the cyclery on the corner

September 12, 2024September 12, 2024Leave a comment

Another downtown sketch of another downtown corner. Mid-August, the quieter days before the students all come back. I sketched on the corner of 3rd and F, looking at the bike shop called the ‘Davis Cyclery’. That reminds me, I need to get my bike tyre fixed. I have left it for ages now. I need to just bring it to a shop, or to the Bike Barn, but I put it off because it costs so much now, and I always feel (at least with the Bike Barn, less so with the shops downtown) that they always go on about other things I need to do with my bike, when it’s like all I want is the not have a flat tyre, thanks, everything else works fine. I want to be able to fix it myself, is the thing. So I gave it a go, I flipped my bike over and tried to remove the back wheel, and failed miserably. I watched YouTube videos, all different types of bikes, they just seem to pop it off like it was a piece of Lego, yet when I try it I could not get the thing off. It clearly does come off, but I have not figured out how. I feel like it’s the sort of thing I should know how to do. Maybe I could just go and ask someone to show me how to do it, but I’m not going to do that am I. (I hear Marcellus Wallace in my head, “That’s pride, f***in’ wit’ ya. F*** pride! Pride only hurts. It never helps.”) No, I’ll get it done at some point. In the meantime I have been walking a lot more, which is good for me anyway. I stood on the corner of the street near a fire hydrant I thought I had sketched before (it was actually a very similar one on 3rd and G, case of mistaken identity) outside the University of Beer, which now has pandemic-era patios out in the street. I needed to add people in, so I drew a couple of people as they crossed the street. Now when I draw people I keep it very generic and mix and match elements of whoever is passing by, so you get an idea of the type of people who are around rather than the actual people; I’m pretty sure the guy crossing the street wasn’t wearing a green shirt and was probably a lot taller, but definitely had that a beard and sunglasses, while the woman with black hair ended up with someone else’s red t-shirt and, well, someone else’s boyfriend too, because I wasn’t quick enough to draw whoever beard-guy was with, and I wasn’t quick enough to draw whoever black-haired-girl was with with, so they have ended up together, like a romantic comedy set in a sketchbook. Hopefully their respective partners don’t see this, recognize them and get the wrong end of the stick. “Honey those aren’t even my legs, I have tattoos!” “Who gave you that t-shirt, you weren’t wearing that when we had lunch!” While contemplating these fictional domestic dramas, I popped into the bar afterwards to rest my own legs and have a pint, though it has been a while since I used to go in there and sketch, and then I walked home.

the former Uncle Vito’s

September 11, 2024Leave a comment

Mid-August, E Street, Davis California. This was Uncle Vito’s Slice of N.Y., a pizzeria and bar that I used to come to occasionally (if you call about once a year or so ‘occasionally’) for a beer, but since the pandemic they have closed down and the spot stands empty. It’s always sad to see spaces sit empty (or stand empty, whatever the correct verb is, maybe it’s lie empty) but at least the amazing 1930s New York style mural along the E Street wall is still there in what I like to call colourful black and white. Some day another business will finally move in, a boba tea shop or a frozen yogurt shop and they will paint over this with some ugly pastel, and it will be a loss for Davis. Anyway, I needed to sketch one day, and I stood looking down E Street along the big mural down towards the contrasting colourful trees and panelling outside the Hotdogger. That violinist I don’t like much wasn’t there on the corner that day, but someone did start playing some music on the piano across the street. I listened to my football podcast, as the Premier League season was just starting later that week, though I was already bored of it even before a ball had been kicked. It’s already the international break now, England have a new interim manager, and as for Spurs already we have won, drawn and lost, not in that order, so our season will be another Spursy season. I would like to go to New York again. The last time I was there was for my 40th birthday, an increasingly long time ago now already. I want to go everywhere, but I always want to visit New York. Go back to Pete’s Tavern, I liked that place. As an urban sketcher, it’s one of the cities you can never be bored of sketching. I presume, anyway. If I lived there I’d probably be longing to go and sketch somewhere else, that is usually how it works with me. Right now, my travel itch is getting to me as I keep looking at Instagram and seeing people sketching places far away and wishing I could just get on a series of trains and explore with the sketchbook. I’d probably get tired, and need a rest. After a while sketching this, I had to go back to the office, and my legs were feeling stiff anyway, so I decided to finish it off later at home.

