they call me the roller

January 6, 20122 Comments

Beautiful day out today. I mean, freezing this morning, but very sunny by lunchtime, although a bit nippy. I just had to get out and sketch. Despite being ridiculously busy in January, I always enjoy sketching in this month. We often have mild, bright Januarys here. But I didn’t draw a street scene or campus view with the sun shining through bare, leafless trees, because I saw this, a little mini steamroller, sat on Shields Avenue on the UC Davis campus. What a beauty! I’ll draw sunny skies tomorrow. Today was all about steamrollers.

shine on alphabet moon…

January 5, 20127 Comments

Very sad news this first week of the year, our favourite local toystore Alphabet Moon has announced it will be closing this month. It’s come as a great “oh no!” to the people of Davis, parents and kids and others alike. The day after hearing the news, I just had to get over there at lunchtime and sketch the place for posterity. I must say I am gutted by this news. I take my son there most weekends, and they have toys out to play with such as the great wooden railway table. When I told him, he was none too pleased. It’s always sad to see local shops go out of business, especially toystores. Toystores are where you can find those things you never see elsewhere, you never knew you wanted. Buying toys online is not the same – for one thing it’s rarely cheaper, and two you can’t see the thing, pick it up, maybe play with it. Now everyone will have to go to Target or WalMart, and while they have a lot of toys they only carry the things that all the other big box stores carry, nothing unique. As Art Brut once sang, “Don’t buy your albums from the supermarket, they only sell records that have charted.” Toys R Us? Please, that place is depressing. They have a Thomas the Tank Engine set laid out as well, but you can’t play with it, all the trains are glued down. Small independent toystores are always better, and once they are gone they’re hard to bring back. But, as with everything, we’re all to blame. As more of us buy online, and we all do nowadays, more stores go down, both big and small, and that ultimately leaves us with emptier downtowns, and much less choice. Either way, the young kids of Davis will have one less fun place to go on the weekends.

first sketch of the year

January 1, 2012January 2, 20122 Comments

Happy New Year! My first sketch of 2012; it was a very mild and sunny day, and after taking a short power nap (yes, a power nap, after which I ate lunch, which is for wimps) I cycled over the freeway overpass to sketch this little fruit store on Mace Boulevard, Ikeda’s Orchard Fruits. This is the very edge of town, the easternmost part of Davis. Well, there is some more south of the freeway that stretches out further but it’s the easternmost point of Davis north of I-80. I guess.

Anyway, here’s to more drawing in 2012…

pub lunch

December 29, 20113 Comments

I went downtown at lunchtime today, intending to do some drawing in the bright weather. However I suddenly decided that chips in mushroom gravy sounded really good, so I popped into De Vere’s on E Street. Good place to sketch! I drew the bar previously from the middle; this one, which took under an hour, was drawn from the end. The chips in gravy were really good.

brings to us all both joy and glee

December 22, 20112 Comments

“It’s Chriiiiistmaaaaas!” Here is the Davis Christmas Tree on the E Street Plaza, downtown. I didn’t go to the Davis Downtown Christmas thing at the start of the month; I have been before, and it’s a bit crazy to be honest. I love all the decorations everywhere here though, and people’s houses get truly decked out. Last night we went to one street that must be vying for the title ‘Christmas Lane’, a little cul-de-sac in north Davis completely covered in all sorts of decorations, and very tastefully done, each house having some sort of theme in its wooden garden ornaments, and hundreds of lights and baubles on every tree. Of course it was a terribly windy night last night, so those baubles were flying off and rolling down the street. It was pleasant at lunchtime though, when I popped out to sketch this, after a thick foggy morning when even Rudolf would have had trouble.

Merry Christmas, everybody! (More Christmas tree stories to come by the way…)

take me to the place where you go

December 16, 20114 Comments

Sorry for the lack of sketchbloggery this past week; I have been quite busy, and quite tired! But to report on last Friday’s show (and in fact the exhibit in general) – what a success! So many people came, my voice was getting hoarse from all the talking. Thank you so much to everybody who stopped by, I really appreciate it, and I hope you enjoyed the event. I brought along a few sketchbooks for random people to flick through (I know, heart palpitations, but people were gentle), and quite a few of my drawings on exhibit have sold now too.

