at froggy’s corner

May 19, 20242 Comments

It was a Saturday, I needed to do a sketch, I went downtown, yada yada yada. Same old story. I’m quite a boring person, truth be told. Oh well. I headed to G Street, which is still blocked off to traffic since the pandemic, so that it is more of an outdoor eating and drinking space, although a few weeks ago someone who had possibly done a lot of drinking and maybe other stuff decided to take a drive up that street and crashed into a bunch of seating. I would have read more, but I don’t subscribe to the Davis Enterprise so that was all I could really gather from the glimpse I could read before it vanished. Anyway, on this Saturday the was a little market going on, people selling second hand clothing, music was being played, there was some dancing but that might have just been the way they were walking out of the pub, and I got excited to see some old football shirts on one rack; one had a big hole in the front, the other was clearly fake. No thanks guv. I decided to stand on the corner of G and 2nd and sketch Tommy J’s, aka Froggy’s, I have drawn this place before. I used to like coming here, many years ago, and it’s not really changed much. I always loved their chicken burgers especially. They were one of several local food places featured on a TV show recently (one of that Guy Fieri guy’s shows, though thankfully he was barely in it himself) where they were looking for the best dish in Davis. I was surprised to see Sudwerk on there, having eaten there recently with the family and been quite underwhelmed (sorry Sudwerk, I still love your beer), especially when the dish they put on the telly was called fish and chips, but mate, that is not fish and chips. The ones who won it in the end was the Hotdogger, and I agree, they have some pretty great hot dogs, although I only eat the chicken variety (and not very often). Anyway, I was glad to see Tommy J’s on there, because their food always hit the spot. I must go there to eat again sometime. On this day, I sketched from the corner, standing outside the smoke shop. I had my headphones on for the most part, I was feeling a bit grumpy, and I wasn’t really enjoying my sketching. I don’t know why exactly, but I go through this, where I just don’t enjoy the process as much. Like, I love to sketch, and it does help me relax and divert my mind elsewhere, but some days I just feel like I’m chiseling away and just feeling awkward. You would think I’d be over that. I see some people’s works online, and look I don’t go comparing myself or any of that nonsense, but I see such confident lines in some people and get annoyed with myself for not being able to draw circles. I am feeling in need of a reset button, if that makes sense. I will find that again, but sometimes I am just in a funk about it. The one above I started sketching when it was sunny, but it got cloudy, so it looked a bit gloomier by the end. One guy decided to stand in front of the trash bin for a while, I didn’t want to add him in though. Another bloke came over to the little drinking fountain and started filling a large super-soaker type water gun up, but it looked like he was filling it with cranberry juice as well, so I watched him suspiciously. Another guy came up and said something to me I couldn’t hear, I took out my earpods and he was saying “come on you spurs” (I was wearing one of my many Spurs shirts) and holding his hand up for a fist bump; I still didn’t completely understand and was holding my pen, so he said it again and I got it, and was like, oh yeah, right. It was a couple of weeks after we had been thwacked 4-0 by Newcastle, and a day before we were about to lose 3-2 to the other lot down the road. I guess I’m surprised there are still fans out there. It was quite a busy afternoon, a good thing I suppose, but I got as far as I could with my sketch and went over to Froggy’s to sit and have a beer, and draw the inside. The last time I did was, I don’t know, must be over a decade ago. That is ages. I sat and drew with the brown fountain pen, but again, I wasn’t really feeling it. I didn’t eat, because I was having dinner at home shortly after, but I captured what I could. Not really a classic, but it’s me drawing what’s in front of me. I was a bit nervous thinking about Spurs v Arsenal the next day. We ended up going 3-0 down before fighting back at bit, and losing only 3-2. As I write the season just finished, and it got a bit worse for us, but then we still managed fifth, and the other lot didn’t win the league. Speaking of football, on the wall of the bar there is a mirror advertising Newcastle Brown Ale, with the famous blue star, which as you may know is the best sponsor of any football shirt in history.

