October 2025 in Davis California

August 7, 2026Leave a comment

And so on to October 2025, sketches in and around Davis. I might have already posted this particular drawing already of the Newman Catholic Center on 5th Street; it was blue but had just been painted a cream colour. Another one of those trees that I like.

This was a house being built on B Street and 7th, it’s probably finished by now. I like these in-progress construction sketches because they will never look this way again. I also liked the colours, red, gold, green, the colours of my dreams, or maybe that was a song.

There’s another from A Street, the corner of 2nd, I didn’t colour it in but this is very ‘start of October’. You’ll have to take my word for it. I like A Street, it’s that liminal space between the Campus and the City, the two worlds of Davis.

Another one from Old North Davis, corner of 6th and B, this is a nice old house. I don;t think it’s in John Lofland’s excellent book on the area, which I do consult a lot. I did learn not too long ago though that John Lofland had sadly passed away, which was sad news; I had never met him, but I really like his book about Old North Davis and the histories of many of the buildings around there. Thank you for the book, and rest in peace. Anyway I drew this while heading home one day and finished it off and coloured it in at home. It always reminds me of the Davis Turkey Trot which usually starts on this very block. I did the 10k again last November, and made the probably foolish decision to try the Half Marathon this year. I may regret that!

This is that place on D Street which was the ‘Secret Spot’ for a while, but is now something else. I drew it when it was pink, it has been other colours. I sketched a lot in early October. I sketched a lot in 2025 in general.

This is the Davis Farmers Market, sketched at one of our monthly ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ sketchcrawls. We have held a lot of sketching events there, there’s always a lot to draw. Here are a couple of sketchers, Suma CM who I have met at several Symposia over the years but never met in California (where she also lives), she was visiting Davis that day. Marlene Lee is also here, she co-organizes Let’s Draw Davis with me. I keep talking about making our group an official Urban Sketchers chapter, join the club proper, but never get around to it.

This is Community Park, near where I live, and it’s the view looking up towards the toilets. On the left is the dog park. I’ve spent a lot of time in this park over the years, with all the soccer coaching and parenting, the Davis World Cup, other big local events, or just passing through on the way home. I appreciate all the parks we have in Davis. It is good to live somewhere with so many parks and green spaces, that isn’t just focused on cars and long long roads that only cars can really use. It’s Community Park because it is really used by the community, and the local library is here, Davis High School is on one side and North Davis Elementary on the other, with Rainbow City playground and the Davis Arts Center up in the other corner. Yeah, a lot of my life and my family’s life has been spent in and around this park alright. I’ve also done a lot of running events passing through here. Yeah I love this park.

This is First Street Real Estate on, well it;s on 1st Street. I like the shape of the building, it’s good to draw. I like triangles and a tree in front, that;s what it all boils down to, if I was an AI which I’m not (let’s make that clear right now) then just a tree with two branches and a triangle behind it, that’s basically most of my drawings. Like the rhythm of a joke, it’s the way you tell ’em. Years ago, I held an art show here, they very kindly hosted me for one of the monthly 2nd Friday Art About events here in Davis. It was one of my favourite ones I have done (also the last, I don’t really do those shows much) and a lot of people came, talked about sketching, sold some prints, and the people hosting were really nice as well.

