the 100th picnic day

April 28, 2014Leave a comment

A couple of weeks ago, UC Davis celebrated its 100th annual Picnic Day. One hundred! Click on the images to see larger versions (or you could hold your face close to the screen, though I wouldn’t advise it). Picnic Day is a UC Davis institution, the largest university open house in the country, attracting thousands of visitors to such attractions as the Doxie Derby, Battle fo the Bands, the Chemistry Magic Show, and, er kittens. Yes, we waited for half an hour in line to see kittens, only to find out they were now cats (they were probably kittens when we started queuing). Four cats, just sitting there doing nothing, two of which were asleep. Yet massively popular. My six year old wanted to see nothing else. The first thing we watched however was the Parade, the annual march of bands, bikes, floats, the occasional political candidate, which was as fun as ever. We sat down outside Shields Library to watch it, when I started painting, but broke my water jar (as described in a previous episode). I added the rest of the colours at home.

This second spread was sketched at the Battle of the Bands. I went home with my family, already tired after the excitement of the cats, and had a rest before heading back in to see the famous band battle. I’ve only seen it once, briefly, but I don’t really like crowds. I am getting better at sketching in large numbers now though, but nonetheless it was tricky. I stood at the top of the slope leading down to Lake Spafford, on the banks of which were gathered the bands themselves. Now these aren’t your guitar-hero indie-beard bands, oh no these are the colourful marching bands, and boy is this an event. The bands come from universities around California. The idea is that each band takes turns playing a song, and then by the end of the day (or night), the last band standing, the last one that has not exhausted all its known songs, is the winner (and I’m told it’s always the UC Davis Aggies). It is crazy, and chaotic, but it all works, and those musicians really keep it up for hours and hours. On the left there is a dancing tree from Stanford. I finally left during a long bit in the middle where all the bands came together in groups of the same instrument, and placed themselves around the crowd in a kind of promenade-theatre fashion, playing a continuous jam (I left after 45 minutes and it was still going on) in a variety of poses. Definitely a Davis event to be experienced at some point in your life.

And this was all. In nine years this is the most Picnic Day sketching I have ever done.

sketching to music

January 26, 20142 Comments

(Click on the image for a bigger view) Saturday evening last week I was invited to a double-birthday party for a local musician, David Hafter, and his son Noah, also a musician. It was at a place called Third Space, on Olive Drive in Davis, and I sketched the above panorama because panoramas are what I’m sketching! But I also did a couple more; below left, a sketch of Noah playing his set (I gave the sketch to him), and one of Neon Lights (bottom right), many of the members of whom also play in David Hafter’s band Wealth of Nations (above). Regular visitors may remember that I sketched this band before on a couple of occasions in the Fall. The music was very nice, and I always sketch more quickly when listening to music – it’s the rhythm I think! Anyway, it was a nice evening, and many thanks to David for the invite.

wealth of nations

November 2, 20134 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I went downtown on a Saturday evening (nursing an injured leg, having pulled my groin playing football) and saw a local band called Wealth of Nations playing in the E Street Plaza. An excuse for some night-time sketching, and to listen to some good music. I had sketched the singer David Hafter before at the Farmer’s Market a couple of years ago, he has a great voice. I had happened across the band earlier in October while passing Armadillo Music and recognised his voice as I was passing by, so popped in to listen and to sketch (see below; the whole band were playing but the drummer was hidden).

frankie and the fabletones

June 21, 2013Leave a comment

On Wednesday after work, which was nice and mild and not at all hot (I wish it would stay like this!), I went to Central Park in Davis for the Wednesday Farmer’s Market / Picnic in the Park. I was off to see Man of Steel that evening (very good movie; should perhaps have been called ‘Man of Who’s-Going-To-Clear-Up-All-This-Mess’). Before then however I wanted to see the local band Frankie & the Fabletones, who were performing their 100th gig. They played a selection of popular oldies (I really liked their version of “Leader of the Pack”) and even had a guest spot from the Mayor of Davis Joe Krovoza, who sang an Al Green song, “Take Me to the River”. One of the group’s lead singers is well-known and much-loved local artist Heidi Bekebrede (if you’ve spent any time in Davis you will have seen her ceramic work), who was also celebrating her birthday the next day. I sketched near the front, where little kids were dancing (not in the picture), along with the lady I sketched with the castanets. I didn’t have space to sketch the whole band, but there were at least a couple more members (some other time!). My wife and son came along for a while; he liked the music, drew a couple of race tracks in his sketchbook and then went off to the bouncy houses. This whole sketch took under an hour start to finish. I forgot my little water jar (again) but thankfully my wife had a little purse-mirror thing & some water, I didn’t want to use the waterbrush again. I always feel I have to sketch quickly when watching bands, as you never know how long they will actually be on (or in a certain position) but thankfully they did let us know. And I LOVE sketching to live music, it really helps the rhythm.

you read me like an open book

January 17, 2011January 17, 201117 Comments

Friday was fun!