another from the old north

May 16, 2024May 16, 2024Leave a comment

I love the old houses in Old North Davis, that historic neighbourhood just above 5th Street that I cycle through on my way home. This little on on D Street is so pretty with all the colourful flowers around it. I like to refer to the brilliant John Lofland book “Old North Davis” where he details the history of most of the buildings in these few blocks. If I’m right, this one is at 516 D (p.121 of his book) and was built in 1920, and the book shows a picture of original residents the Vansell family outside with a much-less developed neighbourhood behind. I think this is the one anyway. There’s a For Sale sign outside; I actually saw this house on Zillow too, and it is going for the price of just over a million bucks! It’s not as small as it looks from out here, but a million smackeroos, whew. Who knew D Street is the new Bishop’s Avenue. That’s inflation for you. For example, looking at the chart on Zillow, it was worth less than half of that at the same time I bought my own house in north Davis. What a pretty place though, and historic. The neighbours around there generally keep the places looking nice. I know from my own small weed-strewn back yard how hard that can be sometimes. I think I’d want a garage for a million big ones though. And a butler too, and a giraffe. At least we have the carport here, to keep the car shaded from this Davis sunshine (and the trees dropping massive pine cones down) (and the occasional tree as well). I wonder sometimes, if I’m here long enough, will I sketch everywhere that is in Lofland’s book? Maybe.

penny farthings at the picnic day parade

May 15, 2024May 14, 2024Leave a comment

Last month was the annual UC Davis Picnic Day, the largest university open house event in America, and a tradition that’s been going on since 1909. It’s also a day that usually fills me with a bit of dread, with so many people coming to campus, I usually try to find a way to get out of town. It can be pretty busy, not to mention all the parties going on. Still it can be fun, and we always like the parade. So this year we went down and found a spot by the Quad to watch the Picnic Day Parade go past. It was a good one this year, and I tried to get a quick sketch of it all, though it’s not easy to draw things marching past. I sketched the crowd and the trees before the parade arrived, and while I’d thought I might sketch the marching band or maybe even the fleet of DeLoreans, it was the Penny Farthings I ended up sketching, the symbol of the city of Davis. After the parade, we walked about a bit, my wife and mother in law got some plants from the Plant Science dept, we all got an expensive round of smoothies, then we decided to ditch campus and walk downtown to the Farmers Market.

Here’s a lot more information about Picnic Day: https://picnicday.ucdavis.edu/history

May the Porsche be with you

May 14, 2024Leave a comment

I saw this beauty down on 2nd Street in Davis, opposite the Varsity. Lovely Porsche. I don’t know the model, I assumed it was a Carrera, a 911 maybe. I should be like an expert on these things, but having not studied them whatsoever I think that disqualifies me from being an expert. I just love how they look. It reminds me of my favourite Autobot from the Transformers, Jazz, who was a Porsche. Beautiful shape this one. I stood outside the Avid Reader Active and sketched this (adding the colour later), it’s always nice to have a classic car in your sketchbook. I saw another silver Porsche parked around the corner, and an even shinier Auston Healy a couple of blocks away. I wish I could have sketched them all! It’s been a while since I went to one of those classic car events.

the downtown aprils

May 11, 2024May 11, 2024Leave a comment

Here are a few downtown sketches from recently, I have more but why drop them all at once, this isn’t Netflix. Still you get four here, so that feels like dropping a mini-series and then dropping part two later. Maybe it’s more like a Disney+ series in that it’s got no real story and goes ultimately nowhere. Or it’s just a few more sketches of this place I’ve been living for the past eighteen and a half years. Right, above, that’s the side of the Natsoulas Gallery, and that big dog made of records and cat made of pottery, I’ve drawn them before. I know I should tell new stories to go along with these sketches, but I’m not going to, I’m just plodding on.

I think I have not drawn this building before, on F Street up by 5th. I mean, I’ve not had much reason to. This time, I quite liked the shadow I guess. There’s an eyebrow shop there, which reminds me of Ebenezer Blackadder’s moustache shop (in our favourite Christmas TV show). I saw an eyebrow shop in Riverside called “Eyebrows-R-Us” which made me look twice. I was going to pop in, hoping someone would ask me if I’m looking for anything particular, and I would say “No, I just came in for a browse,” but that would have been pretty a weak gag. Next door is the place that does these ‘Hump Bikes’, which are shaped a bit liked mopeds, but electric and silent, and apparently totally allowed in the bike lane, where they move much more quickly than regular bikes and appear suddenly beside me. They give me the hump. I drew this on a day when I was really risking things by being outside, because the allergens have been particularly strong lately. Sure enough, I ended up sneezing over and over, as per usual.

