Kaua’i part 2 – Poipu, Kōloa, Chickens and a Comet

November 15, 2024Leave a comment

Not a bad view. This was what we saw from our hotel room on Kauai, where we stayed near Poipu Beach. I had these new Arteza paints which were a selection of ocean blues and so this gave me a chance to play with them a bit. The pool below was nice, the ocean just a few steps away was not bad too, though it was definitely a bit wild. I like hanging out in the ocean, but it was like Man vs Wave out there, and quite a physical struggle. I was on guard for rip currents too. And sharks, let’s face it, watching a bunch of shark attack documentaries on the plane ride over was a good way to get paranoid. They are hilariously made though. “Could this rash of shark attacks have been caused by the radars from a nearby military base? The evidence seems conclusive. Or is it?” Nobody ever asks the sharks. They’d probably be like, “Humans taste good, Surfboards taste good!”. Still I was taking no chances, and didn’t swim very far. There were a lot of really good surfers out there, on some pretty powerful waves. I could watch the ocean for hours, and especially from a view like this. I brought my ukulele, and strummed away, it always sounds better with the waves.

Not far from Poipu is the little town of Kōloa. We went there for dinner one evening at the Kauai Island Brewing Company, which is apparently the westernmost brewery in the world. The beer was pretty good. We came back on another day to have lunch at one of the little food trucks dotted around town, and while my wife looked around the shops I sketched the big monkeypod tree at the junction. I’ve been so obsessed with tree drawings lately, I had to get at least one of these amazing trees into my sketchbook. I couldn’t really do it justice, but hopefully you get the sense of how tropical and overgrown Kauai feels compared to the more developed islands to the east. Right next to it was this fire hydrant as well, and so of course that had to go in. Then we went for a delicious all-natural shave ice.

Right, so anyone that’s been to Kauai will know what I mean when I say there are chickens EVERYWHERE. You might see some running about on the other islands and it’s like, oh isn’t that cute, wild chickens. On Kauai however they are literally all over the place, everywhere you go, chickens, roosters, baby chicks, all minding their own business. You get used to them really quickly. I sketched a few. While eating lunch in Kōloa a bunch of them were running around the picnic tables; in Hanapepe they were even getting up on the tables and sitting next to me, even while I was eating chicken. This is their world. The rooster is all the fridge magnets and stickers; by the way, Kauai, not every shop has to have its own sticker. Even liquor stores have their own sticker. I spent a lot on stickers at the Talk Story Bookstore, I tend to go overboard. So I got a few souvenirs with Kauai Chickens on them too. In fact there was a little shop in Kōloa called Kauai Chickens which was more of a fashion brand. We spent a few, er, bucks in there.

It was our anniversary trip (one month after our actual anniversary) so we had a lovely dinner at a restaurant called The Beach House, which was you can imagine was right on the beach, dining at sunset, amazing food and those delicious ‘Monkeypod Mai Tais’ that we love. We got to have photos on the little lawn overlooking the ocean, and then after the sun went down, and just before dessert, we got the best surprise – we saw the Comet. You know the one, the comet that was over the earth last month, “Tsuchinshan–ATLAS”, which apparently comes around only once every 80,000 years. A bit like Spurs winning a trophy. Historically comets are portents of some global doom, but thankfully nothing has happened since then that might indicate some sort of impending age of catastrophe. Still, looking over the ocean, we got an incredible view of it, which my wife with her slightly-newer-than-min phone was able to capture really well. What an amazing view. We went out the next evening by our hotel with a couple of cocktails to look at it again, and it was funny looking at everyone else’s photos of it online, especially those in Davis where it was definitely at more of an angle, while here much further south it was almost pointing straight down.