late July, downtown Davis

August 27, 2024Leave a comment

The Seawhite accordion sketchbook that I filled in the second half of July was very much a double A-side. The campus side, well that was We Can Work It Out, and the downtown side is Day Tripper. Or the other way round. The campus side is Strawberry Fields Forever, the downtown side is Penny Lane. Or maybe the downtown side is the B-side, the I Am The Walrus to the campus Hello Goodbye. No, it’s a double A-side, and this is side B of the double A-side. It starts off on 1st street with that big white Dutch gabled building I have drawn before. I realize now, this ain’t a double A-side, it’s an album, and clearly a greatest hits filled with old favourites (but surprisingly not the Bike Barn or the Silo). This is like the Red and Blue Albums condensed, all the greatest bits but for some reason no sign of I Saw Her Standing There.

Now I drew this out of order, not starting at the left and going right, but starting in the middle. In fact apart from that first one (which I drew last) I drew this all over the course of one weekend while my wife and son were out of town visiting family. The weather was suddenly a bit cooler after a really awful heatwave, so I took advantage. I went downtown on the Saturday afternoon and drew the Amtrak station below. I’ve never enjoyed drawing the train station, because those curves and arches always seem to get the better of me, but I had some shade and a big electrical box to lean on. You can see some haze in the sky, that was smoke from the Park Fire that was burning further up north. It didn’t end up drifting down this way thankfully, but it was a terrible fire. I drew this, and then went for dinner at Froggie’s.

You can’t have a series of downtown sketches without the Varsity Theatre slap bang in the middle of them. I spent the whole of the Sunday out there drawing, finishing off at home with the colour and hatching, and was quite tired by the end of it. You can see the poster for Deadpool and Wolverine in this picture in a couple of places, I had been to see that on the Saturday; fun, very silly, very violent. As you can see I’m using street signs and trees as dividers between the pictures. That’s something I did in the original 2010 accordion book. I think I’ve drawn the Varsity about 21 times now. I need to do an itemized list of which places in Davis I have drawn the most, and keep it like a league table.

Next up, the old City Hall, we’ve heard this song a few times too. It’s part of the restaurant / deli Mamma’s now, which I’ve still not been to.

And below, the old house on D Street in between the Pence and the Mustard seed, which I have drawn many times. It looks like it is called Mabel’s Market now, and I’ve not been in there yet. Ten years ago when it was an art studio and gallery space called Art-Is-Davis I took part in a small joint exhibition in there called Scene In Davis. That was a fun evening. I think the first time I sketched this place (in that 2010 accordion book) it was an Antiques shop.

And that’s your lot, I hope you liked this little tour through downtown. I did buy a second one of these sketchbooks which I will fill, not sure when.

the start of another long hot summer

August 5, 2024Leave a comment

I’ve done quite a lot of drawing since I got back from England, despite this awful heatwave we have had. July was perhaps the hottest on record. I did a lot of at-home drawing, not around the house itself (that was so 2020) but more drawings of places in London that I can put on the wall, not in the sketchbook, and I’ll show you those later. I have been getting out to sketch where I can though. Usually when I return from London I’m in a don’t-wanna-draw-Davis type of mood, but I needed to finish the sketchbook as I only had three pages left, so I went downtown and got working on them. The one above, that as you all know is the Varsity Theatre, sketched while stood in the shadier north side of 2nd Street. I liked how the faded red parasols stood out against the shaded cinema. This was the day before July the 4th, which was the day of the UK General Election, when the Tories were booted out after 14 years of misrule, and now everyone’s being nice to each other over there (checks news; oh). It was also in the middle of the Euros football tournament in Germany, where England got to the final and (remembers the game; oh). Still not talking about it. I’m still not talking about the Euro 2020 final either. It was hot, 102 degrees and rising, and it got way hotter the week after, hitting 116 at one point, July had more triple digits than the whole cast of the Simpsons (I had to think about that one, and I still don’t think it’s right) (Simpsons cartoon characters have three fingers) (no I don’t count the thumbs). I like the Varsity, it was the first building in Davis to have air-conditioning, so the stories say. The first film I ever saw in here was An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary by Al Gore about global warming (eighteen years later Al, we are living the dream!) and the most recent film I saw there was the 25th anniversary re-release of The Phantom Menace (love it). I like going to the movies. I also like drawing this building, this is probably my 20th time drawing the Varsity, and I’d draw it again later that month, because I’m nothing if not unoriginal.

