pink blossom on seawhite

April 7, 20251 Comment

I started the little Seawhite sketchbook with a drawing of my current paintbox, but I thought I should start using it for some quick urban sketching. I did this quick sketch up on 3rd Street as the pink blossoms were coming out, next to what looked like a still autumnal tree outside Ali Baba. I have not eaten in there for years. Don’t know why, I should try it again some time. I rushed a bit with this sketch as I had to get back to work. I hadn’t yet figured out what I wanted this small sketchbook for, it’s not my main book. I have ended up using it more for quick people sketches on the go, it’s small enough to fit into my pocket and quickly get out to add a fast sketch, as I did on the New York Subway. This was a laboured start but the book has helped loosen me up. In my sketching that is, in everything else I’m still as tense and overwhelmed as we all are right now. I would just like normal news please, that’s all. I’ve done a lot of drawing this year, it may end up being the most sketching-filled year of all time. This is the only one in this book that looks like this, but you gotta start somehow, gotta fill them blank pages and move on.

the last day of the long February

April 7, 2025April 7, 2025Leave a comment

Been a little while since I posted, nearly a month in fact, but in my defense I’ve not felt like it. No that’s not really true, I always feel like sharing my drawings and random thoughts, and in this ever-changing world in which we live in, that’s more and more and more important. As much as we are allowed to share our random thoughts. In my defense, I have been very busy, not just in general life and the labours of the world, but also in my sketchbookery. In fact this March was probably my most sketch-tastic March in a while, since maybe the last one. I did draw quite a lot last March now I think about it, when I went to LA and Riverside, and then later to Zion and Bryce Canyon, with some Vegas thrown in. This time I went to San Francisco, Washington DC and New York City, which was not bad. I did a lot of sketching in the last two places, I’ll tell you that. New York is a great city, I have to stop leaving it so long between visits (nine years since the last trip). But before all of that, more of Davis, the usual places, the same old streets. My task is to draw the whole town over and over, and that I will keep doing. Above is another panorama for my Davis-in-landscape-format book that I have been publishing in my head for well over a decade now. If I ever publish it outside of my head, well you should take a look at it, it’s brilliant. Until then, it doesn’t exist, except on these digital pages. I think in this non-existent book the best bit is that I don’t really write much, I just let the drawings do all the talking, to give myself the air of an ‘artist of mystery’. “I bet he is really deep, this artist,” they will say, inaccurately, “or maybe he is really boring and has nothing to say,” their friends who also read the book will say, half accurately. I keep thinking about one review on Amazon (a 1 star review, I’ll have you know) to my last book which came out nine years ago now, which said: “The writing is so long-winded that by the time he gets to the point I have forgotten what he was talking about.” Or words to that effect. In that book I actually edited my writing down really well, it’s not my blog, but my first reaction was “they must know me in real life!” I stopped looking at Amazon user reviews after that. I do like to tell a story though. I decided when I was a kid that I never wanted to be rich, I just wanted to have a lot of stories to tell. Which doesn’t help when someone wants to borrow a tenner. Most stories are boring anyway, so I draw. I think if I just have a book full of pictures it may be missing the personality behind them, but it also may give others the chance to look at them and pretend that the pictures are illustrations of their own life, or could be, and they put their own stories on top of them, stories that have a lot more meaning to them. I always think back to the two books I have by Karen Neale, “London in Landscape” (vols I and II), as inspiration behind the idea of a book just of my two-page spreads, with no stories attached (although she does write some stuff around the edges, it doesn’t get in the way of or alter the story of her very detailed and lively on-location sketches) but there is a glossary at the back with her notes and stories related to each of the sketches. I look at those books quite a bit for inspiration, and to remind me of London at the time I left it behind, the mid-2000s, but I really love the little bits of writing that are in there too. I’ll get around to my currently non-existent Davis book some day. Some day.

Oh by the way, the drawing above is Davis Community Church, as seen from the edge of Central Park on 4th block of C Street. It’s a couple of blocks up from the panorama in the previous post on C Street. There were not a lot of people around. A car did park there for a while, and a man even walked over and said something to me cheerfully, but then it moved before I even noticed it had gone. Another car was parked to my left, a woman sat in there on the phone for a very long time. Someone else came and sat on the bench for a while, pushing a shopping trolley full of bags and clothes, and the local ice-cream van also pulled up for a bit, playing its horror-movie music. The ice-cream van that you see prowling around these parts is not the colourful big-windowed Mr.Whippy type van that we used to chase down the street back when I was a kid. This one is more the type of vehicle that would show up in those kids public information films that your loud-meowing cat would warn you not to go near. It gives me the creeps. Anyway I kept an eye on it in case it tried to lure me away and show me some puppies, and carried on with this unreasonably detailed drawing. After spending so long drawing branches and windows I coloured in some of the trees but then did the rest of the painting at home. I was listening to more Terry Pratchett audiobook. Now it is April and the sneezing has begun, and I am still nowhere near finished with scanning all the sketches from my trip. I’ll add in posts here and there, maybe even with more interesting writing, or not.

