the north in january

February 1, 2025February 1, 2025Leave a comment

Today is February 1st, and outside it is pouring with rain. After a long dry January, maybe the driest I remember in a while, it finally started raining yesterday with the first ‘atmospheric river’ of the year. I’m finding it difficult to handle the overwhelming barrage coming out of the new guy in charge over there, and to mitigate the levels of stress and mental despair I plunge into the sketchbook and keep drawing the world, keep documenting the place, it’s one little thing I can control. This month I have drawn almost every day (there were three days in which I didn’t draw, but I had usually drawn more the day before to make up for it, and I need a rest sometimes, plus I do have a busy full-time job, though as I’ve shown in the past, I tend to draw the most when I am busiest, usually in January, to offset the energy). To continue showing my sketches from around Davis in batches, all of these are from north Davis, not necessarily the Old North, but all above 5th Street. Above is a church I have drawn before numerous times, Newman Chapel, on the corner of 5th and C. I’ve not drawn it from this exact angle before. It was the end of the day and the sun was getting real low, but I drew furiously because what else am I going to do but draw furiously as the sun goes down. You’ll notice the date was January 20th, and I wasn’t going to sit in front of the TV. I did have to colour most of it in at home though, losing my light fast.

I’m not religious, but I like to draw a church. I don’t need to say “I’m not religious but…” in front of a sentence like that, because who cares, but end up doing so anyway. It’s like when football fans want to say something nice about another club, like “I’m not a Spurs fan, but that stadium is great,” or “I’m not an Arsenal fan, but I bloody love Ian Wright”, or “I’m not a PSG fan, but I will admit I really wish I had their kit from 1994, don’t tell my friends from Marseille”. It’s not the same thing as when people say “I’m not a racist, but…”, or “I’m not homophobic, but…” because that means they will usually turn out to be a racist or a homophobe. When I say, “I’m not religious, but…” it’s usually to say that I like drawing churches, and especially cathedrals. I’m not going to say, “I’m not religious, but…” and then follow it with a sentence that says the opposite, espousing scriptures and deities and son on. But I do really love a cathedral, the bigger and more stony the better. I was pleased to hear Notre Dame in Paris has reopened years after that dreadful fire. I have been considering getting myself the Notre Dame Lego set as a birthday present to myself, but looking at all the very tiny pieces, I suspect it might take me six years to build that too. It would look great on display though. I have this dream to visit all the major cathedrals of Europe in one long trip. Start in the north, end in the south, or maybe start in Rome, end in Scotland. Wait, Scotland doesn’t have cathedrals, I learned that on my trip to Edinburgh and Glasgow when I called Glasgow Cathedral a cathedral. Yes, it will say ‘cathedral’ but since the Church of Scotland is no longer governed by bishops, they technically don’t have cathedrals. Fine. It’s a bit like how Westminster Abbey is not actually an Abbey (it’s a ‘Royal Peculiar’), but it’s fine, Big Ben’s Big Ben, whatever. (And it’s the bloody Gulf of Mexico, shut up). I loved the architecture of the Scottish Cathedrals / High Kirks, and then down in Toledo, the massive beauty of their cathedral, one of the best I’ve ever seen, then all the big Gothic medieval masterpieces in France, the grandness of those in Rome, and of course the onion-domed cake of St. Basil’s in Moscow which let’s face it, I will probably never get to see. Until this trip, which will need to be funded by a massive arts grant or a lottery win, I will be content to just draw the churches in Davis, like this one on 8th Street, the Davis Lutheran church. I’ve sketched it before, and I pass by it many times on bike rides home. On this day it was very windy, and I stood opposite with my paints fixed to the seat of my bike with a rubber band, trying to stop the bike from being blown over. A few close calls. The wind was so strong I did wonder; I’m not religious but is someone up above trying to wind me up? I went for a beer downtown after this. There are still a few churches and religious buildings in Davis I’ve not yet drawn, I’ll get around to them all some day.

