Imagining Central Park quite a bit

June 5, 2025June 5, 20251 Comment

Big fan of Central Park. It’s another of those places with very imaginative names, but it fits the trades description. It’s pretty massive too. Places that Central Park is bigger than include the entire country of Monaco, the entire Vatican City, all of London’s Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Green Park and St. James Park combined, though still slightly smaller than the gap between Tottenham’s most recent two trophies (by the way, Come on you Spurs! More on that later). I have walked through it in the Fall, when the leaves were golden and crunchy like a bowl of Corn Flakes, I have walked through it in the Winter when the lakes were frozen and my eyes turned to glass, and now I’ve been there in the Spring when the leaves were still slightly autumn-coloured or wintery bare but the Sun was out and the flowers were getting ready for the bee season. Central Park is special though, surrounded by all those tall buildings. There were more of them than the last times I came. I was waiting to meet up with my family there, so spent some time walking about and sketching. I drew the Gapstow Bridge above, while sat on a bench by the water. It was a bit chilly, but really not bad. A lot of people passing by and taking the old selfies there, as they do. You don’t see as many selfie-sticks these days though do you, I think they need to make a retro comeback. Maybe I have just stopped seeing them. It was clam on that bench though, peaceful. That’s why I love a park. I walked about, heading in the general westward direction, until I came to the busy street on the West of Central Park, whatever that street is called.

I found the Dakota Building, where John Lennon lived and died. I have wanted to sketch it for years. It was sunny on the path where I stood but it was view I liked best. I love the Beatles, and felt a lot of sadness about how John was murdered right here. As I sketched I could hear the sound of someone murdering the song Imagine, over and over. Imagine if they would sing something else, I wondered. I had bought a postcard of John Lennon a couple of days earlier at a shop in Greenwich, and had been taking it around with me taking some photos with the real New York backdrops. I did the same here (below). He was a complicated fellow, but we love him. Me and him, we both moved from England to America, though in his case he was never able to set foot back home again. He will always be part of New York City now, and the area of Central Park nearby to the Dakota that was dedicated to him is called Strawberry Field, and has that little circular mosaic that says ‘Imagine’, often decorated with little flowers and Hershey kisses. It is nice.

I went over to Strawberry Field to wait for my family to show up, and I found where the music was coming from. There was a guy with a guitar singing Imagine, and a lot of people sat on benches imaging stuff, and a lot of people standing next to the big mosaic also using their imagination. The pained renditions of ‘Imagine’ aside, the singer was pretty good when doing his own stuff, but was clearly sick of singing that song over and over for the tourists. I assume it’s a requirement of the gig. I imagined Han Solo singing it, and saying he “can Imagine quite a bit”. Then I imagined Michael Caine (as Han Solo) singing it. Then I imagined a version of Star Wars where the main characters were played by the Beatles, John as Han, Paul as Luke, George as Obi-Wan, Ringo as Chewie, Yoko as Leia. Mal and Neil as C-3PO and R2-D2. Allen Klein as Darth Vader. Billy Preston as Lando. Brian Epstein as Yoda. George Martin as General Dodonna. Dick James as Jabba the Hutt. I really want to see this now. Maybe John could be Luke, so Aunt Mimi could be Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen combined. I sketched while I imagined, and then got my own photo taken next to the sign, because I too am a tourist.