In fact, I just realized I already posted this sketch, as the secondary drawing in the previous post. But I have taken the brave decision to keep this one up, because I added to the story of it, and it was a good sketch so I am just giving it some more airtime. Like when you release a single off of an album that has already sold well, except not really anything like that. Hey, it’s a confusing time. Stay tuned for a lot more sketches.

across the C street

March 10, 2025March 10, 2025Leave a comment

Two more from February, both panoramas (that is, two-page spreads in my watercolour Moleskine), both from C street in downtown Davis, albeit a few blocks apart. Above, the symmetrical apartments called ‘McNeil Manor’, near 1st Street, which I have wanted to draw for ages. It was a bright late afternoon and I wanted to draw it from the very middle so I could show the mirror image reverse identical twin look of the two main buildings, with the shadows of the trees breaking up the uniformity. I was happy with how this turned out. I was listening to another Terry Pratchett audiobook, both while drawing onsite (where i did the outlines, many of the details and about a quarter of the colouring) and back at home, where I filled in the rest; now when I see this I can hear Jon Culshaw’s fantastic character voices in my head. I think it was the last one in the City Watch series, Snuff, which one of the only few Discworld books left that I have not read. This week marks ten years since Sir Terry Pratchett died, far too young, and so he is on my mind a lot. I started reading him while I was at school; I have been saving reading those last few, plus some of his non-Discworld books (I heard ‘Nation’ is very good), because while they are still unread it’s like he is still alive. I have been devouring the newer audiobooks lately, all of the City Watch ones first (except ‘Night Watch’, which wasn’t available; I have bought the paperback to read myself, though I read it when it first came out and loved it, almost all of my Pratchett books were left in England when we moved, and are now lost). I don’t know why, but these buildings remind of some flats in Mill Hill, London; they don’t actually look like them, but they remind me of them. The ones where my cousin lived when I was a kid maybe, or other ones that I sometimes pass by on the 221 bus, but these would not look out of place there.

Above, a building I have drawn a lot of times, the Davis Community Church. Sorry it looks so small on thei blog. If you click on it, and the one above, it will take you to my Flickr page where you can see it bigger. I like the view from the side. This was a Friday, end of a long and frankly stressful week, a headache inside a tumble dryer, and scenes like this bring some serenity. I drew much as I could there and then, and coloured in the foreground trees to get them looking the way my eyes see them, but finished the rest at home. February was ending that day, and I was glad of it, though March has not proven to be any improvement. The news of the world continues gloomily onwards. The clock went forward a couple of nights ago, nobody told me, though I wish they could have gone a few years further forward. I don’t wish that, of course, don’t wish your life away. There weren’t many people passing by, the occasional one, maybe a car that would park in front and then leave a little while later.

the long bad February

March 8, 2025March 8, 20252 Comments

What a world. Things seem to be rapidly going from bad to what-the-hell-is-happening with overwhelming speed. I go into my sketchbook to not be so overwhelmed, but it’s not making much difference to my stress levels. Keep on keeping on, and look for the good things. I’ve slowed down on my manic sketching a little in March, probably due to work being busy so I’m not sketching at lunch so much, and I’m hitting that wall again of “I’ve drawn all of Davis do I really need to draw more of it?” I need a sketching trip away again, a change of scenery. I’m hoping I can make it to the Urban Sketching Symposium in Poznan, Poland this summer, August is a long way away. I did still draw a lot of Davis during February, probably the longest February ever for news and worries, and so I have a few more downtown Davis sketches to post here. I’ve not been taking the time to sit down and write either, my head feels too exhausted, but I like the quiet, still early mornings. Above is Woodstocks Pizza on G Street, not the same place as when I drew it years ago, but further up the road where KetMoRee used to be. You can see some of the colourful blocks outside that are part of the new G Street redevelopment that I mentioned a few posts ago, it’s not very inspiring to be honest, and I wouldn’t say those blocks are that great for sitting on in any useful way. There are a few tables and chairs spaced out along the sidewalk, and I sat at one to draw this scene on a very cold afternoon. I’ve not been into the new Woodstocks location yet. We sometimes get their pizza for work events, it’s pretty good.

