the long bad February

March 8, 2025March 8, 20252 Comments

What a world. Things seem to be rapidly going from bad to what-the-hell-is-happening with overwhelming speed. I go into my sketchbook to not be so overwhelmed, but it’s not making much difference to my stress levels. Keep on keeping on, and look for the good things. I’ve slowed down on my manic sketching a little in March, probably due to work being busy so I’m not sketching at lunch so much, and I’m hitting that wall again of “I’ve drawn all of Davis do I really need to draw more of it?” I need a sketching trip away again, a change of scenery. I’m hoping I can make it to the Urban Sketching Symposium in Poznan, Poland this summer, August is a long way away. I did still draw a lot of Davis during February, probably the longest February ever for news and worries, and so I have a few more downtown Davis sketches to post here. I’ve not been taking the time to sit down and write either, my head feels too exhausted, but I like the quiet, still early mornings. Above is Woodstocks Pizza on G Street, not the same place as when I drew it years ago, but further up the road where KetMoRee used to be. You can see some of the colourful blocks outside that are part of the new G Street redevelopment that I mentioned a few posts ago, it’s not very inspiring to be honest, and I wouldn’t say those blocks are that great for sitting on in any useful way. There are a few tables and chairs spaced out along the sidewalk, and I sat at one to draw this scene on a very cold afternoon. I’ve not been into the new Woodstocks location yet. We sometimes get their pizza for work events, it’s pretty good.

This next one is a lunchtime sketch on 1st street, I wanted to draw the very bobbly bark of the olive trees, but I drew the one next to the crosswalk so I could put the face-height STOP sign in it (it’s that height for cyclists coming off the bike path). We are the cycling capital of the US, so we have a lot of cyclists and were the first city in the country to have a bike lane (though bike lanes are probably considered ‘woke’ by the numpties running the country now) and we even have the US Bicycling Hall of Fame here , a couple of blocks up B Street there. I’ve never been inside, I am not that interested in bikes, despite being a bike rider myself, and I do watch the Tour de France, but mostly for the maps. Someone had written ‘genocide’ on the STOP sign, hard to disagree there. On the other side of the street, the Aggie Inn. I love cycling in Davis, it’s great. Although sometimes my commute down Oak Street alongside the High School can be a little hairy in the mornings. Cars will zoom past a bit too quickly, and because traffic backs up you’ll always get the cars that think they can just slip quickly into the wide bike lane to overtake, right as I am approaching (this happened a couple of days ago). The crossroads at Oak & 14th with four STOP signs is a nightmare too, as cars who have stopped before I have will often decide to wait and let me go as a cyclist, while I am stopped waiting for them (who were there first), causing general confusion; I cannot see inside the car to see if they are waving me on, and nor can other drivers, so if I say ok then I will go first, it’s usually at the same moment another driver has decided to do the same. All the while, other cyclists (often kids headed to the schools) will just breeze through the STOP sign anyway, and so many cars expect all cyclists will do this and act over cautiously, understandably. If I wave the car through and they go, invariably what happens is the car behind them will go as well, at the same time I do. I just avoid that crossroad in the morning if I can. Then there are all the cars parked alongside the High School stadium in the evening, you have to be extra careful that they don’t open their door without checking, I have been close-called on that a few times. Other cyclists though too can make this route feel hairy, one guy this week ran through not only the STOP sign (while a car was about to pass across it) but also ran the red light, and then crossed over the street to cycle on the wrong side causing bikes in the opposite direction to have to move over into traffic. And then there are the so-called e-bikes that are really just silent motorcycles that are in the bike lane, that seem to appear out of nowhere and cut you up on the inside. And then there is the lack of street lighting on Oak, when it is dark it’s impossible to see. I have two lights on my bike just for better visibility along Oak, but I’ve nearly gone into the piles of leaves and branches that people helpfully place into the bike lane to make it more interesting, not to mention other cyclists who don’t have lights. But I love cycling in Davis it’s great.

The sketch above is the corner of 2nd and G, that is ‘Pachamama’ which I think sells coffee, a drink I don’t drink, but years ago it used to be Subway, a sandwich I don’t eat any more. I did then, but mostly because they were the only place in town I could find the pineapple Fanta. I loved that sugary nonsense of a drink. It’s not Lilt but it was good on a hot day, and we get a few of them here. I drew this in the early evening, one of those Saturdays I just needed to get out of the house but didn’t really have anywhere interesting to go. Story of my life, I was like that as a teenager as well. It’s a good view to draw. Not the sort of one that would end up in a book or a poster but I’m happy enough with the sketch.

And finally the Scout Hut on 1st Street, the old log cabin building that’s about a hundred years old or something, I’ve never been inside (that I can remember; wasn’t there a gallery in there when I first came to Davis?) but I’ve sketched it before. It’s all on its own, barriered by traffic and trainlines, easy to miss. I was in the scouts when I was younger. First in the Cub Scouts, which was one of the best experiences of my life, and also gave me my first leadership experience when I became a ‘Sixer’ (leading my own six, or was it pack, I can’t remember as I was like 10 or 11), before graduating into the Scouts. I remember that event, you wear a green jumper in the Cubs, embroidering the badges onto the arm when you pass them – my best areas were with art and camping and reading – but you wear a green shirt for Scouts, and on the day you go from being a Cub to a Scout you have to ritually take the jumper off for the last time revealing the new shirt underneath. I liked being in the Scouts, and still did a lot of events and camping with them, but as we became early teens a lot of kids fell away and I stopped going regularly, and then in the end not at all, so I never went up to Venture Scouts where you get a khaki-coloured shirt. The old 8th Edgware, blue scarves, little plastic toggles keeping them in place, that drafty old hut in Burnt Oak behind the shops on the Watling, with the goat tied up outside. Those were the days. I don’t know what the Scouts are like over here, what I do know is that the Girl Scouts here (we have ‘Girl Guides’ in the UK) sell excellent cookies at this time of year, my wife always buys several boxes. The old scout hut isn’t used by the Scouts any more.