Ok this will do for the October Davis sketches; I did others, but those were part of the First Year Aggie Connections group that I led during Fall and I’ll post those separately. I also have a bunch from our trip to Oregon. This one though was just before Halloween and Dia de los Muertos, in fact this was specifically for “Dia de los Muertos for Pets”, it’s a little book box and pet treat box, there are dog bowls beneath it, and so on my early evening walk up on the North Davis Greenbelt I stopped and drew it. It was a warm evening. Anyway I had been there about 15 minutes, there were a lot of walkers and cyclists about, when one lady on a bike approached ringing a bell. I was at the side of the path close to the box, not in the way, but she was turning and I think didn’t want to go around the back of me, but bank the corner. At least that’s what I gathered when she got off of her bike and deliberately walked in front of me making me move backwards into the path, grumbling that I am in her way. I said I wasn’t in the way, I was at the side of the path and the ten or so other cyclists had no problem passing by. “You are standing in the middle of the path!” she yelled. “Well I am now, because you just made me move, but I wasn’t.” I had been standing right next to the pet box, as is obvious from the drawing. She went off still complaining that I was in her way and that she had to get off of her bike. It was quite bizarre. As a sketcher I always try not to block any paths, and be considerate of those passing around me. People just having a bad day I guess. I went back to my spot and finished the sketch. Anyway, that was October in Davis. There will be a couple more October posts, then I’ll do all the others, or I might take a break and post the Symposium sketches, and then get back to 2025-2026.

davis farmers market

July 5, 20251 Comment

Still making it through the sketch backlog, here are some from the Davis Farmer’s Market in early May. (I say Farmer’s Market, but I think it might be the Farmers’ Market which actually makes more sense, as in the Market of the Farmers (plural), it’s not the market of a single farmer who owns all the stalls and controls the means of production, I’m not an economist so I couldn’t really say) (actually a quick butchers at their website shows it is simply the ‘Davis Farmers Market’ with no possessive apostrophe at all, confusing things even further, is it a place where you can go and buy various farmers? Do they all line up like the droids outside the Jawa’s Sand Crawler? “Farmer Giles, two for a pound, ger your Farmer Giles here.”) (It is a truth known to all British folk that to be a real farmer, you have to be called ‘Giles’). Anyway I went to the Farmers Market and sketched. And then bought a Farmer to put in my salad later. Not really, I don’t eat salads. This was on the hottest day of the year so far, it was a whopping 94 degrees, which is very hot for early May. It is currently early July and the weather is of a similar temperature, and I am not a fan of hot weather, but I live in the Central Valley and it’s Hot. I thought about going down to the City today because it is generally a lot cooler down there, but in the end I couldn’t be bothered. I do need to get out and sketch though. It keeps my mind off of everything. I think about apostrophes rather than catastrophes.

Let’s have a look at some of the people who were at the Farmers Market that particular Saturday. Markets are good places for quick people sketches, because they move more slowly than they do at, for example, a bus station or a 4am Black Friday stampede outside Walmart. I do tend to mix and match a bit, so you might get one person’s head and another person’s body or legs, or the t-shirt the person you have drawn was wearing replaced by that of the next passer-by with more interesting attire. (Wow that sentence was a slog wasn’t it. “You can type this sh*t George but you can’t say it.”) Then there was this couple, one of whom was definitely wearing a cape and a witch’s hat, along with a mask, and well it was more interesting than the usual khakis and baseball caps or whatever. I bet it felt hot in all that black though. Below, some more people, there’s no way that cellphone man was wearing a green t-shirt with a big white square on it, I must have seen that on someone else. I wonder what was inside the box? I can’t just make stuff up so I left it blank. These are drawn in my little Seawhite book, which is not the best for getting much bang out of the watercolour, they look a bit like dry markers. The colourfully dreessed woman at the bottom with flowers in her hat was at a stall with North African food which looked very tasty, but I have not yet tried. I was listening to a singer/guitarist next to me who was actually very good. I overheard a woman talking to him too, she was a songwriter. I like listening to people talk about song writing. It’s such a personal act of creation, and I do it myself, but I don’t share it, just my drawings. And this blog writing, which as we have determined isn’t really writing. Anyway, this also isn’t fine art drawing, just me going about with my sketchbook trying to record the real world, and this is what comes out. People passs by in the background, just a few lines and a splatter of paint, but they were real people too, now only ghosts on a page.