Here’s a place I have sketched before, on the corner of B and 3rd. I think it’s Sam’s Falafel Hut now, I remember it used to be Ciocolat. Things move around in Davis. I stood in the shade of the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame to draw this. I’ve never been in there either. I ride a bike around all the time, but I suppose I’ve never been that interested in seeing the Hall of Fame for riding a bike. There was one time during the pandemic that I rode from downtown to home to pick up a key and then down to campus in the fastest time possible, because one of our visiting faculty had locked themself out of their office and needed to start their online class, and I was out for lunch while working from home. It was a legendary ride. Maybe it should go in the Hall of Fame, is that how that works? I don’t know. I watch the Tour de France on TV sometimes, it’s probably more stuff like that. I think the main reason I’ve never gone in is because I don’t really like drawing bikes. I’m a bit rubbish at circles. Don’t start looking at my car wheels now though, thank you.

The last one is from D Street or somewhere. I think they do hair or nails or moustaches or something here. I just like the shape of the triangular roof. I have drawn a lot of D Street lately. I draw a lot in general. I was going to do a sketchcrawl last week, another Let’s Draw Davis, on May the 4th. I made it Star Wars themed. It absolutely bucketed down that day. Normally I wouldn’t mind sketching int he rain, and I could go inside and sketch anyway, but it was one of those days, I wasn’t feeling that great, so I stayed in and stayed comfortable. That evening though we did go downtown to the Varsity Theatre to watch the rereleased showing of The Phantom Menace. Great stuff! More Davis sketches to come.

a block of second street

May 9, 2024Leave a comment

After Spring Break, the Spring Quarter began, another busy time but at least it wasn’t Winter Quarter. In my Quest To Draw Every Inch of Davis (not a real quest) I decided to go down to 2nd Street to sketch Logos Books, the little second-hand bookshop on the corner of the row, and Soccer and Lifestyle next door, the soccer themed shop that I first went into back in 2005 when we drove over to Davis for the day, and I wandered downtown while my wife interviewed at this university called UC Davis that I had never heard of until a few days before. I’m football shirt crazy, and I love a good book, so I’ve spent a bit of time in here over the years (admittedly quite a lot more time in Soccer and Lifestyle, I am really really obsessed with football shirts, I mean ‘soccer jerseys’), so a sketch of this block is long overdue. I came back a couple of days alter to draw the rest of the block, the part where Philz Coffee is located. I’ve never been in there, I don’t drink coffee (it’s not my cup of tea, literally) but I should pop in sometimes. Ach, I’ve really spent a lot of my time in this town. This used to be where De Luna jewellers was (that is what it was called isn’t it? The memory is going as the years get further away). I drew that once on a rainy day in about 2008, if memory serves (I usually remember drawings well enough). I stood outside the now-empty closed-since-covid Uncle Vito’s to draw this.