This one is on 5th Street, I was cycling home that same day and liked the look, another little house with a tree outside, have to draw that. Picket fence, always annoying to draw but this is what we move to America for isn’t it, picket fences. There were picket lines on campus recently due to a strike by some unions. I was going to sketch them in support but (ironically) had to get back to work. They were banging drums and it was all very positive. We do get strikes over here, but I remember my year in France, there were so many. My favourite was the 59 minute bus strike, they wanted to be able to get the buses out on the hour but strike in between, and I was on one bus which just stopped at 1:01 or whatever it was and said to everyone they could get off, or wait on the bus for 59 minutes if they liked. No complaints, everyone shrugged (the famous Gallic shrug) and just walked, it was fine. I was working at the university in Aix at the time. One of my duties was to work in the library for part of the day, and one afternoon I came in for my shift to discover that I too was on strike that day, but didn’t know it, so I walked downtown and got a poulet frites instead. The first song I ever wrote was about a strike. I was at school, music class, our teacher asked us to write a protest song about something that was in the newspapers at the time. I saw that there were travel strikes that day and wrote about them, performing it with my mate Kevin. Rudimentary at best (“down to the station I usually hike, today I have to take my bike, because there’s a strike”). I didn’t even ride a bike at the time, London was rubbish for that, not like Davis which is great. So I was already totally making things up in songs and stories, all for a cheap rhyme. I’ve not changed much.

I have meant to re-draw this house for a while, I don’t know what occupies the space now but for a long time this was the Davis Psychic, and the building was quite colourfully painted. I drew it a couple of times before. This time I sketched it after work as the late sunlight was making shadows creep slowly up the walls. I am not into the whole psychic thing, but people enjoy it, fair play to them; I wonder if they saw February 2025 coming. The mind is a strange thing. We all have one, in some form or other, but can’t all understand them. I suppose psychologists give it a good go. I’ve been thinking about the mind during all of this, because a mind is a fragile thing, manipulable, sometimes delicate and sometimes unbreakable, but it can only bear so much weight and people know this. So I go back into my sketchbook. I decided a little while ago that all this sketching was my way of controlling a little piece of the world in my own way, looking at it and making sense of it, trying not to be too affected by it, while at the same time feeling like I know it a bit more. ‘Conversations with the City’ was the tagline for my sketchbook exhibit in 2016 (centuries ago now, that feels) and it still rings true, though I am getting very shy and not interacting with people as much these days. If they are missing from my sketches it is because they just weren’t passing by at the time, but subconsciously I’m probably enjoying the space without all the people and their little worlds. Sometimes I like to be around lots of people, and other times, well I like the quiet.

Finally, a quick sketch on 2nd Street, near G, again as the late afternoon turned to early evening. Friday evening, another busy week with stresses and unknowns, so I rode downtown after work was done and just drew something, anything. This is Aggie’s Barber Shop, who must close after 5 because it was already dark when I got down there. I listened to my audiobook, still going through all the Terry Pratchett series on the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and relaxed a little, though not enough. I listened to some podcasts as well, stopping and starting, bit of football, bit of history, and some of my favourite one on the History of the English Language. This month was overwhelming for sure. One of the executive orders I heard about though was they were going to make English the ‘official language’ of the United States. This topic has been a big deal for ages, and many of us have long felt it important that the country had no official language, since it was not needed, and could potentially marginalize further the minority languages of the country. I don’t just mean like Spanish (not just a language of immigrants, it did exist here before the US was a thing) or the ‘smaller’ immigrant languages but the many many native languages that are too often overlooked and historically repressed. (I used to read a lot about this when I first came over here, when I’d devour books on language at the library because I wasn’t sketching as much then). Britain similarly does not have an ‘official’ language, in both countries English is only the de facto official, not officially official. Until now, because that guy has decreed it so, English is the official language. Wait a second; English. English. Not ‘American English’…just ‘English’. Right then! Well in that case, you’d all better start learning to bloody spell! English yeah, from England? Ok then. Stop all this ‘aluminum’ bollocks, it’s ‘maths’, put those ‘u’s back where they belong and put the ‘y’ back in ‘tyre’, and yes it’s fine to spell it ‘ise’ instead of ‘ize’, you get to choose. And we aren’t stopping there. Pints should be 20 ounces not 16. Learn to queue properly too. Move July the 4th to the 7th of April where it belongs. If you insist on keeping the Imperial system you have to use ‘stone’ as well, I don’t care if it’s confusing. And it’s ‘BERNard’ not ‘BerNARD’. Sorry, that’s the law now, you bought it, gotta keep it.

I do have a couple more February drawings from downtown Davis to post but I’ll stop here, the sun is up now and the cats are demanding food with menaces. It’s Saturday now, there’s housework to do, and let’s face it, more drawing. February was too long, but March is marching on.

downtown all the days

February 3, 20252 Comments

Davis isn’t that big. I admit that I get bored sometimes, but I’d get bored in the biggest city in the world. Well maybe there would be a bit more to do in London or New York, but I feel restless wherever I am, always thinking about places far away that would be good to explore and sketch, wander about the streets like I’m a character in that book instead of this one. For the rest of the year though, here I am still drawing this town. ‘City’, it is a city, and the campus is technically not part of the city but its own thing. I go downtown because we at least have a downtown, with shops and things to look at. Imagine not having a downtown? Imagine not having Newsbeat, the Avid Reader, Soccer and Lifestyle, Avid and Co, Armadillo, Logos’, the Paint Chip, the Davis Beer Shoppe, the Artery, Bizarro World, Zia’s, Mishka’s, the Varsity, the Pence, all those bars, bike shops and barber shops? And other places I have not mentioned. I don’t even go into some of those that often. Sophia’s? I love that place, imagine my life without getting Sophia’s thai food to cheer me up. And don’t get me started on Baskin’ Robbins and their massive calorific milkshakes that I love. As for the Farmer’s Market. We have a downtown, it’s had its ups and downs, and I worry about it turning more and more into a food court, but we have one, even if I get a little bored it’s better than not having one at all. So, I still keep drawing it, drawing the changes, drawing the things that stay the same. I don’t think I ever drew Jack in the Box on G Street, did I? Well I have now. I stood outside the place that used to be Little Prague years ago but is now Parkside I think (I have not been in there for a very long time; not as interesting to sketch any more) and looked across. I don’t go there much, almost never. It was a good spot years ago, if I’d been to Little Prague, to grab a chicken sandwich after a couple of beers. I just didn’t like going through the door itself. As you enter, this loud air conditioning would blast you with cold air and noise just while you passed through the doorway, and it always set off something in my possibly neurodivergent brain (that’s what they say nowadays, and I’m realizing there are some things that add up) that made me very uncomfortable; I can’t use the hand dryers in a bathroom because of the noise, the echo, and the fact it draws massive attention to myself (also because I’m worried the sound would have a similar effect on other people in there), and going through the doorway of Jack in the Box gave me that same sensation. It’s just how the building is designed I suppose, but I wouldn’t get that going into the McDonald’s or indeed any other shop downtown, so I’d avoid going there. Shame though because they do really nice sandwiches.