Midtown Mooching

February 5, 20252 Comments

We don’t have a Midtown in Davis, so to get my Midtown kicks I had to go to Sacramento, the state’s capital city fifteen miles away. It’s been a couple of years since I sketched around Midtown, but I always enjoy wandering about those streets looking at all the big old houses. It’s not like they have as many shops as they used to; the fantastic University Arts store closed recently, and that was always a big draw for me. The record shop called The Beat closed years ago, though there is a small record shop in Midtown which I did visit. We did come to Midtown before Christmas to have a couple of cocktails at the Jungle Bird, a little tiki bar we like that does a festive ‘Jingle Bird’ theme in December. On this one Saturday though, I was itching to get out of Davis and draw, so found myself in Midtown at the Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park. It’s been years since I went there, although I have never wandered into the actual Sutter’s Fort itself; I thought about it though, and it’s the fort that counts. I repeated that joke to myself several times wondering if it would ever be the right time to say that to anyone, but it never will be. It evolved into a joke that went, “someone gave me a calculator shaped like a castle for my birthday; wasn’t much of a gift but it’s the fort that counts.” I think that sounded alright, but it doesn’t really work out here, where they don’t pronounce ‘fort’ and ‘thought’ as the exact same sound like we do in London. If I said that I’d probably be accused again of ‘British humour’ (sorry, ‘humor’), “I don’t like Briddish humor, it’s all Monty Pythaan.” People have actually said that to me, as if British humour or comedy is a genre. I will confess though we are the best (or worst) at puns and I will go to extreme lengths to get one in. Alas I let the ‘fort’ jokes go, at some point you have to realize they make pretty crap puns anyway. I sketched the scene above while listening to another Terry Pratchett audiobook, Feet of Clay (I have listened to five in the past month, really spending down those Audible credits). The building opposite is the State Indian Museum, and the church tower on the left is a place I have drawn several times (early 2007 was the first!) and always forget the name of. St. Francis of Assisi, that’s the one. It was the first place I drew in Midtown Sacramento and I was well pleased with how it turned out. I was going to colour in all the trees but stopped at the pool, because I liked the way the colour of the water stood out, and so I just added the shades; this is all it needs.

I wandered Midtown looking for big old houses to sketch, these ones were on L Street and I sat on my little stool across and drew. I decided to bring my stool out, I don’t usually take it with me these days, as I prefer to stand and sketch, but I knew I’d want to sit and I’m glad I did. There were a lot of details and the shades and colours were very inviting; I wanted to get a feel for what a sunny early-afternoon in Midtown in January felt like. I used to come to Midtown years ago for the occasional Saturday sketching day, my wife would drop me off (as she did on this day) and I’d get the bus back in the evening, or the train, to Davis. It got me out of the house on a Saturday. The first year here I worked in Saturdays at the Avid Reader, as well as a couple of evenings a week doing their book-keeping, on top of my full-time job. I had nothing else to do, so I worked and got to known the downtown. When I quit the Saturday shifts to get some free time back, I had a bit more time to sketch on the weekends. I didn’t know Midtown at all, but my wife had heard it was interesting and had a good record shop and an art shop, as well as a British themed pub called ‘the Streets of London’ (British isn’t a genre of pub I said), but they served London Pride and had football shirts and scarves up on the wall near the dartboard, so it was close enough. She was studying for a master’s at the time so getting me out gave her some study time, and this was around the time I started sketching way more than ever before, 2006-2007, mostly in WH Smith sketchbooks from the UK then (British isn’t a genre of sketchbook) but I got my first watercolour Moleskine in 2007 and still use them today. An exciting time of discovery in a new place, I guess. Long time ago now but my eyes are still wide open looking for things to draw.

I mooched around a bit more. Do they say ‘mooch’ over here? To mooch means to wander about casually, like we would go for a mooch around the shops. I think when they say it here it means something else (begging?). I like a bit of an old mooch. British vocabulary isn’t a genre. The area of Midtown centred on Capitol Avenue is called the ‘Capitol Mansions’ district and there are some amazing old houses down here, big ones too, on tree-lined streets. This building above is a law firm I think, but I was just impressed by its size as I walked down the street. It doesn’t look that big on my page but it felt grand, and that tree was thick and mighty. The city of trees, Sacramento is sometimes called. River City too, and Sac-o-Tomatoes. Big tomato farming industry in this area, you see the trucks on the freeway filled to the brim with tomatoes. I was starting to get hungry as I sketched now so I ended up adding the colour afterwards on this one.