Comet Kauai

Kaua’i part 1 – Kalalau Valley, Hanapepe

November 6, 2024November 6, 2024Leave a comment

Last month my wife and I took a long-awaited trip to the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We had meant to go in September but ended up moving it to mid-October, which worked out nicely, as it wasn’t too crowded and the weather was great. Kaua’i is called the garden island, and you can see why. It’s a lot more lush and not as over-developed as some of the other islands, and geologically older. I counted that this is our sixth visit to Hawaii since 2017, and our fourth different island, after Oahu, Maui and the Big Island, all of them quite different. We landed in the evening, driving through the tree tunnel towards our hotel near Poipu Beach, and went straight out for a nice dinner at Keoki’s Paradise, having our favourite, Hula Pie. I got some Hula Pie stickers for my new sketchbook which I was starting on this trip, returning to the classic landscape format Moleskine (but this time with a white cover). On our first day we drove up to what’s called the ‘Grand Canyon of the Pacific’, the Waimea Canyon. For such a small island there is a large amount of natural diversity and geology. We stopped at the Waimea Canyon Lookout and took photos, but there was no way I was going to be able to sketch it, it was enough just to look at it and try to take it all in. We have been to some amazing canyons in recent years and this was up there with them. We drove up further, through twisting tropical roads, towards the Kokee State Park. We knew that we would not get to view the famous and dramatic Napali Coast in the way that a lot of people see it – by boat (too long a trip), or by helicopter (no way man), or by small plan (aint gettin me in no plane sucker!) – and a lot of the hiking trails were closed due to them being a bit unsafe. However, the views of part of the Napali Coast from the elevated Kalalau Lookout were some of the most unbelievable that I have ever seen. We got out of the car, and it just didn’t look real. We stood there a while just looking at it. Or rather I started sketching it, which is the sketch at the top of this post (click on it for a closer view). The turquoise blue of the pacific, the hints of golden sand and red dirt, the verdant volcanic rocks, the jungle of plants and trees, and that one big cloud that was just sitting there all by itself right over the cliff on the left, like an airship waiting to depart. It was the furthest I’d ever been from Burnt Oak, geographically and in every other way too. We took a hike up a jungle road about a mile to another lookout which was supposed to have even more amazing views. When we got there, it had fogged up, the clouds coming off the sea and into the valley blocking out all visibility. The magic view was gone, utterly. So we decided to wait, and see if it would burn off. A few other visitors waited patiently, some giving up, but I was optimistic. This was opti-mist. And slowly we could see some shapes, and even a hole or two of blue, and bit by bit the world opened up again, a little bit like in that show Catchphrase when you see a small part but have to guess at the whole picture. In the end, it looked like this, see below. I wasn’t Not a bad looking place!

IMG_0044(1) - Lowres

We drove back down the long road out of the Canyon, and went to the town of Hanapēpē. It’s a small place with an old Hawaii feel, and I think it’s the inspiration for Lilo and Stitch, though I’ll admit I’ve not seen that film. There are a couple of painted murals of them. They call this the Art Capital of Kaua’i, perhaps for all the little gallery stores. We grabbed a simple but tasty lunch at a friendly place which served from a table in a doorway and sat outside, feeling tired already from our hike and drive. We walked over to a very cool little bookstore called Talk Story Bookstore, which is apparently the westernmost bookshop in the U.S.! They have a cat that rules the shop, and lots of stickers of the boss-cat called ‘Mochi-Celeste’ (based on the previous boss-cat). I spent a small fortune on stickers of all kinds. They sold records too, and comics. It was pretty busy, so I stepped out to sketch the place from across the street.

I walked a bit further down while my wife went into other shops, and I drew a quick one of the little church with the picket fence. I started getting a bit hot so I outlined and drew the rest later. We walked over to the Swinging Bridge, dating back from Hanapēpē’s days as a military town. It was a very warm day, and humid, and we drove back to the hotel to hang out in the pool before dinner in Kōloa (at the ‘westernmost brewery in the world’, Kauai Island Brewing). We were pretty far west, furthest west I have ever been. From here there is only the small island of Ni’ihau, but that is off limits to visitors. After that, you move into tomorrow. Far from home.