And then as the Farmers Market drew to a close I drew the stall with all the baskets, next to the Market Info hut. All those people lining up to ask (a) where the apostrophe is and (b) where they can buy farmers. they sell hats and t-shirts with the Farmers Market logo on (you can add your own apostrophe if you feel you need to) you can get your market goods (not farmers) specially wrapped up into a gift basket at Christmas time, which is nice. Anyway, this was me sketching at the market, and already that was two months ago. Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana, etc. I had an overpriced chocolate croissant and went home.

the market and all its people

April 10, 20251 Comment

This has been quite the week for the markets. Now I’m not an economist, but in the words of someone I used to work with many years ago, ‘Jesus, Lads’. Speaking of markets, I do like to sketch a market. People amble along slowly, making them easier to draw, sometimes standing about to chat. So on this one Saturday at the Davis Farmers Market I got a lot of quick people sketching done, as you can see below. It’s good to loosen up and draw like that. The world is made up of people, a diverse mix of backgrounds and thoughts and ideas and dreams, but we all need to eat. I sat at a picnic table and drew the scene above of the Farmers Market, the trees of Central Park Davis showing signs of spring while still waning out of winter. These types of scene sometimes overwhelm me but you just keep them simple. Trees on top, triangles next, heads and scribbled bodies, then all the stuff a feet level like those concrete walls, with a few vertical tree trunks dividing it all up. As I sketched, a couple of very young kids came and sat at the table and exclaimed to their mother, “Maman! Il fait de la peinture!” I guessed they were French and said “Salut!” and showed them all my book. Their mother was actually American, and told me they used to live in France, and were going to be moving back over there, to Lyon. I told them to look out for the great puppet theatres there, and also if they want to get into urban sketching, the huge Urban Sketchers France national ‘Rencontre’ will be held in Lyon this June. I won’t be going to it, though I did go to the ones in Strasbourg and in Lille. I’d love to sketch Lyon though. The last time I was there was in 2002 with my wife before she was my wife! Great food there, and of course puppets.

Here are all the people sketches I did on that morning/early afternoon, using a brown Pitt brush pen and watercolours. People passing by, people stopping to chat with each other, some mixes and matches (this person’s head, the next person’s body), even a dog and some musicians. You know what is coming up, Picnic Day. It’s this weekend. Perfect opportunity to get out and people sketch. Then I remember I don’t really like Picnic Day much, it’s too busy and overwhelming; I might stay away this year. I went last year, it was hot and there was a lot of slow walking about. I don’t mind the market though. I’m trying to think, what other markets have I sketched, other than the Davis Farmers Market? I sketched Portobello Market last year and the year before. I’ve sketched Borough Market, of course. I’ve sketched the San Francisco Ferry Building Market a few times. I sketched the Market at Place Richelme in Aix last summer, on a rainy morning. I sketched the big covered market La Boqueria in Barcelona. And yes, I’ve even sketched Wall Street. I prefer a proper street market. I have a wish-list of other markets I’d like to sketch. Places where people gather.

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…

christmas time at the farmers market

December 21, 2023December 20, 2023Leave a comment

A couple of weekends ago we held our latest Let’s Draw Davis meet of 2024, a small group in Central Park sketching at the Farmer’s Market. It had been a cold week and I was expecting a chilly morning, but the sun was out and the autumn colours were massive, and it was a really nice morning to be out with a sketchbook. I decided I’d sketch with my brown-ink fountain pen, it really creates a nice tone with the fall colours. There were a lot of people and stalls to draw; the flat earth people weren’t out this time, having probably fallen off the edge of the world. There was a banjo player making some nice tunes. As I sketched a young couple came up and tried to give me a flyer to some party with their church; no thank you, I said, but they were really insistent. I tried to politely make it clear I’m a little busy. They complemented my drawing but said “God gave you that gift”. I’m like, mate no, thousands and thousands of hours of practice gave me this gift, anyway see ya later, have a Merry Christmas. Still they held out the flyer, and then asked “Have you ever heard of Jesus?” I couldn’t help myself and said “No, never heard of him, who’s that?” As they started to actually tell me, and question me on how I celebrate Christmas, I had to say look mate you might try someone else, I’m not interested and obviously busy, and they finally left me to my sketch. Really not got a lot of time for religious converters, and don’t really have to explain why. One of the other sketchers later said they’d also been approached by the same insistent group, and instead had a long philosophical debate with them, and they eventually left him alone. At least it wasn’t the flat earth lot.