This was another impressive house that is very typical of the type you get in Midtown, and it was colourful too but I did not paint it. In fact with this one I did only draw the outlines while there, and drew the rest in later, as I was pretty hungry. I ended up not really eating much, except for a big slice of cake at the Dessert Diner on J Street. That is a place to visit if you are ever in Midtown, they do delicious cakes.

This is Rocket Records on 24th Street, a nice little record shop I have been to once before. Not as big as The Beat was but they have a lot of good stuff; I picked up a copy of Paul McCartney’s Ram album, which I had never owned before. I was pleased to find it wasn’t in the ‘British Music’ section, which didn’t exist, because British isn’t a genre of music. I am really enjoying my record player, since I got the new one in September, and now visiting record shops is becoming a thing again both for me and my son who is also now getting into vinyl. I had to sketch the store of course. I had also just visited the camera store nearby, Mike’s Camera. I had also got my son a film camera for the birthday; vinyl records, film cameras, we are going proper retro on this timeline. Next thing you know we’ll be voting in people who, ok not going there, my headache this past two weeks is only getting worse. It was getting well into the afternoon now in Midtown, and after a mooch around the record shop I walked down J street, copy of Ram under my arm, and went to rest my legs at the pub formerly called ‘Streets of London’. Now called ‘Streets’, they ditched the British theme years ago, so no more London Pride on tap (they served it too cold anyway), and a huge screen showing a very loud Football game on the TV, well I say a Football game, it was mostly just adverts during the game, very loud. I don’t know about you but I often think, let’s go to the pub and sit listening to very loud adverts for car insurance. Anyway once the legs were rested it was time to walk all the way over to the Amtrak station and go home.

two parks in north davis

November 3, 2023November 2, 2023Leave a comment

I have been really enjoying sketching with the Lamy Safari and the De Atramentis Document Brown ink. I especially like drawing foliage with that stuff. Above, I was off sick that day, I woke up feeling achy and exhausted, but by about 10am I really needed to move about a bit so I took a walk down the local park, Community Park. Not a long walk, but I did stop to do a sketch of the path. There’s something very gentle about that brown ink with the park colours. This park has been the scene of many soccer practices over the years, and a lot of games also at the younger age groups, and is one of the main locations of the Davis World Cup tournament. It’s also the park next to my son’s high school, and his old elementary school as well, so we’ve walked across this park so many times over the years. Sketch the places you live your life, that’s what I always tell people (imaginary people, in my head, I don’t get out much). But it’s important. these are the places you fill your memories with. In years to come, these places become part of the dreamscape you go back to when you’re asleep, if you have left them behind. There are places in my dreams, patchworks of places from my teens and twenties, mostly in parts of London that I don’t really go to now, or maybe don’t really exist except in the imagined world. So I draw the real places now, so they always stay real.

This took an existential turn, didn’t it. This next sketch is of another nearby park, Northstar Park, where there’s that big pond. I often run this way when out doing my three mile jog. It’s another park with some youth soccer history, having coached many U8-U10 games here, and held a few practices at U12 as well, it’s always the field with the most random dog poo on it.

greenbelt moments

January 27, 2022January 27, 2022Leave a comment

Here are a couple of sketches from the North Davis Greenbelt, nearby to where I live. The top one was drawn one lunchtime at Northstar Park, on a day while working from home. It’s of the view towards one of the ponds, hidden by the rushes and the shuffling palm trees. They really do look like they are doing some sort of dance. The one below was drawn close to where I live, it was a Saturday and I needed to get some fresh air, but didn’t want to go too far from the house as I was quite enjoying some being-at-home-on-the-weekend time. I like shadows of bare trees against buildings, something you get a lot of in Davis in January. I like that we have the Greenbelt so close to us; unlike the Green Belt I knew from going to school in Edgware on the top edge of London (the London Green Belt is an area of land surrounding the city and stopping it from growing ever further into a massive sprawl, or that was the idea), our Greenbelt is a long series of park-like paths that connect all over the edge of north Davis. There’s another in south Davis. It’s great to take long walks or runs along them, and we really took advantage during the pandemic.