This next one is a lunchtime sketch on 1st street, I wanted to draw the very bobbly bark of the olive trees, but I drew the one next to the crosswalk so I could put the face-height STOP sign in it (it’s that height for cyclists coming off the bike path). We are the cycling capital of the US, so we have a lot of cyclists and were the first city in the country to have a bike lane (though bike lanes are probably considered ‘woke’ by the numpties running the country now) and we even have the US Bicycling Hall of Fame here , a couple of blocks up B Street there. I’ve never been inside, I am not that interested in bikes, despite being a bike rider myself, and I do watch the Tour de France, but mostly for the maps. Someone had written ‘genocide’ on the STOP sign, hard to disagree there. On the other side of the street, the Aggie Inn. I love cycling in Davis, it’s great. Although sometimes my commute down Oak Street alongside the High School can be a little hairy in the mornings. Cars will zoom past a bit too quickly, and because traffic backs up you’ll always get the cars that think they can just slip quickly into the wide bike lane to overtake, right as I am approaching (this happened a couple of days ago). The crossroads at Oak & 14th with four STOP signs is a nightmare too, as cars who have stopped before I have will often decide to wait and let me go as a cyclist, while I am stopped waiting for them (who were there first), causing general confusion; I cannot see inside the car to see if they are waving me on, and nor can other drivers, so if I say ok then I will go first, it’s usually at the same moment another driver has decided to do the same. All the while, other cyclists (often kids headed to the schools) will just breeze through the STOP sign anyway, and so many cars expect all cyclists will do this and act over cautiously, understandably. If I wave the car through and they go, invariably what happens is the car behind them will go as well, at the same time I do. I just avoid that crossroad in the morning if I can. Then there are all the cars parked alongside the High School stadium in the evening, you have to be extra careful that they don’t open their door without checking, I have been close-called on that a few times. Other cyclists though too can make this route feel hairy, one guy this week ran through not only the STOP sign (while a car was about to pass across it) but also ran the red light, and then crossed over the street to cycle on the wrong side causing bikes in the opposite direction to have to move over into traffic. And then there are the so-called e-bikes that are really just silent motorcycles that are in the bike lane, that seem to appear out of nowhere and cut you up on the inside. And then there is the lack of street lighting on Oak, when it is dark it’s impossible to see. I have two lights on my bike just for better visibility along Oak, but I’ve nearly gone into the piles of leaves and branches that people helpfully place into the bike lane to make it more interesting, not to mention other cyclists who don’t have lights. But I love cycling in Davis it’s great.

The sketch above is the corner of 2nd and G, that is ‘Pachamama’ which I think sells coffee, a drink I don’t drink, but years ago it used to be Subway, a sandwich I don’t eat any more. I did then, but mostly because they were the only place in town I could find the pineapple Fanta. I loved that sugary nonsense of a drink. It’s not Lilt but it was good on a hot day, and we get a few of them here. I drew this in the early evening, one of those Saturdays I just needed to get out of the house but didn’t really have anywhere interesting to go. Story of my life, I was like that as a teenager as well. It’s a good view to draw. Not the sort of one that would end up in a book or a poster but I’m happy enough with the sketch.

And finally the Scout Hut on 1st Street, the old log cabin building that’s about a hundred years old or something, I’ve never been inside (that I can remember; wasn’t there a gallery in there when I first came to Davis?) but I’ve sketched it before. It’s all on its own, barriered by traffic and trainlines, easy to miss. I was in the scouts when I was younger. First in the Cub Scouts, which was one of the best experiences of my life, and also gave me my first leadership experience when I became a ‘Sixer’ (leading my own six, or was it pack, I can’t remember as I was like 10 or 11), before graduating into the Scouts. I remember that event, you wear a green jumper in the Cubs, embroidering the badges onto the arm when you pass them – my best areas were with art and camping and reading – but you wear a green shirt for Scouts, and on the day you go from being a Cub to a Scout you have to ritually take the jumper off for the last time revealing the new shirt underneath. I liked being in the Scouts, and still did a lot of events and camping with them, but as we became early teens a lot of kids fell away and I stopped going regularly, and then in the end not at all, so I never went up to Venture Scouts where you get a khaki-coloured shirt. The old 8th Edgware, blue scarves, little plastic toggles keeping them in place, that drafty old hut in Burnt Oak behind the shops on the Watling, with the goat tied up outside. Those were the days. I don’t know what the Scouts are like over here, what I do know is that the Girl Scouts here (we have ‘Girl Guides’ in the UK) sell excellent cookies at this time of year, my wife always buys several boxes. The old scout hut isn’t used by the Scouts any more.

This one is on 5th Street, I was cycling home that same day and liked the look, another little house with a tree outside, have to draw that. Picket fence, always annoying to draw but this is what we move to America for isn’t it, picket fences. There were picket lines on campus recently due to a strike by some unions. I was going to sketch them in support but (ironically) had to get back to work. They were banging drums and it was all very positive. We do get strikes over here, but I remember my year in France, there were so many. My favourite was the 59 minute bus strike, they wanted to be able to get the buses out on the hour but strike in between, and I was on one bus which just stopped at 1:01 or whatever it was and said to everyone they could get off, or wait on the bus for 59 minutes if they liked. No complaints, everyone shrugged (the famous Gallic shrug) and just walked, it was fine. I was working at the university in Aix at the time. One of my duties was to work in the library for part of the day, and one afternoon I came in for my shift to discover that I too was on strike that day, but didn’t know it, so I walked downtown and got a poulet frites instead. The first song I ever wrote was about a strike. I was at school, music class, our teacher asked us to write a protest song about something that was in the newspapers at the time. I saw that there were travel strikes that day and wrote about them, performing it with my mate Kevin. Rudimentary at best (“down to the station I usually hike, today I have to take my bike, because there’s a strike”). I didn’t even ride a bike at the time, London was rubbish for that, not like Davis which is great. So I was already totally making things up in songs and stories, all for a cheap rhyme. I’ve not changed much.

