let’s draw more trees

October 22, 2024October 21, 2024Leave a comment

My obsession with tree drawing led me to organize the first Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl of the 24-25 season, a gathering down in the UC Davis Arboretum on an unnecessarily hot morning in early October. I had been for a four mile run that morning, an unnecessarily long distance in preparation for the very unnecessary 10k I will run in the Turkey Trot this year. Speaking of which I need to get back into training for that, I had a vacation to Kauai in between and swapped running for fighting waves and sipping cocktails. The temperatures we had in Davis at the start of this month though were a bit stupid, well over a hundred degrees for several days on end, what sort of autumn do you call this. It has cooled off a little now and the weather is lovely, though the world at large fills me with dread, the election is coming. I really hope the thing I’m dreading doesn’t happen. I will bury myself in my sketchbook in the meantime. Anyway, we were there in the Arboretum, and I drew the bridge, the same bridge I drew on my first ever sketchcrawl in Davis back in December 2005. A very long time ago now, but it was the future at the time. I had to get out of the house, I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t know this town, I needed to start drawing again, and my wife spotted a posting for the worldwide sketchcrawl on DavisWiki or something, long before the world revolved around Facebook, and so out I went, shy as a coconut, started sketching at Mishka’s with some other shy people, the old Mishka’s a block away from where it is now, made it into the Arboretum, and kept going, I didn’t meet up at the end, I just kept drawing on campus, ended up at the library. You might say I kept going and never stopped. Anyway I always think of that day when I draw this bridge, a cold day, before I had even found a job, two months away from the end of my 20s, not even two months into my new life across the Atlantic. I still can’t draw the bloody bridge. Anyway, as you can see the creek has a little sluice in it (is that what they are called? I don’t know. Weirs, that’s it, not sluices.) which is part of the whole Arboretum waterway project I mentioned last time. Bit inconvenient for the ducks, they have to walk round. Good exercise I suppose. Don’t feed them bread. I stood beneath a huge overhanging tree limb while sketching, and leaned against it when I got tired, which after my four mile run was a lot.

I had rushed out of the house and not brought anything to drink with me, no water or anything. I thought about going back downtown to get something, but thought, I’ll be fine. I walked through the shady Redwood Grove looking for something to draw and came across the old tree stump lying on its side. The way the light was hitting it made it look multicoloured, though it was white as a bone. It reminded me of an old skull, maybe of a styracosaurus, and I had drawn a real styracosaurus skull in Los Angeles earlier this year, on my day-long dinosaur drawing adventure. I might need another one of those. I was getting thirsty by this point. I did have another sketch in me but needed to find a drink. None of the nearby buildings on campus were open on the weekends for me to see if they had vending machines, the shops were too far, and my own building with its well-stocked vending machine was a bit too far a walk. So by the time we were all done sketching and met up at the end to look at each others’ work (and there were some very nice sketches done) I was parched. I wasn’t even hungry, I just went straight to Newsbeat and bought two cold drinks, and drank them on the way home.

It was busy downtown, really busy. Newsbeat had a lot of customers, and there were a lot of folk walking about. It’s a good sign for downtown Davis that. The building owners just need to stop putting business rents up to unsustainable levels as that is bad for small local shops, shops the community needs. We really don’t need another boba tea or fro yo shop. Anyway, there were a lot of people about, and it was hot, and I wasn’t hungry so skipped eating lunch and went home. On the way back I noticed this tree on E Street, in the Old North area, and just had to draw it. I only drew a bit of a it though, and finished it off at home because I was feeling hot. It’s lovely isn’t it, it looks like some wise old monster that might control your mind if you aren’t careful. Well not mine. I went home and took a nap, and dreamed about styracosauruses, probably.

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…

sketching a rainy day in davis

April 26, 2024Leave a comment

Last month we held another Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl in downtown Davis, this time on 2nd Street. It was a really rainy day too, but we had a good turnout of sketchers not minding that. I sat beneath the shelter of the Varsity Theatre and sketched the Avid Reader bookstore, a local favourite spot (and where I worked a long long time ago). the rain was really hard, absolutely bucketing down. That was a busy day for me; I had woken up early and taken part in the annual Lucky Run, and this time I ran the 7k distance for the first time ever. Usually I run the 5k, but I wanted a bit more of a challenge. I’ve not been running as much and am definitely heavier, but I smashed that 7k and want to run more. I am aiming to go for the 10k by the Fall, so I had better get back to training, cut back on those milkshakes. Next week, maybe.

I went into Mishka’s Cafe to do a last sketch, and several of the other sketchers were there. I sketched the scene in my brown fountain pen, and had a big fruity smoothie (which took several straws to drink, because their plastic straws are a bit too weak to be used in their smoothies, I must remember to bring my reusable metal straw next time). Then we all got together afterwards to look at each others’ sketchbooks, there were some great styles on display.