Though I must say, I’m getting very antsy for some sketching travel now. I don’t mean a regular vacation, I mean a sketching trip, where I go away to somewhere like a city on Europe and sketch for a couple of days solidly, before moving on to the next place. I’m getting the wanderlust again after too long being away from international travel; Davis is nice but I’d like to wander through Europe again. And Japan, we have twice cancelled our trip to Japan due to the pandemic, hopefully we can make it some time in the next couple of years. There’s all sorts of places I want to go. Still, the US is pretty great, and I’m glad we’ve seen a bit more of it over the past year. I really need a sketching trip though.

Palo Alto

May 7, 2019May 7, 2019Leave a comment

We went down to Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon Valley, for a soccer tournament (my son’s team the Davis Dawgs got first place after a thrilling and tight final). It was held at Greer Park, just off the freeway, and I had time between games to get some walking in, and some sketching too. This old car was parked near ours, a Dodge Dart, looking very much like it just skidded in from a 1970s cop show, knocking over a pile of boxes, shouting ‘guv!’ and sliding over the bonnet pointing a shooter at some crooks in a Ford Cortina. Even the headlights and the grille seem to be scowling at the DI who is reprimanding them for kicking in the door of a well-known Tory MP accused of taking backhanders from back-door bad guys, before slamming his badge down on the table, shouting ‘guv’ and heading down to the smoky boozer to growl at the barman, where he overhears a tip from a grass and a lightbulb goes off, and the next scene there is a door being kicked in and a scrawny looking crook caught wide-eyed in the headlights, before hauling him into the DI’s office and slinging him across the desk, earning a raised eyebrow, a shouty word, and his badge back, thanks guv. It totally looks like that, doesn’t it!

On my walk around the park (getting my steps in, guv), I saw this skate park, in which the valleys were filled with colourful graffiti. When I went back to sketch, after our fourth game, there were a group of men in their 20s and 30s with bikes having a day out, barbecuing stuff and taking turns going into the valleys and doing big spinning jumps. I also sketched a fire hydrant. After our team won the final, everyone got an ice cream. I got one too, a massive chocolatey nutty thing, and that was my dinner, diet be damned, guv.

out and about in madrid

August 2, 2018August 2, 20185 Comments

Not far from where we were staying in Madrid was the Mercado San Miguel. This covered market – well, more like a food hall – was chock full of fresh food and drink to buy and enjoy in a very Madrid atmosphere. We came here a few times for tapas, churros, sangria, but I decided it needed sketching so late one evening when the family went to bed I came across the street, got a sangria and some olives stuffed with mussels, and sketched the bustling gourmet mercado before going home at midnight. The red sangria was delicious. There were lots of tourists there, Americans dragging their sleepy teenaged kids around to experience late-night Spanish culture, some groups of English men on more sensible weekenders than the ones down at the Costa Brava, young ladies sampling Spanish wine and desserts, and occasionally a few locals too, I guess, or maybe visitors from other parts of Spain. I wasn’t really paying much attention to all the people and their conversations, I was looking at the ironwork on the ceiling. I did really enjoy this place, though it is very self-contained and not as large or diverse as the big market in Barcelona that I sketched in 2003. However it was a nice taste of Madrid, literally.