I drew more people about the market, I was going to colour them in but ended up leaving them as is, I like that brown ink. I wrote the colours next to them too, people were really out in lots of colourful clothing on this colourful Fall morning. Christmas is just around the corner. While I’ve no interest going to anyone’s Jesus party, I do absolutely love the Christmas carols at this time of year. One of my favourite festive moments since coming over here was attending the annual Christmas Concert at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, which I did on a couple of occasions about a decade ago, having illustrated the program and poster for the event. There is nothing like a cathedral for the incredible acoustics of a Christmas concert. (Also, did you know that ‘Away in a Manger’ has a different tune in America than it does in Britain? We learned that song every year in junior school for our nativity play, so it is strange hearing it with a different tune, a bit like hearing Yellow Submarine with the tune of a David Bowie song) (which I have done at karaoke by the way, replacing the lyrics of Modern Love with those of Yellow Submarine, which really worked; I remember as I was going up a woman said to me “I really love this song!” and I said, “Yeah, you’re gonna hate this version”, but actually it really worked. I had this theory years ago that you could shoehorn the words of Yellow Submarine into any song. You can even do it with ‘Away in a Manger’ – try it! Fun Christmas party game). Anyway I love a Christmas Carol. You don’t get carollers coming round to your door any more, at least we never have here. I used to do it as a kid, me and a few other kids on our street would go round knocking on the doors in the Orange Hill area of Burnt Oak singing basically two songs, “Jingle Bells” and “We WISH you a Merry Christmas”. And occasionally Away In A Manger if they wanted an encore. We would get some money each, 10p, 20p, 50p if you were lucky, but woe betide those who gave away a full quid because word would get around and every carol-singing kid from Deansbrook to Stag Lane would descend upon your doorstep singing the exact same rushed verse of “We WISSHHH you a Merry Christmas” and hold out their hands. Ah fun times.

Well there was a group of singers in the park this day giving a performance of festive songs (though it was much more the church hymns than your Jingle Bells), but they were really good and I enjoyed listening to the singing as I sketched, with the fall colours behind. Nobody tried to give me a flyer either. Still I was up against the clock as the sketchcrawl was ending soon and we always meet to look at each others’ sketchbooks and share sketching tips. That Lamy Safari fountain pen with the brown ink is good for the quick sketchy movements of drawing people. These singers mostly wore black or dark clothes so it really stood out against the autumnal trees. Catching this season while I can.

lemonade at the market

September 19, 2023September 19, 20231 Comment

This is a little snapshot from the Davis Farmer’s Market that I drew one Saturday morning earlier this month. I was using this Chinese fountain pen that I had had in my office for a number of years but never yet used, so I thought I’d fill it with platinum carbon ink (very black, very waterproof) and see how it worked while sketching out and about. Well it worked ok, but was a little bit leaky, leaving me with inky fingers. I was drawing directly onto a light pre-prepared watercolour wash, which was in a perfect rectangle because I was trying that idea out again, putting tape down to create a nice clean border. The sort of thing that works for a painting on its own but just doesn’t sit right in my sketchbook. I might go back to doing some sketches with a drawn border like I used to, shaky pen, allowing some things to pop out of it. Anyway I stood and drew this little scene, the bright yellow lemonade stand (slightly dimmed by that wash underneath perhaps) alongside the Handmade Pies truck (I’ve never eaten there but should like to try it sometime). I’ve never had that Lemonade either; it was a hot morning, Labor Day weekend, but I didn’t fancy anything too sugary, I was in preparation for my Labor Day Race a couple of days later. The market was busy that morning, lots of people out, lots of food, families playing in the park, of course you also get the other stalls at the far end, including the Flat Earth wallies, I can’t even. As for this pen, well it was ok, but didn’t really draw how I like to draw, and not as smooth as the Lamy Safari for a fountain pen. I went back and got the old Lamy out, assuming that since I’d not used it in a long long time that it must be completely dried up with old ink and unusable, but in fact it did not take much washing to bring it back to life. So I ordered a couple more Lamys in different sizes, and I might start sketching with those again. They seemed to leak less, but of course at some point you have to refill the ink while sketching out on location, and I always make a mess of that. We will see. I’m going to try fountain pen sketching again for a bit, but I’ll still mostly use my nice trusty brown-black Uni-ball signo.