24 hours in Vegas

May 8, 2024May 9, 2024Leave a comment

At the end of the Utah trip, we spent the night in Las Vegas. We stayed at the Venetian – well, the Palazzo, the equally fancy and lavish massive hotel next door that’s an extension of the Venetian. It was very very nice. Our room was on the 45th floor, the hotels in Vegas can be pretty enormous. Our window overlooked one of Vegas’s newest curios, The Sphere, an absolutely massive ball covered in a wraparound LED screen, displaying all sorts of animations and advertisements. There’s a big concert venue inside, I know U2 were playing there last year. I had to draw it. There was a giant animated emoji that would come up, that was easier to sketch than the goldfish bowl. Sometimes it would turn into a big basketball. Honestly, it’s really made to be turned into a Death Star isn’t it. There’s a lot of Vegas behind it, with an airplane landing way below us. Strange being so high up. It’s been a little while since I was last in Vegas, actually I think it was the layover I had in 2019, when I stayed at the seriously aging Luxor. It’s twenty years this year since my wife and I got married in Las Vegas! Before our wedding we stayed at the Luxor, and for the wedding itself we were at the Rio. For our honeymoon, we went to the Venetian, which was our favourite of the big themed resorts. It’s brilliant. That shop Michael Jackson used to buy his tacky junk in is still there. Back then in 2004 we had a nice dinner at a restaurant called the Canaletto, on the indoor St Marks Square; we went back all these years later for a lovely meal. This time was our son’s first trip to Vegas, and we were going to see the Beatles ‘Love’ show by Cirque du Soleil at the Mirage. My wife and I last saw that show in 2011! It’s a brilliant performance, and my son loved it. And a few weeks later, we learned after 16 years the show is closing. What a shame! I’m glad I got to see it (twice). Anyway, before the show we walked down the Strip a bit, and it was pretty packed, bit too busy for me. After our Utah trip and the long journey across the desert, and dinner and shops and the show, we slept well that night. Of course, I was a little nervous about scorpions; I’d heard that a man last year had been stung on his (ahems) in his bed at the Venetian by a scorpion in his sheets. I triple-checked the sheets that night!

When I got up I went out sketching on the Strip, which was a little less busy than the night before, but not without the lads carrying around those long plastic margarita containers and those ladies dressed as showgirls getting people to take photos with them for tips. I stood in the shade underneath the bridge next to the traffic and sketched the Strip, until I got a bit bored of standing there, and left it at that. We didn’t do too much more in Vegas, except we drove down the Strip towards the older downtown, looking for the place we got married, Cupid’s Wedding Chapel. It’s a little rougher down there, and one block just off the Strip was cordoned off by the cops. We looked for the chapel, with its distinctive red heart-shaped sign, but unfortunately, it’s gone. That was a shame! Nothing sits still for too long in Vegas…

Kolob Canyons

May 6, 2024May 6, 2024Leave a comment

It turns out the next national park we would visit was actually Zion again, but a completely different (almost completely separate) part of the park called Kolob Canyons. We were on the long long drive from Bryce Canyon to Las Vegas, so this was a good place halfway to stop for a while (but that was a long journey across the desert, and an otherwise boring busy freeway). We stopped and went to an overlook where you can see the panoramic vista, with arches like huge wheels forming in the rich orange rock; I used that new Daniel Smith Aussie Red Gold to bring out the colour in this one, that paint is a bit strong (and a lot more golden yellow than the reddish brown that comes out of the tube, it’s a way stronger pigment than my other paints). We stopped in at the Visitor Center on the way in, where I got my souvenirs, but we didn’t have time to do any hiking, we were off to spend the night in Vegas.

Bryce Canyon

May 5, 20248 Comments

It was a fairly long drive across southern Utah from Zion to Bryce Canyon National Park, most of which was filled with bluish grey scenery with mysterious mountain backdrops, until we passed through an area called Red Canyon, where the rocks suddenly took on a bright reddish orange, and we had to drive through two archways in the rock. Snow was falling, and got heavier as we pressed on to Bryce Canyon City, which is not exactly a City, more of a village, but one that has an excellent big hotel and restaurant called Ruby’s Inn. Though we stayed across the street at another nice hotel, we had dinner at Ruby’s both nights, hearty all-you-can-eat grub in a cowboy setting. We were spending just one day hiking Bryce Canyon, and while the landscape was covered in snow, it was another blue sky day for our exploring. It was busy, and not easy to find a place to park, but we started out at Sunrise Point, where my son and I hiked into the surreal landscape of the Queens Garden. Bryce Canyon is famous for its distinctive ‘hoodoos’, tall rock formations that look like the surface of an alien planet. While hoodoos exist elsewhere too, Bryce has the largest concentration of them, and to look down upon the valley from the plateau is like looking into an impenetrable maze. The trail felt like going on an adventure, and as we got deeper in the path got muddier and muddier. We had special metal devices for our boots to give extra grip, but our boots were absolutely caked in orange mud when we were done.