Above is the Palacio Cristal, located in the Parque Dell Buen Retiro, the expansive green space in the heart of the city. We spent an afternoon wandering about here, among the trees and lawns, and we sat for a while by this lovely old building. This might have been my favourite part of Madrid. I sometimes forget in my rush to see big exciting urban wonders that I actually love great urban parks more than anything. I always loved Hyde Park, Regents Park, Central Park in New York of course. Buen Retiro (“Pleasant Retreat”) is exactly that, and dotted with great structures such as this, the Palacio Cristal. This was built in 1887 by Ricardo Velázquez Bosco, possibly inspired by Paxton’s great Crystal Palace in London. Unlike that one, this palace was never relocated to a southern suburb to become the name of a football team and then burn down, and it still sits pretty among the greenery today. I sketched it while we took a break from all the walking. There was a pretty steep street to enter the park, Calle Claudio Moyano, lined with second-hand book stalls and the occasional cold drinks spot, so by the time we reached the middle of the park our feet needed a rest. Well my son’s didn’t, he wanted to kick a ball around but had left it at the apartment. So, we drew this.

Speaking of greenery, this is the Atocha train station, in Madrid. We went there to catch a train to Toledo, and were then delayed by the fact you need to wait in a long line to buy a ticket to Toledo. More like Delayed-oh. Sorry, that was a bad pun, even for me. So, it gave me time to do a sketch of the incredible botanical garden they have inside the main atrium. This was also one of the stations where the awful terrorist attacks of 2004 took place, killing 193 people. The legacy of that atrocity is still visible in the fact that to board a train in Spain, or at least the ones we boarded, you need to go through security and have bags x-rayed.

Here are some Madrid people, sketched while we lunched on pizza outside the Museo Reina Sofía. We spent all morning in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, yet barely scratched the surface of this large art gallery. I was there first and foremost to see Guernica, Picasso’s huge classic, which paints the horrors of an aerial bombardment of a small Basque city by German planes late in the Spanish Civil War. It’s been one of my favourite paintings since I was at school, so to finally see it for real in all its vast, immersive terror was quite an experience. It was accompanied by lots of Picasso’s preparatory sketches, and other paintings by him and by other artists around the time that led up to and influenced this masterpiece. There was a whole section on the art of the Spanish Civil War. That is one conflict I feel I have never really understood properly. It’s always been talked about, written about, painted about, but its legacy lived on right through the end of Franco and probably beyond. Being in Madrid for the first time, I felt a sense of urgency that I need to educate myself about this civil war and about the people of Spain, which I think is a much more complicated country historically than many non-Spanish people know. So, I need to start doing some reading. If our trip to the Reina Sofía has done anything it has made me resolve to learn more. The other thing I enjoyed about the Reina Sofía was the abundance of works by that other great cubist, Juan Gris. I used to love Juan Gris when I was an A-Level art student, I did a project on him and we all went to see an exhibition of his work at Whitechapel. My favourite thing about him though was all the jokes I could use with his name, all really based on either being Hungry or Angry. As I repeated quite often, “Don’t make me Juan Gris, you won’t like me when I’m Juan Gris.” I bet Picasso and Braques used to say that to him all the time.

picnic in the park

September 30, 20173 Comments

Hello folks! Sorry about the blogging break! Been very busy lately, settling into the new job, also coaching soccer again, also a little bit of travel (a couple of days in LA helping my friend from England celebrate his 40th birthday), and a slow-down in the sketching (but only a slow-down, not an actual break…never an actual break!) Also I just have had a lot of things piled on top of the scanner and you have to move it to scan things and…excuses, excuses. So I am up super early today watching Tottenham beat Huddersfield (it’s 3-0 at half-time, Harry Kane is giving a masterclass) and it seemed like a good time to start catching up. So, this sketch is of the Davis Farmers Market and I drew it at the August “Let’s Draw Davis” event, which are still going monthly, this one was organized by fellow Davis sketcher Alison Kent. I stood and sketched this among the Wednesday evening ‘Picnic in the Park’ crowd. That’s what the Wednesday evening summer events at the Farmer’s MArket are called, they have music and bounce houses. A few days later I added this sketch to the Pence Gallery’s annual Art Auction, and it sold!! I’m so glad, as I really enjoyed sketching this. The Farmers Market on a Wednesday after work is a nice place to hang out in this town.

I did a couple of other sketches, of the band performing, using one of those multi-coloured pencils for the second sketch.