We have a lot of really nice houses in north Davis, not all of them in the Old North blocks with a history paragraph in John Lofland’s book, but I pass by and think, I’d love to sketch that some day. The one above is a big house on Oak that I ride past and admire, it’s the sort of house I think I always wanted to live in. These days I do worry about the trees around the houses in my neighbourhood, after those big storms dropped so many a couple of years ago (especially on our street) and along Oak there were quite a number of huge limbs that dropped as well. The houses are very individual, with lovely character and yards. Ours is much smaller, with no real yard. Never mind all the cathedrals of Europe, my task feels like just drawing all the houses of Davis, like a one-man Google Street-View with a sketchbook. I’m really just drawing my own world, the world I pass through every day, so that when I inevitably start to forget this will be a reminder. I have been thinking about this a lot, aging and the mind, and recently have been contacted by dementia care homes in the UK asking about drawings of the local area, because the images do inspire older people’s memories. I have my own memories for each of the sketches I do in Davis, but as I’ve said many times before, I only see the surface, others will see their own stories. The time when I had that show at the Pence and a lady was looking at my drawing of the Mustard Seed restaurant, and telling me that what she remembers was that in the 60s that was her friend’s house and they would stay up late playing cards. I loved that; I just liked the shape of the building and the red British phone box in front. I feel like I’m illustrating stories that already exist but might not have been told; it’s hard to explain.

The little house above was drawn on one weekend afternoon when I went out to explore the Old North with Lofland’s book, so that I could draw buildings about which I at least had the start of a story. Lofland’s book ‘Old North Davis’ is brilliant for that. However this house on F Street, again I’ve passed a million times, is not mentioned in there so I don’t know if it has a name, like the ‘Greeble’s Home’ or something. What a sketchable house it is though, those long triangles and the framing of those two trees (both leaning slightly away from it, which is good if there’s a storm). It was late afternoon, so that 4pm sunlight was doing its thing. However I didn’t draw there for too long, as my legs were starting to feel a bit tired, so I drew just the outlines and then went and added all the details and colours while sat more comfortably.

Finally, the last sketch of January drawn on the North Davis Greenbelt. I have walked/run past this a great many times, but never climbed the small rise in the grass for the slightly better view. I thought of drawing the paths and trees, but settled to just sketch the little colourful house over there. It was a day when I was working from home (while most of my coworkers have a hybrid schedule, typically I am in the office every day, but every couple of weeks I will take a work-from-home day especially if I have a lot of remote meetings or workshops). It was mid-afternoon and I had a bit of time before a campus-wide webinar about the future of graduate study, so went for a walk along the Greenbelt, thinking that I really need to kickstart my running schedule again (it has been 2.5 months since my 10k now, but the weight of the world needs counterbalancing with the weight of my, well, me, so I’ve been not exercising and eating lots of junk food, for the sake of the world). I’ll start next week, or maybe after my birthday. So I did a sketch stood up on the grass, and then walked back home in time for the webinar. It was interesting, but not one I needed to take notes for, so I just coloured this in while listening to the speakers. Multi-tasking. Anyway, as I write on this Saturday morning, the first of February, the rain is pouring down outside, and I haven’t looked at any news yet to see what other stupid thing has been said or done today. I think I will just listen to the rain, it has been a long time.

new year’s eaves

January 23, 2025January 23, 20254 Comments

The last sketch of 2024, a walk along the North Davis Greenbelt, another tree, the last of the year. Look at me writing “Happy New Year!” on the page ironically, as if 2025 was ever going to be any good. And yep, even worse than expected so far. These days too will pass, but what follows. I will keep drawing as much as I can, and I have been. I suppose I should keep drawing trees before they all get cut down or burnt, or fall over, or get sold off or deported or eaten. New Year’s Eve, I find it a bit useless, celebrating at midnight when the thing you are dreading most – January – arrives. At least I have the football, at least Spurs are good – oh, right, the opposite. We have a manager (who I think we still like) from Australia, and we are getting beaten Home and Away, losing to our Neighbours, our injured players are all at the Flying Doctors (and the Young Doctors), and Ange Postecoglou is looking like a Prisoner. It’s driving me Round the Twist. Happy New Year (yeah right).

“galliformia dreaming”

July 3, 2024July 2, 2024Leave a comment

I got up early the day I was flying to London, and went for a walk on the north Davis green belt. I had my sketchbook with me, so I drew this sculpture I have always liked, a dog laughing at a small turkey standing on a rock. It’s called “Galliformia Dreaming” by Jean Van Keuren, 2005, same year we moved to Davis. As I sketched, someone said to me, “you’re that sketching guy”, which I am. I should have been running on the green belt really, but I have been lazy with my running. I like living close on the north Davis green belt though. I went home and did some housework, repacking, and relaxed a bit before panicking about travelling, before flying down to LA and then on to London. I’m still scanning my sketches but I enjoyed working in this new format, rather than the usual panoramic.