I’m batching all the January drawings into just a few posts rather than loads of individual posts, so that each sketch doesn’t feel self-conscious being by itself. I do have a few more downtown drawings from the opening of the newly refurbished section of G Street, but I will show those separately because thematically they don’t fit in with these ones, mostly being in pencil and a lot looser, with more people. I found myself deliberately not drawing people through much of January. Usually because people were not always walking past, mostly because I just didn’t want to see people. After the election, maybe I was feeling like so many of us were, isolated, empty, but also like I just didn’t want to be around people that much. Except I kind of did; I don’t know. The mind is complicated, so I just dive into my sketchbook to deal with it. Now it’s the start of February and let’s face it, it’s not getting any better any time soon. We will need art, expression, togetherness, community. I’ve sketched the building above several times over the years, in various iterations, but now it is a place of art called the ‘Secret Spot’. I have not been inside yet, but people tell me it is fun, and I just started following them on (whichever social media is still ok this week). I’ve not organized a Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl since October. I had meant to kickstart my own involvement again and do one in January, but I have been feeling very shy lately, and not quite up for art with others or for getting people together to sketch like I always enjoyed. I am planning to go to Poland this summer for the Urban Sketching Symposium, but I’m also thinking that it’s been six years since my last one, and they are so overwhelming, and I am worried about that feeling of being a bit lost. If the people from the early days are there though, it might feel like going home, being among familiar faces. But when I feel shy, it’s hard sometimes to push myself out of it, and I end up just wandering off by myself and drawing a street corner.

Here’s a street corner, at 2nd and F. It’s a big Starbucks now, because why have a useful shop when you can have a corporate coffee chain. I’ve never liked Starbucks, because I don’t drink coffee. Nor do I like queues much. They don’t actually have anything else I like, sometimes the pastries are ok but I don’t like going in and lining up for ages for a crummy pastry that’s got no flavour, doing that thing where you pay and then have to wait for the pastry while other people get coffees and papa chinos or whatever that take a lot longer to make. I still have some credit on a couple of gift cards in my bag, I keep them in case I’m at an airport and really need an overpriced croissant in twenty minute’s time. This spot used to be a very cool store full of hiking gear and backpacks, I loved going in there. Alas business was not good and they closed, and eventually they let Starbucks move from across F street to this spot because it’s bigger, even taking over some space next door for a few extra seats and some toilets. I suppose it’s popular, people love Starbucks, you love it too don’t you, you love it for its familiarity, it feels like the other Starbucks everywhere and that is a comfort. I prefer Mishka’s over the road because they do nice smoothies and the snacks are better. No, I won’t have the tea at Starbucks, I drink my tea at home where I can make it properly. I’ve had a crap cup of tea at Starbucks once, and that’s once enough. I liked to draw this corner though, with the little view up F, and the sunlight, and oh look there are some people, how did they get into my drawing? Shoo, shoo! Well it was a nice day, they wanted to sit outside. And there’s a ‘Spin’ e-bike, actually parked in a proper space and not just blocking the whole sidewalk like they usually do. At least there is a fire hydrant, I like those.

As for things I have drawn before, this house on the corner of 3rd and D has popped up many times, with that same big red and white ‘RENTALS AVAILABLE’ sign tastefully plastered over it. Well it stands out. You should see the buildings on the other side of the crossing. It’s such an attractive little house to draw though, as you know I like shapes and trees, simple things really. There was a car parked for a while but it moved while I sketched, so I quickly drew the bit where the car was, and thankfully no other car parked there until I was pretty much done. I stood outside Cafe Bernardo’s, I have not eaten there in at least a decade, probably much longer. No reason why, it’s just that you blink and suddenly it’s 2025 and officially an oligarchy. I should eat there sometime, I remember the food was very good, but at lunchtime, Raisin’ Cane’s fried chicken calls to me from around the corner and tastes so good. Anyway not content with drawing just one face of this building, I came back after work one day, having finished early from a meeting, and drew the side of it from D Street. That funny bird man sculpture is just about visible in each. There were cars in front, and the reflection of the light on the blue one made me really wish I’d waited until that one had buggered off too, but it’s ok. I just liked the soft shadow of the lamp-post. I actually ended up coloring it in later because I was losing my light, and getting so tired of January already. The rain started a couple of days ago now, and so that long dry January is done with. Time to keep my head for the rest of the year. I have a few more January sketches to post though, some from campus, and then maybe I’ll draw something else in February.

parkway places

July 17, 2024July 18, 2024Leave a comment

I found myself once again on Camden Parkway. I always seem to end up here. It’s like a default setting, like if you lose something and it’s down the back of the couch, this is where you’ll find it, Camden Parkway is London’s back of the couch. It’s changed over the years as has everything, but it’s still itself and I went looking for the things I know. I didn’t draw (or go into) the Dublin Castle this time, although I did do a bigger drawing of it when I got home, along with a series of other London locations). Some of my old haunts have gone, some remain. I don’t think I ever set foot in the Parkway Delicatessen, I think I developed my taste for panettone in recent years (thanks Zia’s Deli in Davis!), but this was a sketch waiting to happen. So many old places seem to be kicked away these days, but I love sketching an old Italian deli. I stood outside an estate agents to draw this. There was a lot of traffic on narrow Parkway, isn’t there always. I thought to myself, what if I drew all of Parkway, as one big row of drawings? I could do it if I had the time. Sure I would be wistful about the places that are gone, but places there now still need recording. Camden Town is of significant cultural significance to London, and enjoy it while it’s there. I was glad to see the Odeon cinema is still there (it’s strange to think of a chain cinema being something you need to save but so many have been closing). The last film I watched there was The Force Awakens! I used to go there all the time though when I lived in London, often on the way home from university, in the evening I would get out at Camden, go and see a film, head home to bed. Across the street, the old sign for Palmers pet store is still there, though the petshop itself is long gone and now a cafe. I remember going in there as a kid with my dad. It might have been a different petshop actually but going in there in my 20s I seemed to remember that. My dad loves pets. I even have the word ‘pet’ in my name!