I exhibited some of my sketchbooks and prints at Armadillo Music in Davis as part of the 2nd Friday ArtAbout event. Having just come back from London, and being in the middle of a massive amount of work, I didn’t have much time to prepare for it but decided that what I really wanted was to show people the sketchbooks, and have a few Davis-centric sketches blown up into prints. As always with me, deciding which to show took forever, but I settled on a few select images, and chose Moleskines #4, #5 and #7 (the current one), along with the Davis accordion moleskine, the fire hydrants sketchbook and the ‘How To Save the World’ sketchbook as well.

The event was highlighted by an hour of live music from the incredible Rita Hosking and her band. Rita is a Davis-based country-folk singer-songwriter, who recently won best country album at the independent music awards, and it wasn’t hard to see why – her music was utterly beautiful, reminded me of why I like country music, and after what had been an incredibly busy and stressful week, standing there sketching and listening to that music made me feel totally relaxed. I’m honoured to have been on the same bill.

My artist reception was straight afterwards. A lot of people came for that, a surprising amount, many of whom I knew, plus some who had seen me on Urban Sketchers, plus some who were passing by. I had leaflets ready talking about ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ (sketchcrawl on Saturday!!) and Urban Sketchers, plus many of my new Moo cards (some of them are of Pele). I talked, and talked, in fact donkeys in Davis no longer have hind legs, I talked so much. I hope some of it made sense. It was great though, to enthuse about urban sketching and micron pens and what not. I enjoyed showing kids my waterbrush and letting people watch me sketch. I met some great people, and hopefully got a few people interested in drawing Davis (again, sketchcrawl on Saturday folks!).

Many thanks to Melanie at Downtown Davis Art About and to Josh and co at Armadillo Music for arranging this event. And to my wonderful wife Angela for your support (and for taking these photos), and my son Luke for saying “daddy! that’s what you drawed!” every time we pass a fire hydrant. And thanks to everyone who came along, I really appreciate it. Cheers!

i’ve got a lot of songs but they’re all in my head

January 19, 2010January 19, 20102 Comments

When massive storms are swirling outside, you need to stay in, and draw your home. This corner of the apartment is where we keep the music. Why is it that no matter how many CDs I have I only ever listen to the same few ones? I used to listen to a lot more music than I do now, years ago, or at least it feels like that. Maybe it’s because I don’t spend my weekends jumping about to the crackle of records as I did when I was a teenager, or fall asleep to the repeats of a CD, or commute for an hour plus to the hiss of a tape deck, as I did for too many years in London. I have an mp3 player now, everything on random shuffle. My two-year-old likes music. When we get up together on early weekend mornings we put on some top tunes and rock out with air guitar to our breakfast. He likes ‘Formed a Band’. And ‘Yellow Submarine’. He’s a budding little artist too – that’s one of his finger-paintings on the wall there.

When I was a teenager, it was all about the records, Never Mind The Bollocks, full blast. Not really any feeling quite like it. It’s what teenagers do. If I listen to it now, I swear I can still hear my mum or dad shouting my name up the stairs (not usually to turn it down, funny enough, more often just to come down and make a cup of tea). I guess I have all that to look forward to.

we mean it, man

June 18, 2009June 25, 20093 Comments

#11 in the series. I have a box full of old cassettes, ones I’ve owned my whole life. Gonads, that was my band at school; I didn’t sing, but I played the guitar (well, I strummed it and my fingers made chord shapes every so often). The singer, Hooker, was very good. One year he sang in front of the whole school in only his y-fronts, and a beret, if memory serves. I also wrote the songs. Three, four chords. Sometimes we’d just improvise. Once we improvised an entire gospel piece, which still makes me laugh to this day. The song about Jacques Delors was very catchy, and was full of absurdist lyrics parodying the absurd Europhobic headlines of the day, all about banning crisp flavours and killing off willo-the-wisp. We had some of those teenage songs about girls, too, like the ‘Great Unnamed Love Song’, and we covered (rather, absolutely slaughtered beyond recognition) stuff from Sex Pistols to Bryan Adams to Wonderstuff. We were obsessed with ‘Enter the Dragon’. And we had a song about the people who sell the Evening Standard down in London, based pretty much on an encounter we had near Bank station with one particularly incomprehensible vendor. The things that inspire you when you’re fifteen.

Oh we sounded absolutely dreadful, but it was just great fun. Something I’m proud of. If you like I will tell you where you can hear some of it.

graffiti about slash-street affairs

October 1, 2008October 2, 2008Leave a comment

I could get used to these. A month ago I did this labour-intensive drawing; tonight I finished a second one. You can I’m sure guess the theme. All will be revealed when we turn to the answers page, a singer once said.