trees and fever

February 17, 2024February 16, 2024Leave a comment

On the last day of January I got sick, and stayed home, getting progressively worse. By the first day of February I was laid out in bed with a fever and in no mood for anything. I slept all day long, onyl getting up shortly before two to grab something to eat and catch the news – I saw that Lewis Hamilton had signed for Ferrari? How long was I asleep? That was exciting news, though it wouldn’t happen for another year, so I went back to bed. I did get up shortly before it got dark out, and went for a quick walk on the Greenbelt to get some fresh air. I sketched a tree with the sunset behind it while sat on a bench, drawing in that Nero pencil that I got from one of the symposiums (wait, the last symposium I attended was in 2019?). I like that pencil though, with its thick black texture. The sunset was lovely. I was not feeling lovely, so went home and slipped back into bed.

These trees were an experiment using these Derwent ‘Graphitint’ watercolours that I bought recently, I was really interested in seeing what they could do. I think I like them? I mean I suppose, well no, I don;t like them that much, really. They don’t act like normal watercolours for sure, they do have an interesting texture and yes, feel like they are full of graphite pencil which I suppose they are. This is the view of the back of Covell Commons as seen from the Greenbelt in north Davis. That green rise, that’s beside where me and my son would play with the football when he was much smaller, before he was on soccer teams, we’d go out for a kickaround there setting up a couple of goals, and I’d usually lose. Seems like a long time ago now, but I always think of that patch as our little patch. This isn’t the most accurate sketch, though the day was gloomy with rain coming in and out, so atmospherically it’s accurate enough. I probably won’t be using the Graphitint paints while out urban sketching much but they are interesting enough. I was feeling much better by that Sunday, to the point where my energy was rushing back in, so much so that I could not sleep at night at all, leaving me exhausted the next day.

greenbelt moments

January 27, 2022January 27, 2022Leave a comment

Here are a couple of sketches from the North Davis Greenbelt, nearby to where I live. The top one was drawn one lunchtime at Northstar Park, on a day while working from home. It’s of the view towards one of the ponds, hidden by the rushes and the shuffling palm trees. They really do look like they are doing some sort of dance. The one below was drawn close to where I live, it was a Saturday and I needed to get some fresh air, but didn’t want to go too far from the house as I was quite enjoying some being-at-home-on-the-weekend time. I like shadows of bare trees against buildings, something you get a lot of in Davis in January. I like that we have the Greenbelt so close to us; unlike the Green Belt I knew from going to school in Edgware on the top edge of London (the London Green Belt is an area of land surrounding the city and stopping it from growing ever further into a massive sprawl, or that was the idea), our Greenbelt is a long series of park-like paths that connect all over the edge of north Davis. There’s another in south Davis. It’s great to take long walks or runs along them, and we really took advantage during the pandemic.

Though I must say, I’m getting very antsy for some sketching travel now. I don’t mean a regular vacation, I mean a sketching trip, where I go away to somewhere like a city on Europe and sketch for a couple of days solidly, before moving on to the next place. I’m getting the wanderlust again after too long being away from international travel; Davis is nice but I’d like to wander through Europe again. And Japan, we have twice cancelled our trip to Japan due to the pandemic, hopefully we can make it some time in the next couple of years. There’s all sorts of places I want to go. Still, the US is pretty great, and I’m glad we’ve seen a bit more of it over the past year. I really need a sketching trip though.

jog on

January 16, 2021January 16, 20211 Comment

We live near the North Davis Green Belt, and that’s where I walk or run most days. I started running a little bit in 2019 but after the Turkey Trot I picked it up a lot more by the start of 2020, intending to do all these 5k races, and I did the Davis Stampede no sweat and signed up for the Lucky Run, and then coronovirus came along and that was that. So I started running more in general, as if training for these runs that were not going to happen, building up to not just 3 mile but 4 mile runs (I never managed further than that), improving my times each time, usually getting up and running just after sunrise so the hot weather wouldn’t drain me. And then when the fires came and the sky got smoky from August to October, that stopped all of that, and it’s taken me a bit of time to get back to running regularly, but as 2020 ended I decided to get back out more, and I’ve been doing 2 mile runs each time, not fast, but as regularly as I can. I managed a 3 mile run yesterday. It’s the shower afterwards I look forward to most. I couldn’t run marathons, at least I don’t see that in my future, mostly because I don’t want to. Running for more than 26 miles! At some point it’s like, ok this is a bit pointless. At least, this year’s London marathon looked a bit pointless. Due to the coronavirus, rather than being an epic journey in the rain through the streets of Britain’s capital dressed as a kiwi fruit, crossing over Tower Bridge, doing the Lambeth Walk, going down the Strand, having a banana and running up the Mall to Buck House, this year they just had a few proper runner starting before dawn and just running round and round and round St.James’s Park like the Indy 500 or something. They told everyone else they had to run virtually, in their own areas, dressed up as mangoes or peaches or whatever. You do feel great after a good run though, even when not dressed as a fruit, and with all the fun stuff in the world happening, running helps because it’s like you are trying to outrun it, like Brave Sir Robin. “Run away! Run away!” You have to be mindful on the paths though, trying to keep a good distance from everyone else, so I always end up verging off when there are people on the path. I remember early in the pandemic, everybody gave everybody a wide berth, people crossed the street or went around parked cars. That was my favourite time in the pandemic, people crossing the street to avoid you, it was like “finally this is ok”. Back then, they told everyone to stay home, so there were suddenly more people outside walking than ever.