Another place I had to sketch was Jamon Jamon, a little Spanish tapas restaurant that has been on Parkway for ages. Although again, I never actually ate here. I don’t eat jamon, after all, so it probably felt like it wouldn’t be my thing, but I love tapas so I don’t know why not. I might give Spanish food a miss for a bit though, as I’m still sad from losing the Euros final, but I’ll get over it because I love Spanish food. Already I’m fighting the urge for a paella (how long did I wait in 2021 before eating Italian food? Two days, maybe?) I always wanted to sketch this place though. I stood just outside it rather than across the street, and the guy from the barber’s next door, Ossie’s, came out to have a look and said he liked it. I said I’d get around to drawing his shop as well at some point. I was worried it was going to start raining, he said if it did, just come inside! My hair was already very short though. I thought about going into Jamon Jamon for a bite to eat, but I knew I’d be meeting my wife for some dinner in Covent Garden before going to see Spirited Away later that evening. By the way, very important point here, even though this is really a 75%-finished sketch, with some colours and details missing (it’s enough for the general idea) I wanted to make sure I included the door on the right, because someone has written the words “I farted” on it, for some reason. Further down the street is Pizza Pilgrims, a newer chain you see around London that does some really nice pizza, I had some when I was over last year. I do remember a place called Parkway Pizzeria years ago that I used to go to, they had very nice pizzas, that was back when a sit down meal was a really big deal, rather than just the bag of chips in the rain or the reduced-price sandwich was Tescos. Every little helps. One place I was on that side of the street was a pub called the Parkway, which was later the NW1. I used to go there a lot, it was my usual meeting place for my birthdays, or to watch the World Cup, and even for my leaving drinks back in 2005, when most people I knew came out and shared several beers with me a few days before I was moving to California, a memorable night I still look at the photos of, how young I was, at the end of my 20s, about to start this new American adventure. Of course my last night out as a Londoner was at Camden Parkway, it couldn’t be anywhere else.

This last one was drawn that same day, much further down towards the park that the Parkway is named after, Regents Park. The buildings change from being the rough and ready Camden brick to the right regal Regent’s Park stucco. I was just wandering at this point. I considered taking a long walk through the park, listening out for the roar of the lion at London Zoo, but I just drew this old 19th century fountain instead, looking like the entrance to an underground world. It’s called the Matilda Fountain, on Gloucester Gate, and dates back to 1878. Leaf and stone, and doorways to the unknown, that’s what England is all about.

at the Mission Inn Riverside

April 16, 20242 Comments

A month ago I was in Riverside, southern California, for a conference for work. The conference itself was at the nearby conference center, but the official hotel for it was the historic Mission Inn, which I had heard of many times, but wow, what an amazing place. I knew I’d want to sketch the whole thing, but I was a little blown away by it. It might be the most interesting hotel I’ve ever stayed in architecturally (even the one I stayed at in Amsterdam, and the Coronado in San Diego). It’s a historic landmark, the largest building in the Mission Revival style, and one of the official Historic Hotels of America. It was a popular hotel with presidents (especially Republican ones), and Richard Nixon was actually married his wife here, the Reagans honeymooned here, and JFK even stayed here (so it’s not just Republicans). Bette Davis married there too, in 1945. There is a Presidential Bar area, with portraits of past presidents associated with the Inn, and loads of old photographs on the wall.

My room was nice, with beautiful historic details, overlooking the main entrance. I got up early on my first morning and went out as soon as there was light to get some doughnuts, and then sketched the entrance before the conference began, the sketch at the top if this post. In my free time away from the conference, I wandered the hotel’s corridors and passageways, it’s like a maze with all sorts of unusual places to discover. The sketch above was high up on one of the highest levels (though not the highest), with a clocktower and flowers everywhere, overlooking the beautiful courtyard. I enjoyed sketching this, though the sun was going down and I had to colour most of it in while sat at the hotel bar (listening to all the people striking up conversations with each other). This place is an illustrator’s dream.

I did spend some time in the courtyard, when I ate a delicious dinner (Cioppino, I can’t resist it) in their restaurant under a beautiful setting. I did have to try to sketch, but there was no way I could draw the whole setting, with the fountain and the flowers. The food was great, and I had tiramisu for dessert, before going to explore the hotel a bit more. I had skipped the afternoon activities of the conference – going to look around UC Riverside – to sketch more interesting buildings near the Mission Inn, and I’d also missed the evening activity – one group went to the Cheech museum, another went on a pub crawl – so I wasn’t feeling very sociable, and I got to exploring the hotel a bit more with my sketchbook. It’s not every day I get to come somewhere like this.

The sketch above was of a little courtyard in front of the large chapel, where we had the conference’s opening reception the evening before. The sun was already set, though this was the first day of Daylight Savings in the US, but the courtyard was pretty well lit. Still, I was starting to get detailed out by this point so kept it simple enough. There are a few other urban sketchers I know who I’d love to see draw this. As I got back to my hotel room, I sat down at the little desk and looked up, and there was a painting of that exact scene made from the same spot, which made me smile.

There are a lot of ‘things’ to sketch all over the hotel too, if you like drawing objects. I just wanted to draw the old bell, because everywhere you go in Riverside you see the symbol of this mission bell everywhere. It’s really old, of Spanish origin, with the year ‘1247’ inscribed on it, and is considered ‘the oldest bell in Christendom’ (you don’t hear that phrase much these days), and was bought in London by the hotel’s founder, Frank Miller. There is a statue of Frank Miller, holding a parrot (sorry, it’s a macaw) near the entrance, and I had to sketch that. There was a detail of two macaws on the lobby floor also (I didn’t stand there to draw that, I took a picture and drew it in my sketchbook, but was a bit half-hearted with it).