I have meant to re-draw this house for a while, I don’t know what occupies the space now but for a long time this was the Davis Psychic, and the building was quite colourfully painted. I drew it a couple of times before. This time I sketched it after work as the late sunlight was making shadows creep slowly up the walls. I am not into the whole psychic thing, but people enjoy it, fair play to them; I wonder if they saw February 2025 coming. The mind is a strange thing. We all have one, in some form or other, but can’t all understand them. I suppose psychologists give it a good go. I’ve been thinking about the mind during all of this, because a mind is a fragile thing, manipulable, sometimes delicate and sometimes unbreakable, but it can only bear so much weight and people know this. So I go back into my sketchbook. I decided a little while ago that all this sketching was my way of controlling a little piece of the world in my own way, looking at it and making sense of it, trying not to be too affected by it, while at the same time feeling like I know it a bit more. ‘Conversations with the City’ was the tagline for my sketchbook exhibit in 2016 (centuries ago now, that feels) and it still rings true, though I am getting very shy and not interacting with people as much these days. If they are missing from my sketches it is because they just weren’t passing by at the time, but subconsciously I’m probably enjoying the space without all the people and their little worlds. Sometimes I like to be around lots of people, and other times, well I like the quiet.

Finally, a quick sketch on 2nd Street, near G, again as the late afternoon turned to early evening. Friday evening, another busy week with stresses and unknowns, so I rode downtown after work was done and just drew something, anything. This is Aggie’s Barber Shop, who must close after 5 because it was already dark when I got down there. I listened to my audiobook, still going through all the Terry Pratchett series on the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and relaxed a little, though not enough. I listened to some podcasts as well, stopping and starting, bit of football, bit of history, and some of my favourite one on the History of the English Language. This month was overwhelming for sure. One of the executive orders I heard about though was they were going to make English the ‘official language’ of the United States. This topic has been a big deal for ages, and many of us have long felt it important that the country had no official language, since it was not needed, and could potentially marginalize further the minority languages of the country. I don’t just mean like Spanish (not just a language of immigrants, it did exist here before the US was a thing) or the ‘smaller’ immigrant languages but the many many native languages that are too often overlooked and historically repressed. (I used to read a lot about this when I first came over here, when I’d devour books on language at the library because I wasn’t sketching as much then). Britain similarly does not have an ‘official’ language, in both countries English is only the de facto official, not officially official. Until now, because that guy has decreed it so, English is the official language. Wait a second; English. English. Not ‘American English’…just ‘English’. Right then! Well in that case, you’d all better start learning to bloody spell! English yeah, from England? Ok then. Stop all this ‘aluminum’ bollocks, it’s ‘maths’, put those ‘u’s back where they belong and put the ‘y’ back in ‘tyre’, and yes it’s fine to spell it ‘ise’ instead of ‘ize’, you get to choose. And we aren’t stopping there. Pints should be 20 ounces not 16. Learn to queue properly too. Move July the 4th to the 7th of April where it belongs. If you insist on keeping the Imperial system you have to use ‘stone’ as well, I don’t care if it’s confusing. And it’s ‘BERNard’ not ‘BerNARD’. Sorry, that’s the law now, you bought it, gotta keep it.

I do have a couple more February drawings from downtown Davis to post but I’ll stop here, the sun is up now and the cats are demanding food with menaces. It’s Saturday now, there’s housework to do, and let’s face it, more drawing. February was too long, but March is marching on.