voting at the VMC

November 6, 2024Leave a comment

In a word, ‘bugger’. I have more words, but that will do for now. Remember remember the Fifth of bleedin’ November, indeed. I went to bed early last night rather than watch all the news coming in, as the constant noise about this county or that county was doing my head in, and I was getting a massive headache. I could see what was coming. I did fall asleep, for a bit, but woke up several times and in the end could not stay asleep, so here I am. Here we are. Anyway, I got off the bus yesterday to walk past the polling station at the Veterans Memorial Center in Davis, to have a look at democracy in action. This does hearten me, and the line was long. Sometimes you win, other times you lose. This time though, well, ‘bugger’. More words are available, but I’m not adding to the noise. I don’t think I’ve drawn this building before, the VMC, yet its near my house. Evening was already creeping in so I didn’t draw this all there, just a quick outline. I already did a sketch the same day, at lunchtime, and I have a whole load of sketches to post still, from our recent trip to Kaua’i, and all the ones in Davis since then, but I just wanted to post this one now. Bugger.

In other news (other news!) yesterday was also 19 years to the day since we moved to Davis. I have been a Davisite for 19 years. I need to think of a way to commemorate 20 years, next year. Another exhibition? A book? Right now, I just need some sleep.

last tree of the book

November 2, 2024Leave a comment

One last tree for the portrait-format Moleskine, final page of the sketchbook. That format fits drawing trees really well. I’ve gone back to the landscape format Moleskine now, but I’ll use the portrait books again. I’ve thought about having two sketchbooks on the go at the same time, one in each format, but that means carrying two around with me, and that’s a bit silly. This tree, along with the one behind it, is on University Avenue as it meets Russell Boulevard. I loved the texture and character of the tree. The trees still had more of a late summer feel to them, whereas now a few weeks later we are fully in autumnal mode. It even rained last night, quite a lot too, the first day of November. The rest of the year is going to start barreling in now. And in a few days is that day I’ve not been looking forward to, you all know the one, and I have been trying to bury the level of dread and anxiety I’m feeling about it. Whatshisname is going to bloody win. I don’t like even thinking about him. Expect a hell of a lot of furious drawing as I try to block out all of the noise. Running too, I have this 10k in three weeks and I’m not exactly as ready as I’d like. I think I imagined I’d lose more weight, but Halloween candy keeps magically appearing. The mornings have been a bit too dark for running before work too, so that’s pushed my runs to the weekend mornings (I don’t run evenings after work), but the time change is this weekend so that should help with that. I have been pushing my runs longer, I did 4.5 miles easily last week, slower pace but felt good, and I’m easing those distances a bit further each time. The run is the annual Turkey Trot, I usually do 5k but am pushing myself to go further this time. I haven’t decided which football shirt I will wear; I thought about getting a Galatasaray shirt (for the Turkey connection) as I always liked their kits, and when they beat Arsenal in that final years ago while I was living in Belgium (the Arsenal supporting barman turned off the TV and took it away, while the Galatasaray supporters in my kebab shop across the street started celebrating), but I don’t have one. I will probably just represent N17, and wear a classic Spurs shirt.