On my last day, I did a bit more sketching before I had to go to the airport, what I really wanted to do was go up to the top floor and draw the highest tower. There is so much there, and a lot of staff busying about keeping the place beautiful. I drew the sketch below, with the hills in the background, intending to colour it in but by that point I was done, and had to fly back home. I do have a lot of other Riverside sketches to show you, as well as my conference sketching, stay tuned. Also coming up, lots more Davis sketching, lots of Utah sketching, I have been busy this year so far. I draw a lot. I’m glad to have had the opportunity to visit this place (and it was a work trip too, professional development). One thing I will say though, it seemed like it was impossible to just get a bottle of Diet Pepsi or Diet Coke like anywhere. You can buy a soda at the bar, sure, but there weren’t any vending machines like in many other hotels, and even around the hotel I couldn’t find any convenience store with bottles of Diet Pepsi (I really needed one while I was out sketching) anywhere, it was really strange. That’s my small complaint. Otherwise, yep, nice place.

escaping the heat

August 23, 2023Leave a comment

Once I was over that post-vacation bout of Covid (it finally got me!) which kept me indoors again for a while (it was like 2020 nostalgia all over again), I was bursting to get out and explore places again. Nothing like a busy vacation to make you want to come home and not do much; nothing like being at home not doing much to make you want to get right back out there again. San Francisco is the most interesting place that’s nearby, and it’s always good for some sketching and exploring. Besides, it was going to be about 107 degrees in Davis, so I thought bugger that, it’s like 70 in the city. The Capitol Corridor Amtrak train is certainly a lot more expensive than when I first started coming down here, but the views are still totally worth it. I like to get the very early morning train, and look out the north side of the train (out of the direct morning sun). I love that journey across the Valley, through the Delta, past the Bay. So I painted some of the scenes in my little Fabriano book.

I arrived in the city, early, did my usual thing of go straight to the Ferry Building to eat a couple of bombolini and figure out my next moves. I didn’t have a plan; I often don’t have a plan, even though I love to tell everyone “I always have a plan”, but on my sketching-exploration days, I follow my nose. Draw from something high up. Go somewhere I haven’t been, while also going places familiar and drawing different stuff. Maybe somewhere I haven’t been in so many years. I’ve been down coming to San Francisco to sketch since 2006, a few times a year. It was very sunny, none of the cooling fog, but still nearly forty degrees better off than in the Davis pizza oven. I had a quick look in the Hyatt, thinking I might sneak up to the top floor as I’d done before (I recall sketching from the top-floor restaurant on one SF sketchcrawl a long time ago with some other bold urban sketchers, we asked nicely and they said sure). No such luck, so I jumped on a streetcar and went down the Embarcadero, getting off at Greenwich. There I sketched the Pier 23 restaurant, as it was opening up for the day. I remember coming here about eight years ago when my friends James and Lauren got married, and afterwards we wandered the city having beers, and this was one of those places we stopped at, looking out over the waters with some tasty Anchor Steam, the taste of San Francisco. Actually, one of the other reasons I was in San Francisco was that a few days before, it was announced that Anchor Steam would be halting production, after well over a century of producing lovely local beer. It’s the only beer I like to drink when I’m in the city, it reminds me of stopping off after a long day of sketching and relaxing with a pint or two before the long journey home. I would be looking for that later on though. I finished this sketch, and drew these metal pipes sticking out of the ground next to me, before going on a bit of a climb…

Edinburgh Old Town – a wee bit more

August 7, 2023August 7, 20233 Comments

I am glad we stayed in the Old Town of Edinburgh, among all those tall sandstone tenement buildings, just steps away from the Royal Mile. So this Royal Mile, what exactly is it? Well it is a long stretch of connected streets that slope downwards from Edinburgh Castle, sitting at the top of a 300 million year old volcano, all the way down towards Holyrood Palace (the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland), as well as the area where now the Scottish Parliament can be found. It was likely part of what was left over by a retreating ice sheet thousands of years ago. Along the way, if you can see past all the cashmere shops and whisky tasting shops and stores selling little Nessies with tartan hats on, are storybooks full of history both bloody and noble, pubs spilling out music and English stag parties, upon cobblestones haunted by the ghosts of so many dead Fringe plays that got bad reviews in The Scotsman. I walked one morning round to a building we really loved the look of, the Tolbooth Tavern. I never went into this tavern, but I knew I wanted to draw it. I got a can of Irn Bru (Tropical Irn Bru to be precise, it had a flamingo on the can), stood outside a shop selling tartan scarves or little wooden cows or something, and had to turn my landscape sketchbook very much into portrait mode to fit it all in. Edinburgh is tall and it’s worth getting the tops of these buildings. I didn’t feel like painting the whole thing, but added just enough that you can imagine the rest of the brickwork. This building was once the Canongate Tolbooth, originally dating from from 1591. It’s probably haunted, because why not, everywhere else is.

One of my absolutely favourite memories form our trip to Edinburgh was getting jacket potatoes from Tempting Tattie. This was about a block away from us on Jeffrey Street, and even thinking about it makes me feel hungry from some delicious buttery jacket spuds. Tempting Tatties had some fantastic toppings – I got a huge one with loads of cheese and baked beans on it, pure comfort food for not very much money. My wife got the one topped with Coronation Chicken, that was delicious. I got another next day topped with Chicken Tikka Masala, also very tasty. If I lived in Edinburgh I would need to be climbing up Arthurs Seat every day to burn of all the calories from the jacket potatoes I’d be eating (all washed down with Irn Bru naturally – though it was the Irn Bru Xtra, the zero-sugar one, that I drank mostly – the tropical version was nice, though I did try an Ice Cream flavour Irn Bru which went very much into the bin, yeuch). I must have visited this Tempting Tatties when we came here in 1999, what with it being close to the place where we put on those shows, but I don’t remember, I mostly ate greasy bags of chips.