the view from the fairmont

February 27, 2025February 27, 2025Leave a comment

For my birthday this year we went away to San Francisco for the weekend, the weather was sunny and super clear (if a bit cold), and we spent the day at the SFMOMA (Museum of Modern Art), which I have not visited for many years and is a great day looking at art (it’s huge). I miss going to huge museums, it is one of the things about London that I loved most. Well, the gift shops anyway. The shop at the SFMOMA is probably the best museum gift shop in the world. After we’d been in the gift shop for a while we drove up to the hotel, which is easily our favourite in the city, the Fairmont on Nob Hill. We’ve only stayed there once before, for our anniversary seven or eight years ago, so it’s a real special treat. The Fairmont is historic and very grand, in a classic sort of way rather than a Vegas sort of way. Presidents have stayed there (remember them?), and famously it is where Tony Bennett first sang about leaving his heart in San Francisco, presumably they didn’t have a lost-and-found back in those days. These days if he sang that, he’d have hundreds of comments online from Fox News viewers making up stories about people stealing your body parts here. Nob Hill is very steep, and it’s a big climb to get up here even in the car. We got to our room, thinking we’d drop our things off and go back out to wander about outside, but immediately we saw the view from the window and it was like BAM we ain’t leaving the room before dinner! See above and below. The view looked across a wide view from Russian Hill on the left to Telegraph Hill on the right, with Alcatraz right in front of us. Squeezing down each end of the window we could make out the Golden Gate Bridge and the Transamerica Pyramid, but I couldn’t squeeze those into my sketches. We relaxed in the room admiring the view and I sketched, as did my son (who’d forgotten his sketchbook but used my iPad). We were up on the twelfth floor, but being on Nob Hill our elevation was really high anyway. There was so much detail. I have dreamed of drawing this view, but there was so much detail there was no way I could do what I did with that sketch from the Hilton I did in 2021, which was a bit lower down (though included the building I was drawing from here). I did my best to keep up with the changing afternoon-evening light, and drew a few smaller sketches as well to show what the light was like. Here is Alcatraz. It always reminds me of the third X-Men movie.

I drew a couple of quick ones of Coit Tower as well, as the late afternoon turned into sunset, to show the magnificent colours as the light changed. It was last year I think (was it the year before?) that I went up to the top and did that long drawing. I’ve drawn a lot of this city now. I’m not done yet, but the plan was that we’d spend the night in the city, and then next day after my family drove back to Davis I’d go out and do a lot of drawing by myself and get the train home.

Dinner was at the famous Tonga Room, downstairs at the Fairmont, and that was great fun. I love that place. The cocktails ain’t cheap, nor is the food, but they were strong and the food was super filling, I could barely eat half of mine before I was full. No dessert for me. The band floating on the pool played great music, and every half hour the showers came on imitating a thunderstorm. I love the Tonga Room, though I wish the bathroom was not such a walk. The next morning we got room service breakfast, and sat looking out of the window until it was time to leave. Well I sketched of course. The light was very different again in the morning, the shadows creeping in a different direction, getting shorter rather than longer, and it was another clear day. Imagine if it had been foggy. So I drew the view below, mostly of the tall towers of Russian Hill. I’m very lucky to be able to come to this city and to a hotel like this with a view like that and draw it. Ever since I was a kid I loved to look out of a window and draw. I like being down there on the streets among it all, but it’s always special to look at it all from above.

I never spent the day out drawing. I was already sketched out, and feeling pretty tired. It was cold out, and the thought of getting the train back to Davis later on a Sunday evening with work the next day, well I didn’t fancy it, so I rode back in the car. As we waited I popped across the street and did a quick outline of the hotel, drawing it in later with the statue of Tony Bennett singing about leaving internal organs in San Francisco. I started idly wondering why it was called Nob Hill, but it was time to go home. A nice weekend in the city, and a big thanks to my lovely wife for arranging it.

BTW, I realize from looking at the blog post that the small size of the panoramic drawings do absolutely no justice to them whatsoever, but if you click on them it takes you to my Flickr page where you can see them a little bigger.

a new one just begun

February 18, 2025February 17, 20254 Comments

Every year I dread the birthday week; I don’t technically age any more than I do any other day, but that day does push me ever further into the next category in the local fun runs. I tend to draw a lot in the run up to my birthday, as if to take my mind off it; the run up to my birthday is about 365 days. Ok so now we are in February, and have things got better yet, globally? No they have gotten worse, way worse already than ever worried about, and the rest of this month, let alone the rest of this year, fills me with anxiety. Where do we even start? I marginally ease this despair by drawing the world around me; there are only so many buildings with trees in front of it in Davis, yeah? I sometimes think, with all these drawings recording this city over the course of the past nearly two decades (wow) are they something that will be looked at many years later or are they just things of the moment; I need to put a book together. That would take my mind off things, maybe. I see my work on all these drawings as part of a purpose, the idea that these all might be a book or series of books. Occasionally people do see my work on Instagram or here and are like, wow I used to live there, and it sparks memories, and that’s a great thing. When I see illustrations of London, if it is a place I know and connect with well, I look at it and it takes me to places in my mind. Anyway, above it was a day when I was out sick, felt bloody awful. It had been building since the weekend, felt physically wiped out, and on this day I’d been up all night with a headache. I managed to sleep half the day, had a remote work meeting, and tried to rest for a bit more but I needed some fresh air, so went for a walk, making it all the way down to 5th Street where I stopped and did a drawing. I coloured it in later. People were waiting at the bus stop, so I added those in, “why don’t you draw people in your sketches, don’t you think your drawings would be much better if there were people in it?” they say, forgetting the name of my last book; this will satisfy them for a minute. I have waited at that bus stop before, but not for a long time. The bus that would go along there is the one that took me home to our little apartment in south Davis, the area we lived in when we first moved to this city.