like a video game

October 29, 20241 Comment

Here is the view from my window at work, the ongoing seismic retrofit project over at Jungerman Hall, UC Davis. That’s where the Crocker Nuclear Lab is based, with its large cyclotron, whatever that is. I enjoy a bit of construction on campus (I heard someone say that ‘UCD’ stands for ‘Under Construction Daily’) but it gives me something interesting to draw and document. The zig-zagged scaffolding reminded me of Donkey Kong, which I used to play with my brother and uncle when I was a kid, making Mario run up the girders jumping over barrels to reach the Princess held captive by Donkey Kong. A simple game, but my older brother would play it for hours and hours, long after I had gotten bored, trying to ‘clock’ it, that is get so high a score that the counter went back to zero. He would sit at the end of my bed playing it until about 3am, sometimes with his mate and my uncle. We had Donkey Kong Jr too, which was similar but involved a little gorilla dude climbing up vines and getting cherries and bananas and avoiding scorpions or something. These were very basic days, computer games have come a long way. We played it on my ColecoVision, which was an unusual game system but for the few games I had it was quite brilliant. Not many people round our way had computer game systems at the time, though the main one was the Atari. I had previously had an Atari-like system called the Philips, which had some good games and extremely simplistic graphics that nonetheless excited my imagination, especially the one where you had to pilot a little spaceship through a field of colourful pixels that represented asteroids (I think it was called Asteroids). It was no Atari though, and everyone wanted an Atari. My neighbours had an Atari, and we loved the game Pitfall. Then I got the ColecoVision, which nobody else had at all. I got it for Christmas, I don’t know who my dad got it from, but no kid I knew ever heard of it, and they used to laugh at me when I would tell them about it. The thing is, the games on it were a clear upgrade from the Atari, especially Turbo, a racing game which had a special steering wheel and brake pedal that you would plug in. It was brilliant. There was no big joystick or modern games controller, rather there was this keypad that looked like a huge phone with a toggle on the top, plugged neatly into the system. Games came in these robust plastic cartridges filled with technology (if the game would not load properly, you just blew inside them and they magically worked), a bit like the later Nintendo and SNES games. Coleco games were not easy to come by though, you would not see them in the shops. Maybe in a second hand shop you might find one, but it was hit or miss if it worked. But we had Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr, and basic as they were, no Atari game came close to those. Those games were played to death in our house. I don’t know what happened to our ColecoVision in the end. There was only so much fun you could extract from the four games we had that worked (the other was I think was a Smurfs game that was truly terrible and impossible to play). It might be still in the loft, or maybe we sold it at a car-boot sale. When my little sister got the Nintendo Entertainment System one Christmas, and Super Mario Bros came along, well that was that. My brother and I would have to wait until she was asleep and sneak in to play it silently on her little TV late at night so not to wake her up. The NES killed the ColecoVision, Mario killed Donkey Kong, and when the SNES came along with Mario Kart, that was it for poor old Turbo. The old days eh.

tunnel records and trad’r sam

October 26, 2024October 25, 2024Leave a comment

Part Two of my day in the Clement Street /Geary Street area of San Francisco, about seventeen or so blocks further towards the ocean and the rolling fog. I was looking for the 4 Star theater, on the corner of 23rd, which shows older films and which unfortunately I had not given myself time to watch anything, but on this day they were showing My Neighbour Totoro (always a favourite), Toy Story 3 (good but I prefer 2), and North by Northwest (which I have never seen but I think involves a small plane and a man running away). I was here to look around the attached record store, Tunnel Records, which is in a little nook of the cinema. It is not the main shop of Tunnel Records, that one is somewhere else in San Francisco, another area I have not yet been to. It was not open when I got there, which gave me some time to draw the building. I stood opposite and looked up Clement, listening to another Jarvis Cocker interview, I can’t get enough of his soft Sheffield accent. I left the details of the other side of the street a bit sparse, sometimes that is all you need to get the message across, and all I had time for, this was not a ‘finish later’ sketch as so many seem to end up as these days, I just wanted to draw what stood out to me in those moments. The record store opened, and I went in to have a long browse. It’s something I don’t do any more, and I can’t remember how or why I do it, but once you start you can’t really stop and have to look at all the racks, alphabetically, in case something pops out that makes you think oh wait, now that I might like. There was one other person in there browsing too. I realized he was a few racks ahead of me, but browsing each rack one by one, same as I was, though more slowly. Was I not paying enough attention to what I was browsing? Either way, I knew at some point I would catch up, and would either have to go around to the next rack and quite obviously miss out the one he was looking at, or what, start looking at the same rack? You can’t do that. I would try to slow down by stopping and pulling out something interesting, to look at as if I could hear the music coming from the sleeve. I would nod and pull that expression people pull with their mouths when they want to show silent respect for something, you know the one, but I was just faking it really. In the end, I caught up. Instead of skipping to the next rack over, I decided to pretend that I needed to look at my phone suddenly, and then went to look at some t-shirts. I am not sure why I was acting like I was in some kind of play. I went and looked at the soundtracks section (like, why would I be looking there), and then after the other man, who was probably in some play of his own, moved to a different genre, I went back and looked through the alphabetical racks again but this time, in an unexpected move, in reverse order, starting at Z. I ended up not buying anything, despite being tempted by an Al Green album, because I didn’t fancy carrying a record around with me while sketching, and I didn’t really need it. I gave a little smile and raise of the eyebrows to the shop clerk as I left vie the movie theatre’s main entrance, and went off to draw a massive Russian church.