One evening following a lot of touristing, my wife and son rested at the hotel while I went out to put some more sketches into my book while the light was good. The John Knox House, just a couple of minutes from our flat, was another of our favourite buildings from along the Royal Mile, and dating from the 1480s is one of the oldest surviving medieval buildings on John Knox was the founder of the Scottish Presbyterian Church, leading the Scottish Protestant Reformation back in the 16th century. The ground floor of this building is home to the Scottish Storytelling Centre, which we had a little look around – there were some interesting performances they were hosting that we unfortunately would miss. I’d definitely take a look there before any future trip to Auld Reekie. The little cafe in there also served haggis both meaty and vegetarian. I drew on this light evening (it was after 9pm, still so much daylight) but it started to rain a little, so I sheltered in the covered close directly opposite.

When I was all done, I popped into a pub on the corner – called “No. 1 High Street”, right opposite the busier World’s End where I couldn’t find a table to sit at (they were setting up for some live music in the corner, which I presumed would be one of those traditional Scottish folk nights that Rick Steves and all the guidebooks said I had to experience), and rested my very weary feet. I hadn’t filled in the details on many of those windows yet (repetitive actions like that are often a “do-later” job) so I got to work on that over a nice pint of something cold and Scottish, but of course I can’t stop and always need to draw something new, so I sketched the bar instead. It wasn’t very busy; there was an American couple in, sat next to a couple of young lads from Northern Ireland (with strong and amazing accents), who were there for some farmworkers conference. The young lady at the bar was from the north of England and very conversational with them, and even had a look through my sketchbook, being an artist herself. The Americans I think were from Texas, apparently they met on a TV show, and one of the young lads asked if they have cowboys in Texas. Nearby an older Scottish man chatted with the owner, it was a friendly little place. It didn’t get dark until about 11pm. I walked back to the flat as they were closing, pretty tired, but at least I finally got a Scottish bar sketch from the inside. Walking past the World’s End, the music being played wasn’t quite folk music, more of the generic singer-songwriter variety, so I’m glad I didn’t stand to wait for it, though it sounded nice enough. At least it wasn’t bagpipes. I know it’s an odd thing to admit when I’m touristing around Scotland, but I don’t really like the sound of bagpipes much…

chicago, chicago

May 2, 2023Leave a comment

Guess what we did in our Spring Break? That’s right, we went to the amazing city of Chicago, my first ever trip there (my wife had been a couple of decades or so ago). I’ve wanted to see Chicago for ages, I know quite a few urban sketchers up that way, though this being a fairly brief trip I didn’t have a lot of time to see if there were any sketching events. Still, I sketched wherever I could. Being mostly on the go and on the way elsewhere, many were ‘draw outline, finish later’, such as the one below. But I had to draw some hydrants of course, and on the first morning, still full to the brim from my first experience of Chicago Deep Dish Pizza the night before, I got up for a walk in the cold along the river (in the shadow of that massive tower with “TRUMP” on the side of it, that gets in the way of every photo) (despite that name, architecturally quite an interesting design though), and found some hydrants to sketch. Chicago, “that toddlin’ town” as Tony Bennett sang, is a pretty tall city. Our first bit of exploring took us on a walk down to the “Bean” as it’s called by locals, or “Cloud Gate” as it’s actually called, that big shiny sculpture that reflects and bends its surroundings, as drawn by every single urban sketcher that has been to Chicago ever. It was pretty cold, and it started to snow while I stood there. So I just drew the outline, and the people in front, and left all those windows for later on, because I’m not nuts. Although it took me several goes to draw all those windows, because I just kept getting bored. And yes, I counted them as I went along, I think I got them all. Don’t bother checking. I was really interested in the reflection though, all those people that looked like ants. If they were ants, they would be making a single-file line up the street to the Nutella Cafe, because as we discovered recently, determined ants do love Nutella and will do what they can to get in there (we have to keep our jar of Nutella in a bigger airtight jar now). We moved along and explored that side of town a bit more, discovered an interesting bookshop in the Fine Arts Building that specialized in music books (I bought a cool little book on Belle and Sebastian), and then walked past the start of the old Route 66 into the downtown Loop area, before having lunch at the Berghoff, which might be the oldest restaurant in Chicago. The snow was coming down in light flurries.

I mentioned that we had eaten Deep Dish Pizza, proper Chicago style, the night before, and we would still be full from that for the next several days. The place we had it was as Chicago as it gets, Pizzeria Uno, about a block from our hotel. It’s called the “Birthplace of Deep Dish Pizza”, pizza-in-the-pan, invented by the owner Ike Sewell, and that really took off. The sign said that this was the first pizzeria in North America. I always believe what I read in restaurants, but this was a pretty cool old place. I didn’t know exactly what to expect from Deep Dsh, I thought it might be something like a very thick pizza dough, or maybe like stuffed crust pizza you get at Pizza Hut. I couldn’t be wider of the mark. You know when Americans say “Pizza Pie”, well this is more like an actual pie. The crust is thick and goes right up the metal side of the pan it comes in, and it is filled with so much cheese, tomato and veggies that it was more like a savory trifle than what I think of as a pizza. I am glad we asked what size to get beforehand, they actually recommended my wife and I share a small, while my son got a personal size. We didn’t finish our small, it was so deep! The boneless chicken wings were pretty nice as an appetizer, and I had a couple of super tasty local beers called “Deep Dish Daddy”. A little further up the street is Pizzeria Due, the second location of this popular pizzeria, and around the corner from that is Su Casa, a Tex-Mex restaurant opened by Sewell a little later. We ate there on our last night in Chicago, when we had the tornado. That’s not the name of a dish or a drink, it was an actual tornado. We were sat in there eating enchiladas and drinking a margarita, when suddenly everyone’s phones in the restaurant went off at once, there was a large tornado hitting the region soon with destructive winds of about 90 miles per hour, so everyone needs to get safe. We went back to the hotel, not in any rush, but by the time we got upstairs and watched the news, boy was it stormy outside. There were a few tornadoes that passed by the area just to the south of Chicago, passing into Indiana, and one hot a suburb of Chicago taking the rook off of a concert hall and killing one person inside, injuring several more. It didn’t last too long, but it was pretty strange weather. On that day, the temperature was about 25-30 degrees warmer than the previous day, so something was up. Chicago weather, man, you’re at the Great Lakes, you’re in the Midwest.