A couple of days before, I was already not feeling that well and ended up going home early. After walking downtown to eat something, I found myself needing a rest at Central Park, so I got my sketchbook out and drew the big frat house on the corner. Drawn this a few times, so I didn’t draw it all, left details out and did not start colouring it in. This is enough, all that’s needed. At least I’m drawing. Often times this might be as far as I can get (due to time) and then I’m like, yep finish this one at home.

The next day, already feeling sick, I had to stay home in the morning because a new bed was being delivered to my house. My body said I needed to rest, but any chance of lying in bed was off the table. I had to take my old bed out (not easy at all, no idea how the guys who brought it in managed to do it) and then bring the new one in and put it together. After I was done, I went to work as there is a lot to do. I stopped off for some lunch on the way in, and then did a quick sketch nearby of The Barn, sketching for about ten minutes half-heartedly, not really having any energy at all. So this is kept like this, I don’t really need another sketch of this building, and this is more an illustration of how I was feeling physically.

And finally, end of the week, felt a lot better by then (maybe the new bed is helping with the sleep) and it was Friday afternoon, everything was done so I finished an hour early and walked downtown for a birthday milkshake. The new year diet never happened, but it’s 2025, comfort milkshakes are gonna happen, while milkshakes are still available. Still wasn’t feeling too well, but definitely better, and that milkshake had my name on it. Before heading home I walked over to D Street and liked the way the just-after-5pm light was hitting the Pence Gallery. The days are getting a little longer. Each day feels like a million years. I drew and added only a few colours and the shadows, this is all it needed. Another year over.

a peak under the hood

February 16, 2025Leave a comment

I thought it was time I should show my current palette. I have a new smaller sketchbook (a Seawhite of Brighton A6 size that I got in London) for when I need just a pocket-sized sketchbook with me, so I opened it by drawing what paints I am currently using. I don’t use the Seawhites as much any more because (a) they aren’t really as good for watercolours as the watercolour Moleskines I use, and (b) I have to get them when I’m in London, but they are really good for penwork (less so fountain pen, I find, better withe the uni-ball signo pens I prefer). Anyway. You can see from the image above that there are faint lines across it, courtesy of my Epson scanner which has been doing this lately. Not the screen, not the software, just the scanner after many, many scans I guess. Shame as it is fast and quiet, although I’ve never been happy with the quality compared to my old HP. Both were all-in-one printer/scanners. So this week I decided to buy a new flatbed scanner, to deal with this issue. It’s a bit more mobile and light, and has to be connected with a cable and not over wifi, because I decided not to get a more expensive one in case it turned out to be not really better at all. I also stuck with Epson because I am used to the software, even though it’s not really perfect. I should rescan this, along with other recent sketches where I notice it, but that’s time-consuming; I hate scanning. I did scan the guide (below) with the new scanner, worth pointing out that this was added to the inner cover and that paper never takes watercolour all that well in the Seawhites, so the odd texture is what it looks like, annoyingly. Paper makes a big, big difference. Doesn’t matter, this isn’t my usual paper and it’s just a rough guide for myself to remember what I’m using. I do forget the names of paints a lot. I am not, alas, one of those urban sketchers that enthuses regularly about their paints, I wish I were sometimes but I just make do. I have some nice colours though, and I am so pleased I finally got that Buff Titanium colour by Daniel Smith that I’ve seen in many other urban sketchers’ palettes over the years, it’s well nice for those slightly off-white houses and objects, it’s like a missing link in my paintset. Those QOR ones I have in there, actually those are just small blobs from the tubes, they can be pretty powerful paints and I like to use those as just a palette of three by themselves, that’s fun. The box itself is a Winsor and Newton ‘Complete Pocket Set’ size box which I find to be perfect; those come with about 16 half pans but there’s room for a lot more and I cram them in. I like the small size and the little fold out plastic thing on the bottom to hook under my thumb. This is my third one of these since 2007, and I just got this one in November because I broke the little thumb-handle on my other one, and then while trying to balance it I dropped it onto the pavement and broke the lid, which was a pain (I was carrying it round with elastic bands holding it together). This size has worked best for me over the years though, especially in a tight space like a bar or standing on a narrow sidewalk. Anyway. The list of all the paints is below, and I’m not explaining how I use them, because I just hit and hope most of the time. Still it’s always fun to take a look inside a paintbox…

Most of these are Winsor and Newton, mostly in the ‘Cotman’ range but a few in the ‘Artist’ range, mostly half-pan but a few tube. The rest are Daniel Smith (indiciated as ‘DS’) mostly from a tube, one or two might be half-pan, and there’s those three QOR ones too. Also, the ‘bronze’ is a metallic Winsor and Newton watercolour, it’s much shinier in real life than on the screen.

