Tag: old city hall

three shots of Davis

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downtown davis trio oct 2023 sm

Here are some images of Davis. This triptych of downtown places – the City Offices, the historic City Hall, and the Amtrak station – was commissioned by the City of Davis to bring to South Korea, to the city of Sangju, our ‘sister-city’ in Korea. There it was presented last week to the Mayor of Sangju, Yeong-seok Kang, by the vice-Mayor of Davis, Josh Chapman, heading a delegation from Davis visiting Sangju to strengthen our civic and cultural ties. That was posted on Instagram. I had a very short time-frame to do it, and so worked on it most of one Sunday (after a Saturday afternoon scouting the locations downtown), plus a couple of early mornings and a late evening or two, and getting it all done just in time for its trip to Korea. Quite an honour to be an artist representing my city in another country (well my drawing is, not me in person), maybe some day I will get to draw Korea. I’ve seen quite a few international sketchers I know sketching out in Korea the past couple of weeks, such as Paul Wang and Sylvain Cnudde. My oldest friend from London, the mentioned-in-previous-posts Terry (Tel) who now lives in Japan, he did spend a few years living in Korea selling books and getting into adventures, he said the food was very spicy. One of my favourite footballers of course is from Korea, Heung-min Son, our beloved Sonny, and I always get a “Come on you Spurs!” from Korean students in Davis when wearing my Tottenham shirt. So I’d love to go and sketch there someday; I don’t know Sangju though, the sister city of Davis. My son tells me that the High School sends students there on an exchange trip each year. (Funny enough I was his exact age when I did an exchange trip to Austria back in 1991). Still, I’m so busy with work right now that I could not have gone with my drawing to Korea, the academic quarter is a bit too busy. I learned that the next Urban Sketchers Symposium will be held in Buenos Aires next year, Argentina (land of my other heroes Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa), I had thought of attending or even applying to teach a workshop or lecture (which I’ve never yet done at a Symposium, mostly because I’m not confident anyone can really learn anything from me), but it’s in October, so I won’t plan on going, it’s always an awkward time. I missed out on Auckland in April this year due to the tricky timing. I do always long for a sketching trip, but at least one of my drawings flew across the world this past week!

back to the old city hall on F

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F St panorama Davis CA<

From one city hall to another. This is the old City Hall building on F Street, downtown Davis. Again, I have drawn this many times. It has a lot of history. You reel off the things it has been like the words of a song, it’s been a fire station, a police station, a restaurant, a bar, a gallery, and even a city hall. And now it’s empty, the restaurant Bistro 33 and its adjoining bar closing not long before the pandemic started. Recently it suffered damage by fire as well, and you can still see a great big hole in the roof (hidden a bit behind that flag pole in this sketch). I wonder what this building will be next? Maybe this building is the David Bowie of Davis buildings, always reinventing itself. Then again it doesn’t usually look too different externally so it’s not really David Bowie. It will probably be yet another restaurant, or maybe a frozen yogurt shop, because we don’t have nearly enough of them in Davis. Maybe it will be a Starbucks, because the one that opened down the street taking up the space of not one but two former independent shops isn’t enough. Who knows. Maybe it should be turned into a Star Wars themed cantina, it’s about the right size and layout. I love that one they have in Hollywood, the Scum and Villainy Cantina. I went to the one at Disneyland too, though it was a little bit packed and not a place to spend an evening. Speaking of Star Wars – the ‘Book of Boba Fett’. Oh dear. That show was a mess. He didn’t even have a book. At least we got to see a live action Cad Bane. I have a lot to say about that show, but I’ll save that for a different post. Perhaps instead of whatever it was they did, they should have gone the Beatles route and just made like a documentary with Boba and his old bounty hunter mates planning one last job. “Fett Back”. Yeah I’ll save this all for another post.

Back to F Street. For a little time comparison, here we are going back thirteen years to January 2009 when I first drew this building…

old city hall

i’ll settle down with some old story

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F Street Davis. Sunday afternoon. Click to see bigger.

F Street Davis. Sunday afternoon. Click to see bigger.

My son was having friends over for a playdate, so that was my cue to get a few hours of quiet sketch-time downtown last Sunday afternoon. After filling my stomach with a large burrito, I stood out on F St to draw a panorama which includes the Old City Hall (now City Hall Tavern) and the little package delivery shop. I stood next to the bins near the Paint Chip art shop. I listened to podcasts about (a) History and (b) the X-Men. After two hours of drawing all the ink (I coloured it in at home)  I stopped, and went for a pint at de Vere’s, where I read (a) a magazine about history and (b) an X-Men comic. They both make perfect sense now.