saturday last summer

January 28, 2023Leave a comment

Still with Summer 2022. Right now it is a sunny but cold January Saturday, right after lunch (which I’ve not eaten yet; it’s not that long after my late fried-egg sandwich breakfast, after a late start this morning), at the end of a pretty busy but also pretty unsatisfying week. I’ve done a bit of sketching this week, not much but more than I’ve been doing. The tip of my middle finger has a band-aid on it, I picked up a cut somehow this morning, and so typing is a bit messier. I just took out the trash. I’m listening to the Boo Radleys for a bit of mid-90s-ness while my wife is packing up some of my son’s old things to take to the Goodwill. The cats are doing whatever the cats do, chasing each other around the house. I keep thinking, it is a nice day, I should be outside sketching, but well, Saturday in Davis and like, what do I want to sketch? Not that much. Our little backyard is getting a bit overgrown after the massive storms, but I’m not feeling up to going out there with gardening tools, I’m not up for the black widow fights today. It’s too late to go down to the Farmer’s Market, and I don’t really fancy being there anyway. I did draw this panorama there in the summer though, underneath the big metal shading, as many people went by (I was counting the different football shirts; there was a guy in a Tottenham shirt, big respect, but with ‘Ndombele 28’ on the back, which was a bit hopeful of him). I wanted to draw the perspective, but also the people, and then mix it up with some paint washed over it. It was a very, very hot day. There’s always a lot going on in a Farmer’s Market sketch. Well, not that much, I suppose, just people walking in that slow Farmer’s Market way. It’s good observation practice though. I’m not always that much of an observer, despite being an urban sketcher for all these years. My eyesight’s not great, and I daydream, so if someone I know walked past, I probably wouldn’t recognize them. Many of the people I draw tend to be a mash-up of different people – I’ll draw their face and they are gone, so I add the next person’s shirt, and so on, like one of those books you had when you were a kid. I don’t make things up though, I try to draw the people I’ve actually seen, so it’s representative of who was actually there (otherwise everyone would be in a Spurs shirt of different eras, all looking a bit like Glenn Hoddle). That guy with the ‘tache on the left though looks a bit familiar, like maybe he has the face of an old teacher from school. The posting of last summer’s sketches continues, but I should get on with some new sketches; I should eat lunch first. Saturdays don’t grow on trees you know.

sunday morning drawing davis

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021Leave a comment

Last Sunday morning, on the first day of August, we held our first Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl of the year. It has been a while; I paused organizing them due to the pandemic and I’ve been busy on weekends this year, but one of my fellow Davis sketchers Marlene Lee suggested holding one at Central Park that day during the craft Fair that was going on. It was a good idea. There were lots of vendors selling interesting art items, and there was a band called ‘New Harmony Jazz Band’ playing old numbers. It was nice to see other sketchers again, I’ve been hiding away for a long time and seeing others out and about doing their stuff is always good to see. Plus one guy (Alex) was wearing a Wolverhampton Wanderers shirt! I was delighted, I love football shirts but I’d never seen someone in Davis wear a Wolves shirt before. I’m showing you the sketches I did in reverse, so I can put my final drawing – this big panorama of the Craft Fair in the Farmer’s Market area – first. There were quite a few people around but it wasn’t crowded. Many people were masked up but most weren’t. Many of the sketchers were (including me for about half the time, usually when I might be interacting with people). It makes me feel more like a ninja, plus the mask I was wearing has my drawings on it (you can get masks with my drawings on here! https://society6.com/petescully/masks). I drew the scene above in about 1.5 hours, including about two thirds of the colour, but I coloured in the background when I got home. It was already getting hot, and I stopped for a shaved ice (which needed a few more flavours). Below is the band, they played nice music to sketch to. I drew that, and my other people sketches, with the Zebra brush pen that I was using a couple of years ago. It’s nice to use something like that again, it makes for rapid sketching.