But back to Day One. It was very cold, and when the snow stopped and the sun started coming out, it got colder still. Way colder in fact. We spent a bit of time walking about the amazing Chicago downtown, admiring all the grand Gotham City architecture, before having lunch at The Berghoff, which is “Chicago’s Oldest Restaurant” (I will honestly believe anything a sign in a restaurant tells me), and was opened in 1898 by German Herman Berghoff, selling beers for a nickel, with a free side sandwich. The Berghoff is known for its very German fare, which is what appealed to me, as we love the schnitzels and the spaetzle. Especially the spaetzle, my wife’s grandma from Bavaria used to make that, delicious. After Prohibition, The Berghoff was the first bar to get a liquor license (thanks for the info, restaurant website!), so it was fun to spend a bit more time in another historic bit of Chicago. I sketched from across the street after we ate, while my son and wife went back to the hotel to rest and warm up. In the afternoon, we took the architectural boat tour, a must for Chicago visitors. It was so cold, but at least we had clear blue skies to see all the ridiculously tall buildings. Chicago built them very, very tall. The biggest is Sears Tower – sorry, Willis Tower, but don’t worry about calling it the wrong thing, Chicago people call it what they want. It used to be the tallest building in the world. I folded my arms and looked up at it and said, “What you talkin’ about, Willis?”, because I am a dad in his forties and that is what we do. We nearly went up it but the wait was a bit long so we thought sod it. It’s very, very tall though. It was like standing next to Barad-Dur.

I’ll post the other Chicago sketches another day. The last one here was the first one of the trip, sketched in my little red Stillman and Birn book, the obligatory in-travel sketch of the airplane. We flew from Sacramento to Chicago Midway. Nuff said.

arrivederci, uncle vito’s

April 13, 2023April 11, 2023Leave a comment

This here is – or rather, was – Uncle Vito’s Slice of NY, a New York themed pizza place in Davis. I had just had lunch at Raisin’ Canes (a fried chicken shop, nothin’ to do with raisins), and I stopped to sketch this corner. It started to rain as I was drawing, so I moved slightly under the awning of Peet’s Coffee (nothin’ to do with Pete, who doesn’t drink coffee). Uncle Vito’s opened in about 2009 I think it was, I remember there was a small Chinese restaurant here before I would sometimes eat at during my break from work at the Avid Reader bookshop on Saturdays, “Wok’n’Roll” I think it was called. Long time ago. Anyway I went into Uncle Vito’s a few times over the years, only once for pizza (I had a ‘thai-style’ pizza and it ended up being covered in nuts and nut sauce, it wasn’t so good, but their regular pizza looked nice but that put me off a bit) but I did like their massive massive portions of garlic fries. Usually I would just pop in for a beer, as they had a nice bar, good beer, friendly people and always something to sketch. Behind the bar they had one of those lampshades with the fishnet-stocking legs, from the much-loved film A Christmas Story. By the way, I really enjoyed the newer one that came out this last Christmas, A Christmas Story Christmas, that was really fun. It’s a shame this place closed, that pandemic did it for so many places. Still, I have the sketches. Here are the bar sketches I drew in here over the years.

Lille, dimanche après-midi, il pleut encore

August 23, 2022August 24, 2022Leave a comment

It stopped raining for a little while after lunch. After walking about the back streets of Lille in the steady drizzle to find a restaurant to sit down in and enjoy some ch’ti region food, with little success (most of the outdoor seating had closed up due to the rain, and places were generally full inside at lunchtime) I ended up eating at the cafe that was that day’s “hub” for the urban sketchers, near the Treille cathedral, and just had a fairly small snack. I ended up chatting with some German sketchers I bumped into, such as Basel-based Tine Klein who I had met at previous symposia, she paints dramatic watercolour sketches I really admire and was talking technique with her friend from Berlin. I didn’t see any of the other sketchers I know, I was planning to join them in the evening for the drink-n-draw (or rather “drink-n-look-at-amazing-sketchbooks”). So after lunch I went back to the hotel to dry off, and when I headed out again the rain had stopped. I headed towards the train station, Lille Flandres. I couldn’t remember if Lille Flandres was the French name for Ned’s wife, on the Simpsons. In the road leading up to the station, Rue Faidherbe, there are these big green sculptures, so I stood next to one and drew the Gare itself. It opened in 1842, known then as just ‘Gare de Lille’. I spent a lot of time in European train stations when I was younger. In the summer of 1998 I took a five week trip around Europe with a Eurail pass, carrying the big Thomas Cook Rail Timetable book with me, but I never passed through Lille Flandres. I love a train though. I got this far with the station and that was enough, because the rain was back.

I crossed the street and took shelter in the awnings of a closed cafe. The rain wasn’t heavy (yet), and I felt quite contented. As a resident of Davis California I don’t see much rain any more, so it’s still a thrill to get a downpour, even one that stops me sketching wherever I want (spoiler alert – it rained a lot more on this trip, I still made the best of it). I still had a decent view of the rear of the Eglise St. Maurice de Lille and I couldn’t resist all those triangular turrets. I plotted it out and started sketching, and then the heavens opened up. I’m assuming someone in the heavens left the bathroom taps on. The rain was the heaviest I had seen in a pretty long time, and it was getting hard to really see. It was also being driven in towards me, so I was still getting wet, though not as drenched as those dashing down the street. Well, I thought, no point in trying to draw in pen, so I gave up and went to the next page, and added a wash, before adding in what details I could with the paintbrush (below). Not the sort of thing I usually get to draw but I definitely enjoyed it, and it definitely reflects the mood of what I saw more than the line drawing. I left the original sketch as it was, that’s part of the story.

The day’s urban sketching exploration was over though, so I jumped from shelter to shelter and dashed to my hotel. I am glad I stayed in such a good central location. It wasn’t a fancy hotel, just a regular Ibis, but the room had a desk which is something I always look for in a hotel room, as a sketcher who sometimes has to finish stuff off.