It’s pretty hard to miss as you go up Geary, yet it’s not one of the famous San Francisco sights. The Holy Virgin Cathedral “Joy Of All Who Sorrow” has tall, shiny golden onion domes that probably look even shiner in the sun, let alone on this foggy day. It’s a Russian Orthodox church; there have been Russian communities in the San Francisco area for over 200 years. This is the largest Russian Orthodox Cathedral outside Russia, and was completed in 1965. I sketched it from across the street, adding in the metallic gold paint when I got home (you can’t tell here but the page is actually quite shiny). I popped inside, but only to peek through the door, I wasn’t sure if I could walk around and have a look. It was very ornate looking, and even though there wasn’t a service going on I felt a little bit like I was out of place, and I didn’t want to unwittingly break any rules. The Church Etiquette and FAQs pages of their website are quite interesting, full of extremely clear and specific instructions as to how you must behave. If your phone goes off: “You should answer the call (accept it), but do not start speaking until you have stepped away (outside or in the narthex). Walk out of the church quietly and calmly. Do not sprint/dash out of the church when this happens. Make the caller wait.” They are thoroughly disgusted at people leaving lipstick marks on icons, which is fair enough frankly and not something I was in danger of doing; as for clothes, shirts must have collars and be buttoned up, though you’re ok to loosen the top button if you have to, and don’t ever wear a t-shirt saying “This Bud’s For You!” I imagined there must have been a very specific incident involving a t-shirt with that phrase on it. I was wearing a Red Star Paris football shirt, which was probably a big nyet-nyet, and the big red Star on the badge may have been confusing, so I didn’t take any chances, and just peeked through the door. I tried to teach myself Russian when I was a kid, I didn’t get further than a few phrases, but I learned the Cyrillic alphabet and so I was enthusiastically reading the signs outside and trying to figure them out. I think it was in Old Church Slavonic, which would have blown my teenage self’s mind to see in person.

I stood outside the cathedral though to sketch my last destination on this day in the city, Trad’r Sam, an old tiki-themed bar that’s been around since 1937. It is not fancy, but is a real San Francisco legend I had read about on a list of historic San Francisco bars, since I have it as my mission to go and draw them all. I was already quite tired by this point, so when I drew the exterior and that big green sign, I went in through the saloon doors (am I misremembering that now?) and ordered a Lava Flow cocktail. I sent my wife (who loves a historic tiki bar) a picture of my drink; she was in Disneyland and had just ordered a Lava Flow ice cream at the same time, coincidentally. It was a pretty popular place on a Saturday afternoon and started filling with locals. The bar itself is a big horseshoe, my favourite type of bar set-up, and the barman was friendly. I chatted with some of the others sat at the bar, got comfy and finished off one of my sketches. I decided I didn’t have the energy to draw the bar itself, this time, but enjoyed the mood. I tried a Mango Mai Tai, and wow it was really good. I think it was really strong as well because I started feeling a bit drunk already; maybe that was the lack of a proper lunch mixed with looking at all that orthodox religious architecture and old pop records. I had to explain to the barman who Red Star Paris were; not the team I support, I just like their kits and the fact they aren’t PSG. He’d heard of Red Star Belgrade, and hearing I was from London he asked who my team was, giving me a fist bump and an acknowledgement of how good Sonny is when I told him. I talked to a couple who lived about a block away and gave me some good tips for other old local bars in this area, they are now on my visit and sketch list. It was a good place to wind down the day, and I had a beer to finish off, alas not an Anchor Steam which was always my SF drink, but eventually I had to get myself back to Davis, a long long journey from this part of town. I took the 38 bus back, got the Amtrak bus to Emeryville, took the Capitol Corridor train to Davis, and then had to walk back from the station up to north Davis, four hours later. I slept hard that night, but got up next day to watch Spurs batter Man United 3-0 away. A good weekend.