I recently posted the next Let’s Draw Davis event which will be on Saturday May the 4th, so I made a Star Wars style logo for this one. Check out details at the Let’s Draw Davis FB page.

the very hart of campus

March 2, 2024Leave a comment

Last weekend we held another meet-up of local sketchers as part of the monthly ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ sketchcrawls, this time in the very heart of the UC Davis campus, meeting up outside the immense Shields Library. I had worried it would be a pretty wet day, but in the end we had lovely sunshine. It was a short sketchcrawl at just two hours, enough for a couple of decent drawings for me; above, Hart Hall, one of my favourite buildings to draw at UC Davis, especially on a bright day like last Saturday. I was terrorised by a squirrel while drawing this (in so much as a squirrel can be a terrorist, it might be a bit of a reach to say that coming up to me occasionally saying “yeah come on then” in squirrel language amounts to terrorism, or just normal squirrel behaviour whenever someone sits next to their favourite tree). We share this campus with the squirrels, and as I know too well we are all competing for our little bit of space. I sympathized with the squirrel to be honest.

We had quite a turnout, a lot of students, local sketchers, sketchers from out of town. I drew my second in front of Shields Library, you can see one of Robert Arneson’s Eggheads there. Some sketchers are dotted around. It was a nicely bustling kind of Saturday afternoon on campus, not too busy but not quiet either. At the end we all gathered in a circle outside and did a show-and-tell of our sketches, some really nice diverse styles on show. I was however criticized in front of the whole group by one sketcher from out of town who complained to me that I’d chosen such an “inconvenient” location (“the middle of nowhere” they said) for a sketchcrawl, because it was far from the parking lot they’d parked at. It’s the heart of the campus, the main library, very much “the middle of somewhere”. I was a bit stunned. Oh well. Anyway the next Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl will be on March 23rd in the afternoon, this one will be downtown at Mishka’s cafe on 2nd street, easy enough to find. Though I will have just done the Lucky Run 7k race that morning, so I will probably be a little bit shattered, but still sketching.

first street, ten years later

February 5, 2024February 5, 2024Leave a comment

Last week, we held our monthly ‘Let’s Draw Davis!’ sketchcrawl down at Davis Commons. It was an overcast day, not rainy as it had been, but not sunny. Colours had to be a nit muted, not as bold. We had a good group of sketchers there of all ages, it was nice to see so many people out with their sketchbooks. I decided that I wanted to revisit a scene that I had drawn exactly ten years ago (ten years and a few days, that is), looking across 1st Street towards where the Natsoulas Gallery and the frat houses are. You can click on the image for a closer view. It has changed a fair bit in that decade (haven’t we all). I stood in pretty much the exact same spot as in 2014, though I think I must have been seated back then. The Natsoulaas has seen some big changes – the large cat outside, as well as the big colourful dog (just offscreen here), where before there was a big colourful man figure. The big frat house next door is still there, but is part of the TKE (Tau Kappa Epsilon) fraternity now. The building to the left of the pole (which I have used as the middle of the page both times) is new, and home to the ΘΞ fraternity (Theta Xi, or ‘The Taxi’ as I’d always say). They used to be in the building TKE is in now, plus a couple of other smaller houses next door, which have been knocked down. Well in my 2014 panorama, they were still there, as you can see below. It was much sunnier in January 2014 too. There were more trees then, but that teensy tree just to the left of the street signs is now a lot taller. Anyway, I was just interested in seeing the change after a decade. I was ten years younger, belly a bit thinner, hair a bit redder, eyes a bit younger, plus a whole load of other physical or personality things I’m not going into now. I’m still drawing in my sketchbook, I don’t know if I’ve realistically improved much but I’m still going. Stop worrying, keep on sketching. The sketchbook is a place to record not so much a place, as a point in time.

I also recorded some people too. While eating lunch (a huge chicken sandwich at a newish eating place I had never seen before) I sketch some people with my brown ink fountain pen. Not a sketchcrawl unless there are a few people sketched. I spent most of my sketchcrawl working on the panorama piece. At the end we all got together and did our usual show and tell. Someone asked if we could put all our sketchbooks on the floor, like they do on other sketchcrawls, but I don’t like that, because the best way to see peoples’ work is not standing nearly six foot above it looking down onto a damp sidewalk. (I also don’t like the feeling of comparison when doing that, always makes me feel a bit shy). I know, I’m a bit of an outsider here not going along with the whole “throwdown” thing, it’s become a tradition now, and people like to get that shot to share on Facebook, but we always like to take a group photo at the end where you see the sketcher with their sketchbook. The thing I always loved with the original Worldwide Sketchcrawls, especially the ones in San Francisco when Enrico Casarosa was doing them, was that at the end you would mingle with other sketchers and look through each others books (because more than likely you would have multiple sketches that you had done, not just one particular page) and just chat with everyone. We’ve kind of evolved into a group show and tell almost by accident, but anyone that doesn’t feel comfortable sharing their sketches doesn’t have to. On my very first worldwide sketchcrawl in 2005 (when my fellow Davis sketchers Alison and Allan were there) I was too shy to even go to the final meet-up. Anyway, we will be holding more Davis sketchcrawls in 2024, dates coming soon.

