the CD!” The song they play for the dance piece is upbeat, bouncy, and very catchy, I could draw to it all day.
The rehearsal went quickly, and abounded with enthusiasm. Perhaps some will feel nervous when dancing at the flashmob around unsuspecting members of the public, but with so many others doing the same I wouldn’t be surprised if people just started joining in. The flashmob location was revealed (I think a lot of people had guessed it), and everyone went home, to reconvene at that ‘secret location’ by 6:15 on Wednesday…

“Dancers getting in step for flashmob” (Davis Enterprise)

PDA: Public Dance Acts (Facebook)

it’s not big but it is kleiber

May 3, 2012May 3, 20122 Comments

Another lunchtime sketch, braving the pollen (allergies are really bad this week) but more importantly, braving the squirrel. I sat beneath a tree besides the bike racks to draw Kleiber Hall (or half of it; I must master that trick of turning the page sideways to fit more in) when along came a squirrel. Nothing unusual about that, but this one seemed, I don’t know, determined. I thought it might be after my mint M&Ms (which are, I must confess, bloody amazing), but it wasn’t aftre food. It kept creeping right up to me from every angle, a look of indignance and annoyance on its face, like an Englishman who has been rudely queue-jumped but won’t actually say anything. No amount of shooing, chasing, stamping my feet, making vague threats was going to get this squirrel away. I was worried it might have rabies, except it was obviously competely sane, even if I appeared not to be. This furry thing was fearless. It took me a while to realise it was just territorial and that it owned the tree I was sat near (it had a Monopoly card to prove it, and I think the rent included nuts), so despite informing this squirrel about my rights to sit and sketch beneath any public tree I damn well please, I gave in and moved to the shade of a different tree. The squirrel, all pleased with himself, immediately leapt into his tree and sat on a branch like a little lord. Like he couldn’t have done that anyway!!

Next time I’ll draw the squirrel. If I’m brave enough.

look around, round, round

April 29, 2012April 30, 20122 Comments

(Click image to see larger size)
Here is something I drew a while ago (Martin Luther King Jr Day, in January, hence the flags), in my panoramic accordion sketchbook, but did not scan and stitch together until now. I sat out there for a couple of hours, followed by another hour or so on a day later that week, and just sketched and turned and curved as best I could. It’s a good exercise, but tricky all the same. It looks even more different now it’s on a computer screen. The plan is to fill the whole book with similar scenes from Davis as the seasons change. Other seasons may be more colourful, but this represented sunny winter. There is a detail below. All drawn on an accordion sketchbook from Cass Arts in London in uniball vision micro pen.

student community center

April 20, 2012April 20, 20122 Comments

A newer building on campus, the new Student Community Center, opposite the Silo. Sketched yesterday lunchtime. There has been a lot of redevelopment in this part of campus since I came to Davis. Drawn with a copic fineliner (fairly well used) in the gamma S&B sketchbook. Decided against colour.

The weather is heating up, it was 88 degrees in Davis yesterday and very warm at night. Picnic Day – tomorrow – will be a warm one this year…

quick draw first street

April 19, 2012April 19, 20121 Comment

Needed a quick sketch yesterday lunchtime after chowing down at Habit Burger, a place which does great big chicken burgers for sure but they don’t half like talking and repeating back everything that you have ordered (including pointing out the things that you did not order like teriyaki sauce) both when you order and when you pick it up. Handy for some, I’m sure, but I’m not a patient man, I just want to pay and eat. They are quick to make it though, and boy it is good when you get it, so you want to savour it. All of which means I have a smaller window to sketch within. Still you can get a lot of information across in a short amount of time. I stood opposite Firts Street Real Estate, a building I’ve never drawn but is very sketchworthy, and scribbled along in purple pen, adding some colour, the whole thing took about 20 minutes before I had to run back to the office.