Top row: Ultramarine, Cobalt Blue, Turquoise, Cerulean Blue, Hookers Green Light, Viridian, Sap Green, Phthalo Yellow Green (DS)

Second Row: Purple Lake, Permanent Rose, Quinacridone Rose (DS), Winsor Red, Orange, Cadmium Yellow Hue, Lemon Yellow

Bottom Left Corner (clockwise): Lamp Black, Buff Titanium, Chinese White, Payne’s Grey Middle Bottom: Bronze (Metallic W+N), Ultramarine (QOR), Quinacridone Magenta (QOR), Nickel Azo Yellow (QOR)

Bottom Right (Clockwise): Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber, Transparent Red Oxide (DS)

opening reception of ‘Visual Journals 2010-2024’

February 15, 20253 Comments

Recently I was invited to the opening reception of an interesting exhibition called ‘Visual Journals: 2010-2024’, curated by Prof. Tim McNeil of the UC Davis Design Department. The exhibition is at the UC Davis Design Museum, but the reception was in the lobby of the International Center, where some of the work is also displayed. It shows many of the visual journals created by students who went on Study Abroad trips to Europe, a course called ‘Design In Europe’, visiting historic cities and interesting museums, sketching and writing and collecting ideas. Even as I write it, I wish I was doing that myself. The books are displayed in cases so can’t be flicked through, but there were photos of many of the students holding their work and what I could see was already an inspiration (and I get inspired by wondering what is on all of the pages I cannot see, knowing they are filled with experiences and ideas). Tim McNeil (sketched above) spoke about putting the project together, and there were students and alumni and organizers who had been with them all on these trips over the years. There was nice food and I spoke to a few familiar faces I’d not seen in a while.

Here’s an article about the exhibit in the L&S magazine: lettersandsciencemag.ucdavis.edu/arts-humanities/new-exhibition-visual-journals-puts-design-thinking-display-10-years-students

Above, a sketch of some books in the cabinet, and below, some people sketching. I had not done much people sketching in 2025 by this point so it was fun to loosen up. It was at the end of my work day so nice to relax a little. Yes, the more I think about it, the more I would like to just right now get up and take a sketchbook trip across Europe, connect with my old continent again, now that this one is starting to feel so uncomfortable (though this lot in charge are doing their best to make everywhere feel horrible). Sometimes it’s good to get out there and look for the good things. One of the reasons I advocate so much for Study Abroad is because this is how so many young people are able to connect with different ways of thinking and seeing the world, that this here isn’t all it really is. I was so pleased to get to travel when I was young, and independently of my family too, it opened up my brain a little bit more even when I wouldn’t realize it, even when my little brain would rebel and be insular, it still took it all in and had its effect and we all need a bit of that. Going with a sketchbook helps you sit (or stand) and really look at it all, and then when you get back, you see everything else that little bit differently.

I haven’t had time yet to go to the main exhibition itself, but will do so soon; it’s open at the UC Davis Design Museum in Cruess Hall between Jan 21-April 25, 12pm-4pm. See arts.ucdavis.edu/seasonal-event/visual-journals-2010-2024 for details. And get out sketching yourselves!

a new path on campus

February 11, 20251 Comment

Nearly done posting all the sketches from January. If you thought January was long and awful, wait ’til you meet February! Every day brings a new level of ‘things can only get shitter’. It is our jobs to ensure that they do not. My sketchbook is filling up fast. Escaping into the pages is my way of making sense of the world around me, or running away maybe, so I am not drawn into looking at the unreliable narrator in my jacket pocket. We all try to get on with it as best we can. Here are a few more from January, there are some more after that and then we have February to come, unless there is an executive order banning sketchblogs. Even as I say it, it sounds ridiculous and therefore more probable. Ok, above is a bit of construction outside the Jungerman Annex at UC Davis, the little bit stuck onto (though not connected by any door) Jungerman Hall, the big building that hosts the Crocker Nuclear Lab, which has been undergoing major seismic renovations as well as a nice paint job lately. This is a new path being built to the rear entrance of the Annex, providing better ADA access to that space. The light at the end of the day looked really nice as I passed by on my way out of work so I drew it. I am particularly excited for this path actually because I was the one who suggested it be built. I am looking forward to walking up it for the first time, I promise not to just cut across the grass. We get a lot of turkeys around here, you see a lot of them in the morning outside our building, and then they all come over to this patch of grass under the tall pine trees (I think they are pines, we have established that I draw a lot of trees but have zero capacity to remember their names; I’m like that with people too, but I don’t like drawing them). Anyway, first sketch of the new path, a little bit of progress; may we all build better paths to get through this mud.