green apple and schubert

October 24, 2024January 23, 2025Leave a comment

I needed a day in the city, and wanted to explore another part of town. Davis was getting too hot, and it’s about 30 to 40 degrees cooler down there. I’ve been spending too much time under trees lately. I took the early Capitol Corridor, the familiar journey across the Valley and past the Delta and along the Bay, and I can’t help myself sketching those colours, it will never be enough. I have sketches of this trip going back a long time now. It’s all a learning process. I listened to, what did I listen to this time? Pulp I think, still in the excitement of having finally seen them play live after thirty years of waiting. I listened to another podcast interview with Jarvis Cocker where he talked about some of his favourite records, and how he never lost the love of vinyl as a format for listening to music, the side of a record being just long enough to experience it, before doing something else like reading a book. I see that. It’s how I felt growing up, when CDs finally came along I missed that ‘two-sided’ construction, but could see that bands in the mid-90s still tried to think of their albums in that way. I was thinking about records and books as part of my destination, though I didn’t think I’d buy any, because I only brought a small bag, and anyway I have too many and not a lot of space at home. It’s good to buy tickets to places where you can look at them and then draw things. I always worry that by spending so much time looking at and drawing things I forget to experience them as well, so I decided that I’d draw what I can, but not be too worried about it. So I arrived at the Transbay Terminal, the fancy bus station in downtown San Francisco, and found the bus that would take me straight out to the Richmond area, and up to Clement Street.

Although I’ve heard about this place for years, I had never been to Green Apple Books, not this one anyway. I drew the smaller one over in the Inner Sunset about three years ago, another September day exploring the city. Clement Street and that whole area on the north side of Golden Gate Park was somewhere that in all these years I had never explored, it felt just a bit far away. The 38R bus got there pretty quickly. I passed by buildings I thought would make good drawings, and old pubs I thought I should take note of and check out some day. I got out somewhere up on Geary near 6th, and walked over to Clement to find Green Apple Books. Fellow sketcher Suhita Shirodkar had sketched the bookshop recently, which gave me the idea to finally come over this way, and it was a good place to explore. A day like this is a big effort, getting up early and catching a not-inexpensive train at 7am, not making it to my destination until about 10am, just to wander about until it was time to make the long journey back. It was foggy, and there were people around having breakfast or brunch depending on how organized they were. I ate a pastry and stood opposite Green Apple to sketch it. I was on a sort of elevated wooden platform where people can sit and drink their coffee, and could see over the parked car. It’s funny, when you stand near a parking spot, there is always the chance that a large car might park in the way to block your view, but I find that sometimes people think about parking there, but do not when they see me sketching. Those people are usually in cars that would not block my view anyway. Then there are those, usually in larger SUV-type cars, that don’t mind blocking my view if they park, even if they notice me. I don’t worry at all, these are occupational hazards of the urban sketcher and I just move down slightly (I am not standing there with an easel), it’s what I expect when I pick a spot to draw. It’s just an observation, I’m not making any judgements about the type of people who drive bigger cars being less thoughtful, and actually I would like to tell those who choose not to park where I am sketching that it really doesn’t block me at all if they park, I’d rather they got the good spot (and save it from a minivan or something). But really I think they just assume I am a traffic warden. Anyway, here I had a good view of the shop. I decided to do all my sketching before going in to browse.

This impish fellow stands in front of the shop, holding a red book and a green apple. The bookshop is much bigger inside than I realized, and going up and down its stairs was like an adventure book in itself. My son would love this place, I thought. My teenage self would too, and after all when I was a teenager what would I do on a Saturday other than get on a train or bus and go exploring for interesting bookshops, usually finding myself in the foreign languages section. There were things I wanted, but I exercised restraint, and just bought a postcard with a painting of the shop on it, and a canvas tote bag for my son. Despite having worked in bookshops, I sometimes get overwhelmed by it all.

