Tag: silo

out to lunch

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silo
silo lunchers

A couple of sketches, a week apart, both lunchtime scenes from the Silo at UC Davis. I’ve sketched there once or twice before. I don’t know who the couple are. I drew this a couple of years ago with a caption about how overheard conversations are not very interesting. However, I did overhear one conversation, two young students talking, one girl impressing the other girl with her knowledge of ancient Greek tales, particularly the fall of Troy. The other had not seen the film, she said. Well the first went into minute detail about the events of the war, right up to the Trojan horse (which was the point of the conversation, as she was explaining the meaning behind the phrase), which according to her was filled with Trojans, not Greeks, Trojans who were invading Troy. I smiled. It made a change from all the talk of budget cuts and furloughs.

a change it had to come

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Hundred degree weather came back to Davis this week, after a relatively cool period for California – on the KCRA3 Weather they said it had been a ‘summerless June’. Apart from a few clouds and some rain in the mountains, it has been generally sunny and in the warm 80s. So, obviously gloves and scarf weather. You gotta love Californians. 

 bike barn from bainer

I’ve drawn this view – the Bike Barn and South Silo, as seen from Bainer Hall – several times before. I like the view, it is fun to draw and you always see it anew each time. The only things that change are the leaves on the trees and the work on the green in the foreground. Funny enough, that even changed while I was drawing. I had to spread it out over a couple of lunchtimes, and on the second lunchtime that fence had gone, and someone was mowing the lawn (after I’d drawn all that spongy long grass). Oh well! It is the front of the Hog Barn – sorry, it’s not called that any more, it’s the Hubert Heitman something or other, as they made clear at a campus design council meeting I went to there (coincidentally, fellow Davis sketcher/blogger Pica was at the same meeting, and caught me without sketchbook). Anyway it has recently been renovated and opened (and it smells so new inside) so they’re adding the finishing touches. The world sits still for no sketcher.

Here are some other versions of this scene.

uc davis trees encore no leaves for you
smoky and the bikebarn rainy rainy day

your tasty beverage

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lunchtime today, outside

Getting quiet on campus. I had Taco Bell for lunch on Friday, at the Silo, and drew the cup and the scene beyond it. The fountain soda cup (not the Big Gulp, mind) should be the on the seal of the United States, forget the eagle. this is pretty much the national symbol. Back in Europe the cups are all so small. Small means small. Here, ‘regular’ can mean ‘small’ in one place (roughly twice the size of European small), but ‘medium’ in another. ‘Medium’ on the other hand doesn’t mean ‘medium’ but ‘actually that’s quite big’, in most places. I know one thing, enough of these and ‘medium’ and ‘small’ soon cease to be in your vocabulary.

This is UC Davis, drawn again in purple micron 01.

rush hour

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frat boards and bikes

Another lunchtime sketch (with purple micron), very quiet on campus right now, and I sat outside the Silo drawing bicycles and fart-boards. Oops, mis-spelling there, I mean frat-boards of course (are they even called that?). They look like a gang. I imagine the frat boards marching animated across campus, independently, gathering to harass bikes. A lot of them seem to be advertising Rush, presumably not a celebration of Ian Rush, though it would be more interesting. Ian Rush, he was great, he drank milk so that he’d be good enough not to play for Accrington Stanley. Funny fact, my A-level history teacher, a Welsh guy, left his teaching job to go and tour with his band who were called, of all things, Ian Rush. They sang in Welsh, and presumably scored a lot too.

yer blues

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yer blues

blue siloLooking down at the interior of the Silo (the place where I most often eat and sketch at lunchtimes) yesterday, with a micron 05 blue/black pen. It’s the other side of a drawing I did well over a year ago from the same spot, also in blue, but that time was cobalt copic 0.1; see it on the right there. That was back in Moleskine #1! Wow. I’m on #4 now.

I gotta say, you overhear some boring conversations at lunchtime. Not that I listen, but sometimes you can’t miss them. So-and-so did this, so-and-so did that, blah blah blah. Must remember my bigger headphones.

ain’t no sunshine

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ain't no sunshine

Hey, it can’t be sunny all the time in Davis.

Storms have been rolling in, and I’ve watched them roll away again. More storms to come. While the rain stopped I was outside during lunch today capturing part of the Silo complex, but then drips and drops started falling from the sky. I ducked beneath a shelter to finish the pen and write some notes on the colours (‘cos you know, not like I’ve sketched here before or anything), and did the wash at home. This is page 1 of moleskine 4, it’s so nice starting a new book.

and the dead tree gives no shelter

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how i spent my lunchtime

We’ve been here before, once or twice. The Silo, UC Davis. A cold December day, in fact turned too hot by the bright winter sunshine, my shade being muscled out until my ears were hot and red. The sunlight was too warm. It was uncomfortable. I even knocked my water pot into my paint set; I didn’t like that much. I thought of all the urban sketchers out there freezing their fingertips off in colder and wetter climes, and there’s me complaining about the heat. Hey, I’m British, that is what we do.  

I posted this on Urban Sketchers, so I did. Incidentally this is post number 150 since I started this blog in April. that’s 750 since April 05, including my old blog. I’m still managing an average of 50 posts every three months. Statto.