My final sketches of the evening were at a very important event elsewhere in the park, the Unity Rally, organized in resistance of bigotry and hate, this coming just days after the events in Charlottesville. One of the speakers was US Congressman John Garamendi, who very kindly signed my sketch afterwards! He did look it over to make sure I hadn’t misquoted him; I thanked him for repeating the Nelson Mandela quote a couple of times so I could get it right. The evening ended with a touching candle vigil, of course I’m always nervous about candles all around me (a candle once burned a massive hold in my shirt at a party in east London, leaving me to go all the way across London on the night bus with basically half a shirt on, very embarrassing) so I sidled back with my sketchbook. Another of the speakers was the new UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May, who has now appeared in my sketchbook three times; I’ll post about the other two times soon, but I’m very happy he is our new chancellor (he likes Lego! and Comics! And is obsessed with Star Trek!)Speaking of Lego, one of my latest things is making Lego animations. I’ve made a few this past month, and if ever one gets any good I’ll maybe even post it here…

celebration time

June 10, 2016Leave a comment

Here in the world of academia, this week is graduation week. Thousands of students undergrad and graduate receive their hard-earned degrees this week and step out into the world. In our department at UC Davis we held a special awards and graduation ceremony a week before the official commencement, honoring our young statisticians and biostatisticians. I did a couple of sketches at the event, but mostly got award certificates ready and took photos and applauded enthusiastically. Great job, everyone!

And a few days later, on by far the hottest day of the year, we held our annual Spring Picnic, and I did this one sketch below. The banner is part of a poster I had made to advertise the event. It was really, really hot, but we had a good turnout, and it was a nice way to round off the year. And so, on towards summer…

all you need is music, sweet music

May 13, 20121 Comment

On Wednesday, after all the various rehearsals, it was time for the Dance Dance Davis flashmob. It was hot low 90s weather, Picnic in the Park was in full swing, alongside the Farmer’s Market, and Jenny Lynn and her Real gone Daddies were providing upbeat 1950s rockabilly music. I stood to draw them (above) as the crowd of people on the green in front of them grew bigger and bigger… at 6:15pm, Jenny asked if everyone was ready to Dance Dance Davis, and then started their “Bang Bang” song, as a couple of hundred people fell onto their backs and started doing an upside down bike ride dance, before launching into the main routine itself. Over the space of about three minutes I tried to capture the crowd below; not easy!! It was quite the spectacle, and even though I think many of the non-dancers were expecting it, it was fun watching the surprise on the faces of those who were not.

Here are a couple of good videos of the event:

I See Davis: “Surprise for Davis” (see if you can spot me sketching)

Davis Enterprise: “Dance Dance Davis Flash Mob”

Well done to Shelly Gilbride and Public Dance Acts for realizing this event! It was fun to sketch.

tents stand off

November 7, 20112 Comments

This is Occupy Davis. It’s not quite Occupy Wall Street, which of course occupies Wall Street, place of economy crashes, and not exactly Occupy London, no resigning Cathedral heads here, and (thankfully) it’s nothing like Occupy Oakland. This is in Central Park, Davis, a handful of tents huddled not far from the Farmer’s Market (which is a bit different from the Stock Market). There are some signs up, and they’re obviously settled in, with bookshelves and a big tarp to keep the rain off, and no need for portaloos – they’re right by the public toilets. A few of the Occupiers were sat about guarding the ship; I was going to go and speak to them, maybe do some drawing over there, but I didn’t have much lunchtime left, and to be honest I felt a little intimidated, so I kept my distance. Plus there was a dog wearing a scarf. I’m sure there’s a lot of support for them, this being Davis after all, and I’m certainly on the side of the 99% and a supporter of peaceful protests (especially against those being allowed to get away with destroying the economy). Camping down the park in the cold far away from those being protested against probably isn’t going to get the bankers to give back their bonuses. But good luck to them.