The next one I drew was on the morning of July 7, that was a Sunday and Lewis Hamilton had just won the British Grand Prix (what a race! His team-mate George Russell had to retire his car, but at least was able to come back and grab a win at the Belgian Grand Prix a few weeks – oh). This is on E Street (That’s “On E Street”, not “One Street”, it’s not a typo), at Orange Court which I’ve drawn before. Name a place in Davis I haven’t drawn before. It’s less of a mission to draw everything in Davis now and more a joke repeated over and over. Though it was still only mid-morning, boy it was hot. In the end I went to Mishka’s and got a nice cold smoothie (or was it an ice-cold smoothie? One of the two). Still, I was pleased with the sketch. I’ve never eaten at the Dumpling House, but I have eaten at Sophia’s more times than I remember. The long hot summer starts.

“galliformia dreaming”

July 3, 2024July 2, 2024Leave a comment

I got up early the day I was flying to London, and went for a walk on the north Davis green belt. I had my sketchbook with me, so I drew this sculpture I have always liked, a dog laughing at a small turkey standing on a rock. It’s called “Galliformia Dreaming” by Jean Van Keuren, 2005, same year we moved to Davis. As I sketched, someone said to me, “you’re that sketching guy”, which I am. I should have been running on the green belt really, but I have been lazy with my running. I like living close on the north Davis green belt though. I went home and did some housework, repacking, and relaxed a bit before panicking about travelling, before flying down to LA and then on to London. I’m still scanning my sketches but I enjoyed working in this new format, rather than the usual panoramic.

friday evening down at the bull and mouth

July 2, 2024July 2, 2024Leave a comment

The day before I was flying to London, I had a very long day at work, trying to get as much done before travelling as I could. I would be doing a lot of work while in London too, but those would be in the hours before everyone got up, the 4am (sometimes 3am) wake-ups when the house was quiet and the wifi might work a little better. But that Friday was long, and I was feeling a bit stressed. This was my first trip back in a year and it really felt like a long year, a long time since seeing everyone. Anyway, I stopped at a moment I felt ok with, and realized it was already 8:30pm, so I went downtown to have dinner at Chipotle (that was , and popped into Bull’n’Mouth (the former De Vere’s) for a pint and a sketch, to wind down. It’s funny, I don’t know if it de-stressed me that much really, but it’s good to sketch, focus the eyes, breathe. I like drawing all the bottle shapes, though I don’t ever drink any of the things in them, never liked spirits. The beer was ok, I find I don’t really enjoys many beers as much these days; they didn’t have the Smithwicks I’d been hoping for, I guess. I drew fast. It wasn’t very busy in there, for a Friday evening at the tail end of the quarter. I finished up and went home to bed, or rather to repack my bags yet again, which I would do again in the morning. What to bring! I feel like I’ve packed lighter over the years and tried to carry less and less, yet my bag always feels like it’s really full.

through the gateway

June 30, 2024June 30, 2024Leave a comment

I started a new sketchbook, another watercolour Moleskine, but this time in portrait mode rather than landscape format. That’s a change for me; I’ve used so many landscape format sketchbooks, indeed in the ‘official’ numbering, I’ve had 50 which I use as my main sketchbook. I’ve used other portrait sketchbooks outside of the numbering, oh it gets complicated. But I have decided that this book will officially be number ’51’ in the list as my main sketchbook, and I will use portrait formats from now on, at least until I get bored and go back to landscape. None of this is even slightly important to you. But I like to categorize my books, and if you want to see them all listed in one place, go to the Sketchbooks page. Anyway, I wanted to start this one in Davis rather than on my London trip, so I sketched this sculpture on the UC Davis campus, the one on Mrak Lawn called “Shamash” (Guy Dill, 1982). It was bloody hot out, but nothing compared to how hot it’s going to be here this week. Oh I’m back in Davis, here comes the very long and very very hot summer. I need to go somewhere else now. I’ve sketched this gateway before. I have never walked through it, I don’t think I have the courage. That’s the Arts building in the background. The library is nearby. This is a gateway into a new sketchbook; having already nearly finished the book (I sketch a lot when I’m travelling, and when I’m not), it’s a gateway to a new format that I’m enjoying. It’s good to do something a little bit different.