I am still around, I have just been busy. But I found time to fit this in too, which helps create balance. Plus I stay up far too late for someone who works so early. These things sometimes accompany those wee small hours; well, these and the baby monitor.

A note on the broken ibanez guitar head: this was the guitar i bought when I first moved to the US. I looked after it so well, but one day it fell lamely from its stand onto the carpet and the head just came off. Not my happiest moment. Very difficult to repair (the guy in the shop couldn’t bare to look at the poor thing, it was like bringing in his grandma’s head or something), so the decapitated body sat gathering dust in the corner like the shards of narsil. When we moved out, I wasn’t sure what to do with it (you get attached to your instruments). My wife suggested I dispose of the body Pete Townshend style. And so I did. Have you ever done that? It felt pretty good. I kept the broken head as a souvenir (or a warning?), and there it is. The broken Ibanez.

just like wigan casino

July 30, 2008Leave a comment

dancing. i didn't, by the way.

SF trip, part 3: the evening. I ate at Squat and Gobble (the one on Chestnut, not Haight) before going back to the hotel for a rest. I was thinking of going down to Norh Beach, as I like it round there, or perhaps to the toronado in Haight, where they have a lot of interesting beers. I ended up doing neither, just sticking around near the hotel, up Polk Gulch / Tenderloin. I popped into a small place called Vertigo for a cocktail – for some unknown reason, I fancied one, something fruity. I got one called Polk Punch, which turned out to be the foulest thing I have ever drunk. It had something like grape vodka in it, some nasty shite. so I just went to the Edinburgh Castle on Geary – been there before, know it has good beer, sorted. I was wearing my favourite “northern soul” top, and as luck would have it, it turned out to be a northern soul night! Pretty happy accident. All of the music was utterly amazing. I drew the above at the bar, in blue staedtler triplus fineliner, and then scribbled some dancing, in brown.

A note on the dancing: years ago, I used to go to a tiny club in London, and there was this one guy who I think lived only to dance to northern soul, phenomenally active, dressed the part, hair just so. Anyway there was one guy dancing on Saturday who was almost exactly the same person, you could just tell that was basically what he did, it was his thing every bit as much as crouching over a sketchbook is my thing. Respect, I thought; until I saw he had pulled off his shirt and was dancing only in his tie. Respect lost, I thought again.

Anyway, that was my night out; don’t get them any more, so I’m glad it was set to good music.

move over david

July 20, 2007June 18, 2010Leave a comment

Considerez ceci:

Never mind Beckham. Something else has finally arrived, albeit slightly different. Pepsi Max, as anyone who knows me knows it’s my favourite drink, is here in the US, known however as ‘Diet Pepsi Max’, with all the same shit as in the original, zero sugar, plus the addition of ginseng, meaning I can also wash my hair in it. Pepsi Max! Here in America!

Never mind Beckham. They (the mysterious ‘they’, who make things happen) have remade the Bionic Woman as a new series, and starring as the bionic lass herself is…Zoe Slater! Off Eastenders! There we are, watching the TV, and a preview comes on, and there she is. She’s supposed to be ‘involved in a near-fatal car accident’ before being rebuilt as an android…I really hope this accident takes place new year’s eve, outside the Vic, just for old times sake. I wonder if Dennis Rickman will show up as the six-million dollar man.

Never mind Beckham. Tomorrow is Harry Potter Day, and downtown Davis is having a big feast of activities in the run-up to midnight, when the books will be released. I saw the latest movie, Order of the Phoenix, twice already – the first time, I really enjoyed it, but I couldn’t help but notice all the things that were missing or different. The second time, I enjoyed it a lot more, because I was watching it as a film.

Never mind Beckham. I bought the new Art Brut album recently, “It’s a Bit Complicated”. I’ve followed them for years now, and I was worried that a second album would not, could not, live up to the punch of the first. This second album, however, doesn’t even. I can see what they’re doing, and musically they’re more accomplished (not always a good thing), but the themes are a bit tired, a little samey, there is none of the rough-and-readiness of Bang Bang Rock’nRoll. Whereas their first album seemed effortless, on this one they just didn’t make an effort. I’m still a fan.

And finally, never mind Beckham, here in Davis, in the middle of July, it RAINED! I remember this time last year, sweltering in the ridiculous central valley heat, thinking it would never be cool ever again. It was about 115 F…this week it was in the low 80s, and it even rained. I read in the paper that the last time we saw rain up here on July 18th was in the days of the Gold Rush. I didn’t live here then. And nor did Beckham.

Originally posted at 20six.co.uk/petescully