This is another lunchtime sketch, over at the Native American Student Success Center, near the Quad. This is in the old University House building, one of the oldest on campus. It feels like a turbulent time for universities, as a big research institution we are very much in shock at the actions of this new lot in charge and their attacks on the national research infrastructure. Not to mention all the other attacks on everything else, our very principles of community, our support for diversity, inclusiveness. I will not be abandoning our principles. I had a headache while I drew this, at least I think I did; it’s hard to remember. I’ve not been feeling too well the past couple of weeks, headaches and exhaustedness, general fatigue, and I’m sure the state of the world is having an effect. At least when I drew this I felt a bit of calm, and there was a table and some shade to sit in, and it’s a very nice little building this. The Native American Student Success Center (NASSC) focuses on creating a sense of belonging for Native American students in a culturally appropriate way, encompassing students, staff, faculty and alumni. I really like their hummingbird logo. The land upon which UC Davis is built is traditional Patwin land, and has been for thousands of years. There are three federally recognized Patwin tribes: Cachil DeHe Band of Wintun Indians of the Colusa Indian Community, Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, and Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. It is important that we recognize this, and we do see a lot more Land Acknowledgement statements on campus.

Nearby the University House is this big old tree, that might be one of the more interesting trees on campus. It has a huge bulbous growth in the middle and the limbs lurch away from it like the tentacles of some giant monster freeing itself from the depths. I am still determined to draw as many trees in Davis as I can, and while I have surely sketched this before I’ve never just focused on it. May you live your life in peace, old tree, please don’t break and fall upon me. So, we carry on down new paths, and if they lead to the wrong places, then we build paths to the right places.

the grand opening of the all new G Street…

February 7, 20251 Comment

Last week when we were still in the grips of the very dry January I went downtown at lunchtime to attend the opening ceremony of the newly refurbished and redeveloped G Street, or at least the block of G Street between 2nd and 3rd. It’s pedestrianized with new seating areas (well, big blocks of coloured wood and some metal round picnic tables, I didn’t really notice a lot more than that), more accessible sidewalks, albeit with metal fencing dividing areas off for some reason. People were gathered and there was music being played, food being passed around by Woodstock’s pizza, and the midday January sun was bright. It is always exciting to see some new work, some new ideas in place in the city. If you go by comments on that paragon of local opinion, Nextdoor, you will see opinion very split, mostly between “waste of money” and “now I can’t park right outside the place I’m going” to “hate it” and “it will be full of homeless hassling people”. Oh, Nextdoor, what are you like. Most of that website seems to be “what was that bang?” or people posting actual videos of kids who rang their doorbell (and people replying that you should have a ‘pew-pew’ for the next time a kid rings your doorbell – seriously?). My reaction is usually to go against the general moaning, and give the new ideas a chance, so I watched the ceremony and sketched with a reasonably positive outlook. I have enjoyed that, since the pandemic when all the restaurants were forced outside (remember that, folks!) G Street has become a popular little hub on a weekend. Not that I go there much myself. However I couldn’t entirely disagree with the comments of disappointment. Looking around at the changes, I was less than whelmed, I’m not much into sitting at uncomfortable looking boxes in the direct Davis sunlight. It is a project in progress, that is what they said, “This is not the Final Version”, and no doubt it will progress as the needs of the local businesses and restaurants and their customers dictate, we will see. Things don’t always work out as intended. More pedestrianized public space is good in my opinion, but only if people use it. I drew the mayor and other local civic leaders talking with their backs to the sun while photographers and media folk pointed their cameras towards the sun. I went across to stand in the shade and draw the musicians, a woman playing a keyboard and a man with a hand-drum. It was very nice. There was also a middle-aged man in a black jacket wearing what looked like boxer shorts and a jester hat dancing about and being ‘zany’. I liked drawing people in quick pencil, this was a nice break from all the pen drawings of houses and streets that have been getting me through this awful January as we slip into the worst version of the timeline. If G Street provides a place of gathering where I can go and sketch people then that’s good I suppose, though I have to want to get up and be around loads of people, which isn’t much the case these days.

I was about to sketch the scene from the other side of the road when a young man in a tall hat came up and asked if I was ‘Mr Scully’, which I am. He was another local artist Evan Lilley, and was setting up his home-made easel/art box to do some drawing of people at the event. In his tall hat, I knew I would need to sketch him. I have actually seen his work before, as he had an exhibition recently (which I did not get to see) with highly detailed and realistic paintings of the interiors of local bars, such as the Davis Beer Shoppe. As you know I’ve drawn so many of the local bars over the years so was very excited to see that and meet the artist in person. Apparently he does a Drawing Club at one of the local places Dunloe Brewing, I should go to some time. I asked if I could draw him sketching at his easel, I only had five minutes or so before needing to head back to the office, so I drew him in that bright sunshine.

I will go over to G Street from time to time to check it out a bit more and see if the space works for me, but we will see. I don’t really go out much anyway these days except to wander about looking for something to fill my sketchbook with, and I mostly like to draw the changes in the city, though preferably in a bit more shade. Once the leaves come back on the trees I’m sure it will feel a bit cooler. Maybe I should finally do another sketchcrawl down here, it’s been a while since I organized one, I’ve been shy.