Before I went into Green Apple, I decided to sketch the bakery outside of which I was standing. Schubert’s Bakery has been making cakes since 1911 and having eaten one myself I can confirm they are delicious. I got one in a little box, covered in all sorts of fancy chocolate, and had to go back in for a fork because it was bigger than expected, and filled me up so much I never ended up eating lunch. I could not get a certain song out of my head as I sketched, “Blue Suede Schubert” by the Rutles. A good bakery is an essential part of a good neighbourhood, I have always thought that. Somewhere for amazing cakes. Places that do not have this are very much worse off for it. If people end up getting the generic bland cakes from your Targets or Safeways or whatever, the world becomes a much more boring place. Show your local bakeries love! And eat lovely cakes. When I was done sketching and looking around this part of Clement, I walked down a bit further, where there was a local Chinese festival happening, with little stalls lining the street and music, and people canvassing for local elections. I found the bus that would take me further down Geary again and explored a different part of the area.

(not) a cottage in the woods

October 23, 2024October 23, 2024Leave a comment

It’s a funny building, this. I have drawn it before of course, but I like this one a lot. The G Street sign being the only bit of colour reminds you that this is downtown and not in some enchanted glade in the Black Forest. I have never been in there (Bubble Belly, I think they do baby clothes) but it’s such an unusually shaped building. I stood outside Jack in the Box to draw it. It was that time of the month that was still really hot. Now things are finally cooling off (it’s 81 degrees today, which for us is positively autumnal), and it’s nearly Halloween for which I will not be dressing up. I never do. I like the spooky decorations everywhere though. I’ve often thought that in the spirit of the spooky season it would be funny to write in the letters “HO” in between “G” and “ST”. We could go further along the spooky sign changes: add “EA” on the B Street signs, “ORE” on the F Street signs, or “POOKIE” on the S Street signs. Or to be completely non-scary and a bit pointless, “RMRE” on the A Street signs. Or maybe add “HRI” on the C Street signs, maybe followed by “MAS” to keep it holiday themed, as they say. You get the idea. I always liked the end credits of the Simpsons when they would do the Treehouse of Horror specials and change the names of the cast and crew to silly scary versions. It’s something a lot of people do now. I’m Pete Scary at this time of year. Or Pete Skully. I was trying to Halloween-ize the F1 drivers names in the US Grand Prix last weekend, with your Pierre Ghastly, Lance Troll, O-scare Piastri, Jaws Russell, that sort of thing. I don;t know, I find it hard to get into Halloween as much any more. There was that one year where I went a bit crazy drawing loads of Halloween stuff, decorating our whole whole with hand-drawn Halloween decorations, and we had a fun party for the kids from my son’s pre-school with these really detailed invitations, I was so into drawing bats and spiders and vampires. I suppose it’s just in the past now. Some of our neighbours go all out with the Halloween stuff, with so much stuff. We will probably carve pumpkins, though I prefer to paint on them now, they don’t go mouldy so quickly, and it’s a lot easier. Anyway, this building looks like it could be a witch’s cottage in the forest, but it’s not, it’s just a clothes shop on G Street. Or maybe that’s what the witches want us to think…

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.

the empty lake

October 21, 20241 Comment

The UC Davis Arboretum is currently undergoing some major work to the waterway, an ambitious project called the “Arboretum Waterway Flood Protection and Habitat Enhancement“. I don’t know what it will look like in the end, but right now, it’s jarring to see the big serene Lake Spafford completely drained of water. Like seeing the man behind the curtain. Now I know how deep it is. The ducks probably aren’t too happy, but we’ve all got to have work done on our homes. Round our way the painters have been painting all the condos, coming in the yard and scaring off the spiders. I’ve drawn this lake many times over the years and now it’s empty, for the time being. I’ll be interested to see how this all turns out! So of course I drew it, at the end of September. I’ll be back down to sketch it again. “Waterway to have a good time.” We did hold a sketchcrawl in the Arboretum at the start of October, I’ll post those later. For now, more September trees.