dog and bone

April 17, 20125 Comments

Remember when we used to use public phones? God, we were dumb! Putting our coins in, talking for a bit, putting more coins in, hunting woolly mammoth; it’s so much better now we live in the future with our iPhones and blueteeth and hoverboards. There is a living relic of this ancient past on G Street, complete with a ‘phonebook’ (which doesn’t even have a search box, and people have clearly been writing their names on it to try). I have been meaning to draw this for a while, so I drew it during the sketchcrawl on G Street last Saturday. This being a historic neighbourhood, I can imagine it being used by early farm settlers, gold prospecters, maybe even local Native American tribes (before the invention of the smoke-signal app, obviously). I drew this in the Stillman and Birn gamma sketchbook, with a Micron pen and Cotman watercolours, and it took a little under an hour.

dome sweet dome

April 12, 2012April 12, 20122 Comments

Here’s an example of a drawing I did ages ago, and for some reason or other forgot to post: the Domes at Baggins End, Davis. Built in 1972, there are fourteen in total, a cooperative stduent housing community. I sketched here at the end of July, the last week in which people were living in these strange Tatooinesque buildings, or so it was thought at the time. Just a week later they were empty, uninhabited for the first time in thirty years. Nobody here but us chickens (and there are quite a few chickens; as I sketched, they gathered around me to take a look, and peck the ground at my feet). Last academic year, the UC Davis powers-that-are decided that the Domes were not fit for habitation, and declared they would not renew any leases. As you might imagine, the Domes residents past and present were none too pleased. A ‘Save the Domes’ campaign was begun, plans were put in place, and eventually they won, and the Domes were once more open for new leases. As of Spring 2012 many improvements have been made, to both the site and the Domes themselves, and this most Davis part of Davis lives on! I must go back and draw again some time.

Find out more about the Domes at daviswiki.

first sketches in my new neighbourhood

April 8, 2012April 9, 201210 Comments

Happy Easter! And finally, some sketches. I moved across town, a move which coincided with an extremely busy work period, all of which meant lots of tiredness and little time to sketch. Well yesterday afternoon, a week after moving in, I carved out some time to explore my new area of North Davis. After six years south of I-80 I am now looking at Davis from a different angle. This means I get to explore parts of town I never got around to seeing before. I started with the unusual building on the corner of Oak Avenue (not street as I said below) and Covell, part of the Our Faith Lutheran Church. It has a funny little lookout perched atop it like a crow’s nest. Well, why not? There is another one in the gardens, just sat there by itself. Mysteries of architecture.

More conventional is the main church itself, a little further down Oak. I drew the sign, then crossed the street to draw the building. There is the Moleskine spread below. Feels good to be back in the sketchbook! And there is a lot more neighbourhood to draw…

By the way, tomorrow (well it’s today now, Monday April 9th) is the fourth anniversary of petescully.com! (It is also seven whole years since the original one began, while sat in the basement of the Maughan Library on Chancery Lane) Happy blogiversary!

(And it’s also my little sister Lauren’s birthday too; Happy Birthday!)

let’s draw g street!

April 6, 2012April 6, 2012Leave a comment

No posts for a while; I haven’t been off the map exactly, I have just moved across it, a little. Being so busy and moving house as well means the sketchbooks have been packed away, but they are eager to get back out and filled up again. So next Saturday, April 14th, why not join the sketchers of Davis for another “Let’s Draw Davis!” sketchcrawl!

This time we will sketch along G Street, in the historic heart of Davis.

START: 10:30am, corner of 2nd and G st

FINISH: 3:00pm, outside Davis Co-Op, 6th & G st

As always, this event is free and open to anybodu who likes to sketch. You can come for the whole sketchcrawl, or just for a little while, it’s all about getting out and sketching our town. At the end, participants will show each other their sketchbooks, which is always really fun. All you need is something to draw with and something to draw on!

(Please note: the 35th Worldwide Sketchcrawl is a week later, on April 21st, but I decided to avoid putting the sketchcrawl then because that is the same day as the UC Davis Picnic Day. But check out the Sketchcrawl Forums to see if there are any sketchcrawls near you, I think there may even be one in Davis or at least the Sacramento area)

Let’s Draw Davis April 14th: Facebook Event

http://letsdrawdavis.wordpress.com