drawing boards

October 27, 2023October 26, 2023Leave a comment

A couple of weeks ago we held another Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl, this time at the UC Davis Quad, and we had a good bunch sketching with us. I drew the boards, I always seem to draw those at this time of year. I never get ‘board’ of them , hur hur. I see this one is for ‘Cherry Pie Comedy Improv’. I went to a Comedy Improv night once years ago, I asked them whether ‘Improv’ was short for ‘Improve Your Joke Writing’. I didn’t really, I made that up. I don’t know if I’ve ever been to an Improv Night, I’m sure they are very good, never really appealed. I was brought up on Whose Line Is It Anyway, the original British one, Clive Anderson hosting, Paul Merton, Tony Slattery, Josie Lawrence. Proops. Sessions. I suppose showing up at a sketchcrawl is a bit like doing an Improv, using your honed skills to come up with sketches, though thankfully on a sketchcrawl nobody laughs at it (so very much like an Improv night). “Whose Line and Wash is it Anyway”. I do remember going to party when I was at secondary school organized by someone who really liked Whose Line Is It Anyway (as did I) and we all played games like on the show. I barely remember it at all, come to think of it, that was so long ago. That show was so long ago, I’ve not seen it since about 1992. But back to the sketching.

Here we see some sketchers that I’ve sketched with many times, above are Alison Kent, met on my first sketchcrawl in Davis back in December 2005, along with her husband Allan Hollander (below), I have sketched them both many times. On the right of Alison is Robert Dvorak, well known art instructor who I have also sketched before, and the last time I saw him was when I bumped into him sketching a workshop in Yosemite. Also below behind Allan are a couple of other sketchers, we had a lot of students join us that day, many from the Landscape Architecture and Design programs.

I organized this sketchcrawl before I realized how invested in the Rugby World Cup I was going to become, so for my last sketch, I found a table in the courtyard of the Memorial Union, jumped on the strong wifi connection, and watched part of the first half of Ireland vs New Zealand. I was rooting for Ireland of course, but it didn’t start so well. I cycled home fast for the second half, and it was an exciting finish, the Irish nearly made it, but New Zealand held out for the win. (I think they will win the World Cup this Saturday, against South Africa, who narrowly beat England after coming from behind, I’m still a bit gutted about that) (Look at me, I’m a rugby fan all of a sudden!)

I really enjoyed seeing everyone’s sketches at the end though, it inspired me to do a lot more sketching. We’re still holding the sketchcrawls monthly, though I’m not sure the date of the November one, I think someone else might organize it. I’ll post it here when known. You can check out the Facebook group to see other people’s sketches: https://www.facebook.com/groups/LetsDrawDavis.

complicated canopy

October 24, 2021Leave a comment

At the start of this month we held the latest ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ sketchcrawl at Vanderhoef Quad on the UC Davis, meeting outside the Manetti Shrem Museum. Long-time readers might recall that I drew the construction of this building and it’s complicated canopy back in 2015-16, and was invited to the grand opening where I was able to sketch the artists mingling in this great space. I didn’t sketch inside on this sketchcrawl, but I did attempt that canopy again on this sketchcrawl. There’s a lot to take in. I didn’t quite get the gradient from red to purple right on the big sign, I need to play with mixing watercolor gradients a bit. We had a good turnout, it is always fun to see other people sketching.

I drew a quicker sketch from across the street, using a purple pen. It was a pretty hot day, and there wasn’t anywhere to get a cold drink, it’s not a busy part of Davis on a weekend. I had been coaching soccer that morning at a game in Woodland (we drew 5-5; we had been 4-0 down, but came back to lead 5-4, but with about three minutes of stoppage time our opponents scored an equalizer in the last second. Exciting game!)

The last sketch I did was of the Buehler Alumni Center. I’ve only drawn this once as far as I recall, and that was a curvilinear sketch from about a decade or so ago. There it is below. I drew that in 2010, the years have flown. Anyway, we gathered again to look at each others’ sketchbooks and it was fun.

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/

sketching by the train tracks

November 23, 2020Leave a comment

Last week we braved the elements (it was a bit cooler than usual) and held a socially-distanced Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl. We started out at the Amtrak station and went down 2nd Street. It was kinda sorta a scavenger hunt, but my list wasn’t very good, putting two of the items/prompts twice, and I didn’t follow any of them. I only did two drawings, at pretty much the same place (just from opposite sides of the train track). In the second one (the panorama of the Amtrak station, below) I stood leaning against the wall and my fingers got chilly. It was only a few weeks ago we were hitting temperatures in the big 90s! I mean it’s not cold cold, but it was noticeably more autumnal. I drew the above sketch with a Lamy safari fountain pen in black ink, and below the uniball signo um-151 in brown-black ink (click on it to see it bigger on the Flickr site).