In the early evening, I walked out to the citadel park, to a little bar where the Sunday night meeting of French urban sketchers was going to take place. There I met with people that I knew from sketching trips gone by, such as Sophie Navas, Vincent Desplanche, Mauro Doro and more, and enjoyed a beer and looked over some amazing sketchbooks. We then went on to meet with my Belgian sketching friends Gerard Michel, Fabien DeNoel and Arnaud De Meyer, as well as French sketchers Martine Kervagoret and Lolo Wagner, it was great to see them all again. There were some others who I did not know as well, and others whose art I was very familiar with such as Jean-Christophe Defline and Sylvain Cnudde, whose work I have been really loving for a number of years (his sketchbook is even more amazing in person, I tell you). We had a quick drink at a cafe, before many of us went off to find some dinner at a place big enough for an urban sketching evening. Aux Moules on Place Rihour was that place, we ate in the large room inside and the staff were very friendly. I did do some sketching on the paper placemat (as did others), and also drew a panorama. Sophie (who I had first met briefly at the Strasbourg USk France Rencontre in 2015, and who now lives in Strasbourg; her sketches are great and she also designs excellent posters) did ask if I minded that everyone spoke French (she knows my French is a bit rusty) but I said that I loved to listen, and that I did understand most of what was being said, but I probably couldn’t join in to speak as much! Vincent Desplanche had copies of his book of sketches from Japan to buy, I snapped that up.

My moules were great, the beer was nice and it was fun to meet up with old sketching friends (and listen to some French, if only occasionally speaking it!). It had been another long day, so I went off to bed and fell right asleep. Next day I would be off to Belgium for a few days of sketching and exploring.

another panorama on third street

April 30, 20214 Comments

Another panorama from downtown Davis, this is Ali Baba, near the UC campus, on 3rd Street. I was doing that thing where I go out to draw, cycle about, not sure what I want to draw and then stop and see a building that I’ve not really draw, and the light is right. So here it is. While I drew, a man cycled up and parked his bike and his bike cart (full of random junk) right behind me and went off to eat at one of the tables across the street, not paying me any notice, so why mention it, well he parked his bike right behind me, and turned on his radio or music player very loud, so I had to try to listen to my podcasts while also hearing this very loud pop music from behind me. He wasn’t even nearby, he went off to eat. It was a bit odd, but well, I wasn’t going to say anything, and the music wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t like he was playing the Cheeky Girls. Remember them? The music was actually alright. I felt a bit uncomfortable drawing this though, because being April, that means sneezy season. And being Covid times, that means wearing a mask. Now I can’t wear the mask outside at all time – when I’m running for example, and that exemption is covered by our rules, and even when cycling – but if I’m sketching in the street I do my best to wear one, if I can’t be six feet away like on the sidewalk. However I find that my glasses steam up a lot more because I’m looking up and down from my sketchbook and the mask moves it around. Some masks work better than others, and the temperature makes a difference. So sketching masked up can be uncomfortable. I normally like wearing the mask because it hides my expression. But in sneezy season…well, it can be uncomfortable, even if I’m not sneezing as much, my eyes are itching. So there was that, making me uncomfortable. I had to concentrate harder on the perspective. Thankfully other than Music Man there weren’t many people around. Saturday afternoon, near the university, in a global pandemic, not a super busy time. Nevertheless some guy commented on this picture on Instagram saying, “Are you thinking that your drawings would be better if they had people in them?” which of course didn’t annoy me in the slightest, having published an actual book about drawing people. I had to point out “there ARE people in this drawing”. They might be small but they are there. But look, other than the Cycling DJ there weren’t many people around, and I like my drawings to reflect that. I do put people in my drawings, especially in scenes where they help to break up the repetitive scenery or provide context for perspective, but if I choose to leave people out or not include those that weren’t there, that is my prerogative, my choice. All drawings are a series of choices. People. I remember once about seven or eight years ago I was drawing on a street in downtown Davis, when this violin-player came and plonked himself into the view. He had his back to me, and again I was trying to listen to a podcast about I don’t know, the history of the alphabet or something, while his strings screeched and scratched, making me turn the sound up on my headphones. I’d already drawn the thing he was in front of, but I decided he made an interesting shape, and quickly added him in. There’s no way he could know that of course, and I was in the middle of drawing some brickwork a few minutes later when he appeared in front of me like a tall skinny praying mantis; I couldn’t tell what he was saying. I popped out my earphone, the history of the alphabet would have to wait, and was met with accusations of “why are you drawing me, you are not allowed to draw me, show me what you are drawing!” I showed him my page, though I didn’t have to. He went into a rage that I was not allowed to draw him and that his identity is protected, and I’m like whoah whoah, I was here drawing before you got here, and I’m not here drawing you. The bit where I had included him did not even show his face, and frankly looked nothing like him (I may have written a book about drawing people, I didn’t say I was any good at it). To say it even looked like someone playing a violin would have been generous. He was apoplectic, yelling at me in the street to the point where people stopped to watch, and would not accept it, claiming loudly for anyone that would hear that he was in the witness protection scheme, that gangs from LA were after him, that if his face is seen they would come after him, despite the fact he regularly goes out and performs music in public. I said that if it makes him feel happy I will draw a face with a beard on the figure to show it was not him, and so I did, but he would not calm down, yelling that he would be discovered, they know he plays the violin, because of course he is the only person who does. And then he gets out his phone! He was threatening to call the police, though I was on a public street and not breaking the law, so he said he was going to call his lawyer and take me to court “my lawyer knows more about law than you!” he said. Ok, well you do that. So he stood there having a ‘conversation’ on his phone trying to get his ‘lawyer’ to call the ‘police’ on me, when I could tell there was nobody on the other end of the phone. Seriously, I think he was making a pretend phone call. Eventually my lunchtime was up and I had to get back to work so I just left, annoyed, and never finished the sketch. This was years ago. So, why do I sometimes not want to add people into my sketches if I don’t have to? Because People.

Anyway, once I was done drawing this, generally undisturbed except by some loud pop music, I cycled home for dinner. I realized I have not eaten at this place in well over ten years, it’s not on my usual way from campus to downtown so I never stop in. I remember eating something with falafel here once. Anyway, another panorama from downtown Davis. I have it in my head that I would compile my Davis panoramas into a book that would be nice to look through and think of Davis and all its people, but I am too busy.