Anyway I drew that sketch above whilst walking the Green Belt, I was stood off of the path and on the grass, I like this intersection of several paths and that big old wooden house in the background. This is probably my favourite sketch of this year so far, I like this one. It reminds me of all the walks we’ve done this year.

This isn’t a real dog, it’s one that was turned into metal by a wizard or something, probably because it was off its leash. Riding a tricycle. Or as Yoda would call them, a docycle. Bit of Star Wars humour there, cheer us up in these dark times. These trying times. Or as Yoda would call them… Down below is another sketch from the path, this time of a neon yellow sign, indicating “bike” “person” “go down left slightly”, not necessarily in that order. Along with another sign lower down that says “wear a mask” “stay 6ft apart” and “wash your hands”, not necessarily in that order. I like the shape of that building in the background, it’s like an opera house made of cereal boxes. I like the way it forms triangles or as Yoda would call them etc and so on. Honestly Yoda give it a break mate, it’s been a difficult year for everyone without you giving it all that. I haven’t even got the energy to shoehorn in a joke about this week’s impeachment trial or as Yoda would call it impeachment do-al (the joke there being ‘dual’ impeachment I suppose?) because we’re done with the Yoda stuff now.

dominoes are fallin’

November 11, 2020November 11, 2020Leave a comment

They are, aren’t they. I drew this one warm autumnal lunchtime last week during the Endless Agonizing Election (the Endless and Agonizing bit is still nowhere near over, the rest of 2020 is not going away with dignity is it). Even as I drew we were not yet close to an outcome but the dominoes were falling alright. Like Domino Rally, remember that game? I always wanted that as a kid, those adverts for it looked so brilliant, little plastic rectangles racing against each other falling over. I never had it, but I finally got one for my son for Christmas several years ago, I think we played it once on Christmas morning and was like, right that’s not as much fun as I thought it might be. It’s sat in the hall cupboard ever since, I think it will be heading to the Goodwill at some point, if future archaeologists can ever excavate our hall cupboard. This domino sculpture is actually on the North Davis Greenbelt, it was something that eluded me for years, I managed never to come across it. This year since I have been walking and running so much, exploring all the pathways on this side of town, I’ve gone past it many times and now finally gone to draw it. It was installed in 1994, the work of artist Eddy Martinez Hood, and it is called Domino Effect II. I assume there was a Domino Effect I, but if this is a sequel it’s a superb sequel. Like Street Fighter II, I don’t know the original at all. Or maybe Domino Effect I was done afterwards like a prequel? I don’t know, if only there were some form of global information network where I could look this up, but as with lyrics that you can’t completely make sense of, the not-knowing is more fun. We live in an age when being able to know things is so immediate that I think maybe this is why so many have turned to the world of not-knowing, of alternative facts, of disbelieving the evidence in favour of the made-up, and let’s face it that’s why we are where we are. Wow that took a turn didn’t it.

I really enjoyed drawing this. It was a break from the endless red and blue TV maps and breaking news from Gondor and the fall colours were really exciting my senses. We have a lot of public art in Davis, it’s an artists town. (Speaking of which, we have a sketchcrawl this Saturday afternoon, 1:00pm starting at the Amtrak Station. Let’s Draw Davis!) I like how this sketch turned out, I was pleased with the colours and the dark values, and right now I feel like I am enjoying my sketching again. My number of sketches this year is way, way down on previous years, but I feel like I’m pushing myself out to draw a lot again, like I was when the pandemic first started.