Spread 5 of the Davis Moleskine, a building I’ve sketched before: the Old City Hall on F Street (now part of the restaurant Bistro 33). I sat outside the Paint Chip over a couple of lunchtimes last week and drew this. It was over a hundred degrees outside, which I am sure you will agree was mental for this time of year. Feels hot in the drawing too, doesn’t it. That’s living in California for you. I hear it’s freezing back in London.
The project continues…
October is here folks, and October means beer. Even though most Oktoberfests apparently take place in September (giving us Oktoberhangover) – I even drew this while it was still September – it’s culturally important to keep up that association (this is my excuse). One of my favourite beers is in fact the Märzen amber ale of my local micro-brewer, Sudwerk. This year they brought out a special Oktoberfect version, “Fest-Märzen”, and I must say it’s bloody lovely. Perhaps the best beer I’ve had over here. So in the spirit of drawing bottle and glass on brown paper (see the recent champagne bottle), here they are. That glass was empty by the time I finished drawing, let me tell you. We had a heatwave here last week, with weather in the 100s (really! at this time of year), and a nice cold beer was always going to help.
This project keeps on moving along… this is Spread 4 (a personal favourite), a couple of train engines that were parked on the rails off of 6th Street, near the Co-Op. I had in fact gone that way to draw the Co-Op itself, figuring it should probably go into the Davis-centric book somewhere, but I could not get an angle that I liked. However, I love drawing these trains, so I jumped at the chance. The level crossing is actually from 5th Street, but I allowed it to move and become the latest transitionary device.
I’m glad I didn’t draw the Co-Op. Sure, it may yet make an appearance, but I don’t want the series to be simply a checklist of popular Davis sites and sights. This little spot where the trains sit and wait is far more interesting, and every bit as Davis as the Varsity or the Farmer’s Market, so I’m mixing it up a bit.
Davis Moleskine Spread # 3, the Black Bear Diner on the corner of B and 2nd Streets. This used to be a Baker’s Square (one of those places that did nice apple pies). That road leading off there, that heads towards UC Davis.
I often read my son that story in Christopher Robin about not walking on the lines in London streets. I was always told that too, when I was a kid, not to step on the cracks “or the bears would get ya!” which let’s face it is the least of your worries on London streets, unless the bears are wearing hoodies or something. You don’t get bears in Davis, we are too far from the mountains. But I did hear once that a mountain lion was spotted in West Sacramento, just across the causeway from here, and I saw a cat jump into a tree while cycling home one evening that was pretty big looking for a domestic tom. I’m no wildlife expert. Perhaps it was like the beast of Craggy Island.
As I sketched this, new students drove by being all loud in their cars, showing off to each other and woo-hooing from their windows. That won’t last. The mid-terms will get them before the bears do.
I am finally using my Urban Sketchers Moleskine, the accordion/Japanese-style book that I got from the Urban Sketching Symposium in Portland (wow, that ground-breaking event was two months ago now!). I am trying out brown Pitt pens, and have decide to devote the book to one long series of drawings set around the city of Davis. This is a fun project, and a little ambitious, as I will have a second book devoted solely to campus. The plan is to show them side by side as two long drawings. I decided on brown because I liked the soft effect it had against the yellowy Moleskine paper, which I have not always loved (and nor have my other pens, but the Pitt ones quite enjoy it). The sketchbook format is a little tricky to keep hold of (I use lots of clips; however I like what Gerard Michel did while filling his), and it’s a bugger to scan, but I’m getting the hang of it.
The first in this series (minus a gap on the top right corner where the word “Davis” will go) was drawn on E Street, sat on the steps outside the Natsoulas gallery. I’ve sketched this building a couple of times before, it’s an interesting little house downtown (but really I’m more interested in that pipework in the foreground, as you know). I’m already a few drawings in, but this is the first…stay tuned for more!
You may recall I have a thing for sketching fire hydrants. Well, here are a few more. These forst two are from Los Angeles, sketched on our recent trip there. The short one with the long noses was sketched while waiting for the bus on the corner of Flower and Wilshire. incidentally, taking the bus in LA was fine, but changing buses at a fairly rough feeling underpass in Culver City with a suitcase in tow was a little anxious. Still, we survived and went down to Marina del Rey, where I sketched the peculiar looking hydrant above right, which was outside our hotel.
Two more, from San Francisco this time, the stumpy one with the red top on the left was on Irvine Street in the Inner Sunset, while the all-white one was sketched after dark while waiting for the Amtrak bus outside the Ferry Building.
And finally, Davis. I spotted this unusual shaped one on Fifth Street on Saturday, and it had to go in the book. I’m a fire-hurdant-sketching machine. In fact I’ve got a new set on Flickr devoted to them (and other urban pipes) (and beer-pumps, because they, you know, serve a similar purpose).
Last Friday I went out to the far western edge of Davis, to the fourth annual Stonegate Art Fest. It’s an exhibition of artwork – paintings, sculptures, photography – put on by the residents of the Stonegate area. I went to see the work of my colleague Rahman Azari and his wife (both are excellent artists), and do some sketching, and also spread the word about the upcoming Davis sketchcrawl on October 16. I met some interesting local artists and spent a lot of time talking, so only managed two sketches. I drew the guitarist (Kit Sodergren), who played an acoustic set; he was playing “If I Fell” by the Beatles as I sketched this. The other drawing is called “Stradipearius”, a piece by Eric Nelson which was part of the ‘box project’ the stonegate artists were invited to do. Each was given a small wooden box and asked to create something from it, with diverse results. Afterwards, I cycled home, through a Davis which is now full of people and new students, past frat houses which are ‘rushing’, and a downtown full of music and the excitement of the new school year. Summer is over*, and Fall is here at last.
(*when I say Summer is over, I say it while it’s like, 95 degrees outside)
This drawing of the Silo at UC Davis, done yesterday lunchtime. I’m trying something out. This is drawn in dark brown Pitt pen, in a regular moleskine sketchbook – the same one I started exactly four years ago and abandoned due to my dislike of the paper (my micron pens couldn’t get the hang of it, and it absolutely hates watercolour). But I have a new project, a Davis drawing project, that I want to put into my Urban Sketchers moleskine, the one I got at the Symposium in Portland. It will be a series in the same format as the above, more or less. Should be fun!
Did this almost a month ago (#catchingupwithallmyscanningtakesforever). I sat in the warmth (and it was warmth not heat, there is a big difference, and I hate that living in Davis means you think 90 degrees isn’t that hot) outside the UCD bookstore, which is where I buy most of my art materials, interestingly enough. Seemed a good place to sit and paint in primary colours. As I did, a summer student came and asked me lots of questions about wine for some survey he was doing. He was from Japan. I told him I was British, and he said, ah yes, Britain is a famous wine producer! No, not really, I said (I doubted he was very far into his enology course to think so). We make good trifle though. Completely unrelated but thought I should point it out. He even wrote it down.
I’m a little obsessed with these pipes I see outside buildings. I think they’re for water, or perhaps gas, or perhaps both. I’m not a plumber, nor a gas-man. They could be filled with Dr.Pepper for all I know. I like how they look, so I sat in the shade outside Ace Houseware and drew them.
It reminds me a little bit of the game ‘Mouse-Trap’. There’s probably a little cage and a tiny man diving into a bathtub right above this. I wonder if the people that put these together chuckled to themselves with the same thought.
petescully 