I forgot to bring my sketchbook with me, which was unlike me. As my wife didn’t come on the hike into the steep valley, she walked along the rim, before heading back to the hotel to get some snacks and pick up my sketchbook. The drawing above is one I did afterwards at the hotel, I really wanted to catch the unusual shapes in this place. The sketch at the very top, the distinctive and famous ‘Thor’s Hammer’, I drew quickly at the trailhead when I got my sketchbook. I did want to try to draw a panorama of the landscape though, so I drew the whole scene below from the Sunset Point – though in pencil outline, I did start some of the ink but decided to go and hike along the rim a little more, so I ended up drawing most of that at the hotel too. We loved this place. It’s not often you get to see a place so spectacular. It took a long time to get there, but these are the parts of America you just have to see to believe. And it was so red!

The Queen’s Garden merged with the Navajo Trail, which took me and my son through more muddy oaths and snowy vales, before leading us upward in a steep zigzag, and passing the aforementioned Thor’s Hammer. Here it is again, below. You really get the sense of mythology here, and it reminded me of the Valley of the Mystics in the Dark Crystal. We felt pretty great when we made it back up to the top, that was a good achievement for us both. We watched over people starting their trail wearing nice new trainers, not exactly waterproof hiking boots, and we were like, good luck with that. It took me a good while to clean my boots.

You can find out more about Bryce Canyon here. It’s another National Park off our list! We walked along the Rim Trail looking down into the mass of hoodoos; some trails were not open due to conditions, but we were not overdoing the hiking that day, more taking in the amazing scenery. Still, it was busy and so we headed to the gift shop/information centre so I could get all my usual postcards and stickers and pins, and get my sketchbook stamped. I wonder which national park we will go to next?

Zion (part 2)

May 2, 2024May 2, 2024Leave a comment

After our day one post-hiking rest at the hotel, we walked down to Zion Village to have dinner at the pub-restaurant there. We had to wait a while for the table, which = more sketching time. I sat and looked at the huge ridge that acted like a giant wall to the geological theme park beyond it. Dinner was nice, I had a refreshing local beer, and we got a good night’s sleep. More hiking next day!

We slept in a bit more the next day, and when we got up to hike the park the lines for the shuttle bus were already so long that if we’d waited in line it would have been nigh on three hours before we got a ride, that’s what people were saying. Worth the wait? Maybe, but probably better just to start out earlier. Zion is ridiculously busy. Most people I’m guessing were headed out to the Narrows, looking at the number of waterproof outfits, but there are a lot of interesting hikes in Zion, ranging from “Easy”, “Moderate”, “Difficult”, “Strenuous”, and “Turn Back Now All Ye Who Dare Enter”. The last category I think is saved for the famous Angel’s Landing, which is on the Scout Lookout via the West Rim Trail, and you need a permit for that bit. This morning however we were not taking the shuttle bus, nor hiking up no strenuous and terrifying trail, but walking the easy peasy lemon squeezy Pa’rus Trail, which is a simple pave trail starting at the Visitor’s Center and following the Virgin River through some stunning scenery. The main hazard was from all the e-bikes whizzing by and rumbling over the bridges, but that was much less hazardous than a walk across the UC Davis campus when classes get out. The immense cliffs around us made us feel tiny. It was great to walk through, and we caught a shuttle back to the starting point again when we were about done, but I definitely wanted a bit more hiking, and to see things from higher up. So when my family had a wander around Springdale, I hiked the Watchman Trail (moderate).

The Watchman is a tall mountain that stands sentinel near the start of the park, but this trail wasn’t taking me up there, rather going up a decent uphill trail that landed at a plateau with an amazing view of the Watchman. Who Watches the Watchmen? I tried not to talk to myself on the way up in Rorschach’s voice, it’s been a while since I read that book. I remembered all the exploration of this area I had done in the Horizon game. The few clouds in the otherwise blue sky were comforting, but not threatening to get me wet. It was a nice hike and when I got to the top I sketched the scene above with the tree in the foreground, trying to get the pink-hued colours and the fluffy sky, and then did a quick pencil sketch of the Watchman itself (also above, which I coloured in later). It was a long hike down, and at the end I spent a bit of time in the Visitor’s Center shop, always one of my favourite things about visiting the National Parks. I always get way too many little souvenirs, postcards, pins, stickers. We had to get a move on though, because we were off to Bryce Canyon that afternoon, and it was a long old way. See you Zion, that was a lovely place.