let’s draw davis at the farmer’s market, again

June 30, 2024June 29, 2024Leave a comment

The weekend before our London trip, I held a small sketchcrawl in Central Park Davis. It was a hot morning already, and the Farmer’s Market was in full swing. I sketched the bustling scene above, with the accordionist standing on a box playing Studio Ghibli tunes and other songs to the shopping masses. Markets are good places to sketch.

I drew the four lads above all seated in the shade while another musician played her guitar nearby (below), four Dortmund fans waiting for the Champions League final against Real Madrid which was starting at midday, I would be dashing off at the end to catch it. Well, two of them had Dortmund shirts, the other two wore a Brazil shirt in yellow and an F1 Mercedes shirt in black, close enough. Spoiler alert, Dortmund lost, Real Madrid always win. The last sketch I did was with the brown fountain pen stood in what shade I could find in the Central Park Gardens. We all met up at the end by the US Bicycling Hall of Fame, there were only about five of us, but we’d done some good sketching. I needed to get some done, I was a week away from my trip for which I felt woefully unprepared, and had a mountain of work to do before I left (and after too; I’ve barely scratched the catch-up yet, after going back in yesterday) so was feeling pretty stressed out, and needed some relaxing sketching time. Not sure when the next one will be scheduled but hopefully not too long.

And finally, something different. I came back a couple of days later armed with a set of gouache paints, as I’ve never used those while out urban sketching before. I sat by the Central Park Gardens and sketched the bench, tree and flowers; bit of a struggle to be honest, not quite what I expected, but I’m determined to play with the gouache at some point, just try something else out for a change.

Now I am back from London, the massive scanning project of all those travel sketches begins…

jungerman

June 5, 2024June 4, 2024Leave a comment

I needed to sketch, it was lunchtime, so I drew the big building next to the one at work, Jungerman Hall, aka the Crocker Nuclear Lab, and its little Annex right next door. I like the shadows rolling down it. It was a bearable temperature then; it’s getting into the unreasonably hot temps now, with a high of about 102 or so today, and higher tomorrow. there are power outages in parts of Davis, so as I type it’s like we are on borrowed time. Those exploding transformers are out there overheating, as if to say, you’ve borrowed that time, guv, but it’s not yours, now you’ve got to give it back. A famous man once said Time Flies Like a Banana. In the meantime our new HVAC system, that replaced our old one from the 70s or 80s, is working its energy-efficient little socks off. I’m not looking forward to going out tomorrow, in this awful heat.

back in the good life garden

May 27, 2024May 26, 2024Leave a comment

Another from campus, I was attempting a panorama of the RMI (Robert Mondavi Institute) for Food and Wine Sciences, from one of the few shady spots in the Good Life Garden (“morning Margo” “hello Jerry”) but I couldn’t be bothered to colour it in. I’ve sketched here before of course, it’s close to my office. I do wonder sometimes, I get in a rut with my sketching. Like, drawing the encampment on the Quad, it was at a bit of a distance but it’s still showing something different, a moment in time worth documenting. Sometimes though I’m just drawing a place because it’s there, and will probably look the same in 10, 20 years. I do remember when it wasn’t there of course, it was built in my work-life-time. I still have a wine glass from the grand opening, as it was around the time of the UC Davis centenary so it had that motif on it. I think that was from then anyway. My former supervisor got herself about four or five of those free glasses, it was a fun little trip. She passed away several years ago, sadly. I learned of former colleague who died a couple of months ago, very sad to hear, he had retired a long time ago. While looking for his former workmates to tell, I learned of another who died last year, who was on the original team of staff I worked with when I joined our department. Made me quite pensive this week, thinking about all those people, all those old times, when I was brand new to this university. Now it’s my job to make people feel at home in our place of work, as it was theirs before me. Life goes on, doesn’t it, and I keep on drawing it.