away from the numbers

November 21, 2009May 27, 20104 Comments

Today was the day of the 25th Worldwide Sketchcrawl – in fact it was also the fifth anniversary of the first one. I was pretty busy today, getting my hair cut and other important stuff, so wasn’t able to really take part, but I brought my sketching stuff with me (as always) downtown and managed to knock out a couple (by that I mean, draw two pictures, not actually knock out some poor unsuspecting couple). The second one was done while having a beer and some garlic fries (some! it was a mountain, I barely ate half). The fries made me feel sick, but they were tasty. I haven’t added colour to that one yet so you’ll not see it here just yet. I didn’t manage to meet with the main Davis sketchcrawl (I forgot to check the forum before I left). It was cold today, cold and bright. My micron pens were feeling it. I managed to draw this one (very typical pete, tree coming out of the top of the frame) in a quiet courtyard on C street, behind the Davis Community Church and away from the throng of the Davis Farmer’s Market. What a wimp, I thought to myself. How can I be cold? People all over the world are sketching in colder and probably wetter places than me. But I made sure my next sketch was indoors. Am I becoming a Californian?

the e street strummer

November 20, 2009November 20, 20098 Comments

He stands outside Chipotle and Peet’s Coffee n E Street, busking on his twelve-string at lunchtimes when I am there, sounding like Dylan, Nelson, Haggard; his music is very nice. He has one of those harmonicas you can play while guitaring; no cymbals at the knees though. Very distinctive with his long white hair, moustache, sunglasses; he has a long feather in his hat. One of the characters of Davis. He was singing a song about watercoloured wine while I was drawing this, munching on my burrito. It was cold outside; November is really kicking in. The Fall Colours have just exploded all around us, the trees have suddenly turned the colour of flames, and there’s no way I’ll keep up with them.

stop, look, listen

November 8, 2009November 8, 20091 Comment

Think of a big STOP sign, and you will stop thinking about what you were thinking; if you need to, that is. Well I was listening to The Jam and sitting outisde Uncle Vito’s Pizza (not very good pizza, btw) in downtown Davis on a sunny Sunday afternoon in downtown Davis, at the corner of 2nd and E streets.

I was thinking about perspective. Incidentally this is just the other end of the block from this one I did about a month ago.

every leaf speaks bliss to me

November 5, 20091 Comment

November in Davis means warm and cool sunny afternoons, with turning leaves and long, lazy shadows. Alright, what I’m saying is we have nicer weather than back home in London, where it rains and is cold. But now the clocks have gone back, it also gets dark earlier, so less time for sketching. I don’t really have the time anyway, so here is another one scrambled in during lunchtime yesterday. A building (I think it’s owned by Allstate) on the corner of 4th and D, with a tree outside it.

Oh, was it Guy Fawkes Night back in England? I had forgotten to remember.

nailing it down

November 2, 2009November 3, 20093 Comments

This place, ‘Nails by Tam’, is found on 3rd street in Davis, way down near L street (aka Linguistics Street, as per my street re-naming rules). This is the first drawing from Watercolour Moleskine #5. Actually that’s not true; this is the second, but I haven’t finished the first one yet, on page 1 (it’s of shoes, if you’re interested). But this is the first posted. I drew this yesterday on a quick cycle downtown. I had to draw some urban on Urban Sketcher’s first birthday. It was fairly warm and I had to chase the moving shade of a telegraph pole in order not to get sunburnt (haha, it’s November, folks back in England).

I have drawn this place before; it’s very sketchable. The last time was back in 2006, when I coloured it in watercolour pencil (see below). I think it’s nice to see how my style has evolved and improved over the past three years. But I do like the effect in the old one. nails by tam

to market, to market

October 25, 2009October 25, 20092 Comments

The last page of Moleskine #4. I might draw something in the back cover though. This is the Davis Farmers Market in Central Park (not that one), a popular market, to which I rarely go. However we as a family decided to head down there yesterday, to sample fruit, eat chocolate croissant, and (in the case of my son) run about in the crunchy brown leaves. It was a lot of fun. I stuck around after my son went home for his nap, and drew the market itself.

I have the next watercolour Moley waiting patiently in the wings. Click on the pictures below to see all of the drawings from each of the four watercolour Moleys from the past two and a half years.

Moleskine 4 (Feb 2009 – Oct 2009)
Moleskine 3 (July 08 – Feb 09)
Moleskine 2 (Nov 2007 – July 2008)
Moleskine 1 (June 2007 – Oct 2007)

froggie’s

October 24, 2009May 27, 20102 Comments

Froggies, on 2nd and G in Davis. Hadn’t been here in quite some time, so came here on Thursday night for a quick beer and a long sketch. Actually I took my time drinking the beer and drew faster instead. Froggies is alright; the serving staff are friendly, and the beer is good and not expensive. They do really nice food too. But I’m generally not a regular; the acoustics are bad in here, it’s a little too sports-bar in it’s character, I don’t know; can’t quite explain it. It gets a bit packed with young students on the nights when there are DJs, and can be a bit uncomfortable. I like it a lot more than the Grad (Davis’s big sports bar), though, and even the G Street Pub (which is certainly more pub-like, but appears to have been modelled directly on the worst possible late-80s Camden Town dive, particularly in the toilets). Froggies is better than those places. I prefer Little Prague though. Ah, the bars of Davis. So anyway, I fancied popping in here to do a slightly less brown pub drawing. And look, I even drew some people.

My oldest friend Tel, who now lives in Korea, loves this place. He last came here in 2006.

agony and eggstasy

October 23, 2009October 23, 20094 Comments

Another of Robert Arneson’s Eggheads series; it’s outside Turner Wright Hall, and is called ‘Yin and Yang’. God knows which is meant to be which though. I’ve drawn it before in fact, a couple of years ago, from a different angle:

Also posted at Urban Sketchers. By the way, that super-blog extraordinaire is nearly a year old…

keeping an eye on things

October 20, 2009Leave a comment

“Eye on Mrak“, one the Egghead sculptures made by the late Robert Arneson, former UC Davis art professor. This one is outside Mrak Hall, and has a large eye that looks up at proceedings within (perhaps it has eggs-ray vision, I don’t know). Oh come on, this is petescully.com, you must have known a silly egg-based pun would come along at some point. Anyway I sketched this dude at lunchtime today.

To learn more about the UC Davis Eggheads (if you absolutely have to), please see: eggheads.ucdavis.edu.

silent is the house

October 18, 2009October 18, 20092 Comments

I cycled around Davis today. It was cool outside, the autumn is upon us and I lost myself in streets and cycle paths I had never been to. I ended up at Davis Cemetery; I have never looked around it before. It isn’t very big. This surprised me, but then I suppose Davis isn’t as old as Highgate, where I used to live. It was peaceful, sad and peaceful. Maybe I’ll draw Highgate Cemetery when I’m back in London again next month.

Completely coincidentally: I just looked on Twitter and saw an update from Davis Forever about Art in the Cemetery, an exhibition of art in Davis Cemetery that I guess was going on in that very building as I was drawing it, and I knew nothing about it. I do recall thinking that people didn’t look all that funereal coming out of there.