And below are most of the sketchers, as you see I drew Alex in his Wolves shirt twice. If I had drawn more detailed sketches I would have done all of the shirt detailing on the front of that particular shirt. I myself was wearing my France football shirt that day, a favourite of mine, but mostly in honor of Esteban Ocon, who had won his first Grand Prix that morning at the Hungaroring in Budapest, a crazy race that saw a lot of carnage at the first corner. Ocon was also the first French driver to win a Grand Prix in a French car (Alpine, formerly Renault) since Alain Prost in the Renault in 1983. To see the podium with just one anthem played and for it to be the Marseillaise, well I’d never seen that before so I wore my French shirt in Ocon’s honor. I am about as obsessed with Formula 1 as I am with football shirts, as you can tell! I get up very early to watch it. 080221 LDD C IG

Below are Ann Privateer and William Lum, also drawn in the Zebra pen…

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…and here are Ann Filmer and Marlene Lee, sketching in the shade. We’re hoping to have the Davis sketchcrawls go monthly again; I just got my soccer coaching schedule (so many Saturdays to the end of the year, and beyond) so others will organize but since campus is all coming back in-person this Fall it will be good for people to get outside and draw with each other again.

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The Let’s Draw Davis FB Page (where events will be posted) is here: https://www.facebook.com/LetsDrawDavis

There’s also a Let’s Draw Davis FB group, where people who attended can post their sketches and photos afterwards: https://www.facebook.com/groups/LetsDrawDavis/

on a colourful day

December 14, 2018Leave a comment

I’ve been a bit slow with posting this year. My sketching numbers are down too; but then again, 2016 and 2017 were a little hard to beat for sketch volume! I have a fair number of recent sketches still to scan though, but before we get on with those, here are the two I did on the last Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl, which was on a lovely sunny-after-the-rain morning at the Farmers Market. The trees were painted in exciting colours. We had a good turn-out, I talked a bit about drawing crowds and perspective (remembering all the things James Richards once taught me). These trees are almost all leafless now, as we hit mid-December. There were a lot of locals out this day, gearing up for the festive season. Below, sketched from almost the same spot but looking in a different direction, across C Street to the rear section of Davis Community Church.

let’s draw Davis! Dec 1, 2018

November 29, 2018Leave a comment

LDD 120118

Let’s do some sketching! The November ‘Let’s draw Davis!’ sketchcrawl ended up not happening (due to all the unhealthy air) but it’s time for another sketch-crawl meet-up, this time at the colorful Davis Farmer’s Market. Just a short one this time, 10:30-1pm, but enough to get a few bits of sketching in.

We’ll meet up at the benches by the Carousel in Central Park (located between B and C Streets, the Carousel is about in the middle of the park, just past the market), and then do some sketching around the market and the park, before meeting up again at B and 3rd St, at the entrance to the Davis Bicycling Hall of Fame at 1pm (which provides a nice shelter if it rains). At the end we look at each other’s sketchbooks and, if you like, share our sketching methods.

START: 10:30am, Central Park (C St / 4th St) at benches by the Carousel)
FINISH: 1:00pm, B St / 3rd St (outside Bicycling Hall of Fame)

As always the sketchcrawl is FREE and open to anyone who likes to sketch, and meet others who also like urban sketching. All you need is something to draw with and something to draw on.

Hope to see you there!!

Event Page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/543061586165953/

https://www.facebook.com/LetsDrawDavis/