Afterwards I needed a beer. Just the one, but a big one. Next day I went and chopped down a Christmas tree, and the day after that I went to see a show at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, where everybody was walking around holding a drawing that I had done… Much more posting to be done, stay tuned!!!

tonight! come and see my drawings…

December 9, 20113 Comments

This is the exhibit of my drawings upstairs at the Pence Gallery. I popped by the other day for a quick sketch. Tonight (Friday Dec 9) is the Artist’s Reception, when I will be there with my sketchbooks out, talking away. It starts at 6pm until 9pm. If you’re in the area, please come by!

urban sketches at the pence

December 1, 20118 Comments

My long-awaited show at the Pence Gallery in Davis finally opened today!

The show runs for the month of December (until the 30th), upstairs at the Pence, and features a series of urban sketches drawn around Davis in the past few months.

On Friday December 9th, there will be an Artist’s Reception at the gallery, from 6:00-9:00pm. Please come by to say hello! See the Facebook event page…

If you’re in Davis, please stop by the Pence! They have a wonderful holiday market going on right now. They are open Tuesday-Sunday 11:30-5:00. Please see http://www.pencegallery.org/ for more information.

if you want me i’ll be at the bar

November 28, 2011November 29, 20116 Comments

A couple of weeks ago a new pub opened in downtown Davis, De Vere’s. I had to go by and check it out – and do some sketching. It was very busy! But I saw as soon as I walked in, a chair at the bar all by itself, right in the middle, so I parked, ordered a Sudwerk Aggie lager (quite nice) and got sketching. I was doing a long panorama of the bar, an unusual one for me, so I started right in the middle (the pint glass was the first thing I drew), and worked outwards, a little bit left, a little bit right, all the while squeezed in the throng about me. I didn’t draw the barstaff – they moved too quickly, and were kept busy by the punters. It’s an interesting pub, very big, brand new but with a proper ‘pub’ feel, not just a bar – it felt like something back home, and I missed my old London mates. I finished up my drawing (it took two and a half beers, if you’re interested, and mine’s a pint, if you’re buying), decided against adding colour, and went home.

I went back last week with my wife, and we tried their chips with gravy and cheese and I must say it was bloody amazing. With chips and gravy as an incentive, I think I may go and sketch there again from time to time.

a sense of community

November 28, 20111 Comment

Last week we held our November 2011 ‘Let’s Draw Davis!’ sketchcrawl, up at Community Park. It was a pleasant Fall day (and I had not yet heard about the previous day’s pepper spray incident), Turkey Trotters were out running across Davis, the park was full of autumnal colours and temperatures were not too cold, at least not for the first hour or so (after which it started to get chilly). The regular Davis sketchers were joined by several new faces, mostly from Davis, but also one, Portland Urban Sketcher Linda Daily, whom I had met up in Portland at last year’s Symposium.

We started off by drawing around the Davis Art Center and the amazing wooden playground Rainbow City. It’s a completely community-built playground, one of the greater examples of epic community work in Davis. One of the other sketchers, Landon, told me that he in fact had helped make it when he was a child. There I am below sketching with the little Scully.

I sketched some people; still practising my people sketches. Below are (top row, left to right): Allan Hollander from Davis (I’ve sketched Allan before a few times), Landon Christensen from Davis, Marlene Lee from Davis (another sketchcrawl regular). Bottom row, left to right, are: Salvador Castio from Stockton, Linda daily from Portland, and Jennica from Davis.

After some more park sketchng (I drew these old playground pieces; perhaps these used to be City and UCD fire hydrants in former lives, judging by their colours), we met up at the library, where we warmed up and chatted about sketching. I also showed off my library display. It’s so great to meet other sketchers, and see their books and their tools, and learn about their approach or reason for doing this. That’s the point of the sketchcrawls! And for me they’re always learning experiences.