A Decade of Let’s Draw Davis!

October 31, 2020October 31, 20201 Comment

In October 2010 I organized the first in a monthly series of sketchcrawls called “Let’s Draw Davis!”. We met in Central Park in the morning, drew all day, had lunch together, and met up again in the mid afternoon to look at each others’ sketchbooks. I had been on sketchcrawls in Davis before, advertised on the workdwide sketchcrawl forum, but after going to the Urban Sketching Symposium in Portland in the summer of 2010 (up to which point I had really not been getting ‘out there’ as an artist, except for being one of the original urban sketchers when that website launched) I scribbled thoughts and ideas into a notebook on the plane, one of which was that I needed to connect more with the local art community, meet other artists, encourage people to get out sketching, like Art Brut telling everyone to form a band. I wrote the words “Let’s Draw Davis” into my notebook and was struck with all sorts of ideas, the main one being that we needed a monthly gathering for people who wanted to draw, that would be free and organized with a start and end point, that would not be a ‘club’ or ‘group’ you had to join but an event anyone could feel part of, regardless of ability or experience. I had been on too many sketchcrawls where if you arrived late you wouldn’t know where the final meeting would be, or if you missed the middle point and they changed the final meeting you would be standing around wondering where everyone was (I’m looking at you, sketchcrawls in Berkeley years ago). It needed to be accessible, somewhere you could cycle to if need be, and IN DAVIS – this isn’t “Let’s Draw Davis And Sometimes Woodland Or Vacaville”, though they can definitely be things that should happen. I would put up posters in shop windows, make a website, put fliers in the local galleries, add things to social medias. I did all of that. I still make the posters, but someone else handles the Facebook group, and I’m not printing posters and putting them in Newsbeat like I used to. I am still making stickers, and recently I even tried to make badges. On that very first sketchcrawl I even made a few mini-sketchbooks, and brought extra pencils, so that if people asked what we were doing I could give them a book and a pencil and say, why not give it a go? I know of at least one person that actually worked for, and they went off and started drawing. The sketchcrawls haven’t always been monthly – been a few hiatus periods, such as this year with the pandemic, and also other years when I kinda stopped wanting to draw in groups (we all get like that; even now on sketchcrawls I still prefer wandering off on my own), but I have met so many great people, great artists, prolific sketchers that it’s been so totally worth it. It even kicked off a series of sketchcrawls when I organized a big sketchcrawl down the Fleet Street area in 2012 called “Let’s Draw London”, to celebrate the start of the new London Urban Sketchers chapter. They are still holding them monthly like clockwork there, big events with crowds of artists in all sorts of locations, called “Let’s Draw Trafalgar Square” or similar. I’ve had several other sketchcrawl ideas in California that haven’t been able to happen, such as my Sacramento Sketch Saturdays plan, or my big San Francisco Sketching and History Tour. But we still keep finding things to draw in Davis, even if it’s the same stuff in a different year.

davis sketchcrawl oct 16 2010

So after a year of pandemic and shelter-in-place and wildfires and election stress, I was determined to celebrate ten years of Let’s Draw Davis with a sketchcrawl in the same place, a decade and a day later.

LDD Oct 2020 simple

This was the poster, incorporating many of the posters I have designed (thrown together) over the years. Many fun ones; my favourite sketchcrawl might have been the 2017 City of Davis Centenary one, with the map of all the places that were there in 1917 and earlier (now go and draw them). So on this Saturday, we met at Central Park after most of the Farmers Market was packing up to go, and drew around the surprisingly busy park. It was a nice group of sketchers from around the region, a few new faces and several familiar friends. I drew the panorama at the top of this post. It was a hot day, with temperatures hitting 90 yet again, but pleasant. I stuck to the shade. I drew the compost heap area in the Central Park Gardens, an interesting little spot.

I was going to draw the Carousel, but it looked a bit too complicated, so I chickened out and drew the statue of Gandhi instead. then we all met up and shared our sketching stories. Being a special sketchcrawl I had some prizes at the end, for the ‘sketch of the day’ (William Lum got this), for the ‘most sketches’ (Misuk Goltz won this), and a long-time sketcher award for Marlene Lee who’s been coming on these since Jan 2011 and has come to almost every one since. (I did have a couple of long-time-sketcher prizes for a couple of others but they had left early, so next time!) And that was that! The next Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl will be a scavenger hunt on Saturday November 14, I’ll update the Facebook page soon. In the meantime, here’s to more drawing Davis!