Chemistry latest – pretty much finished

September 16, 2024Leave a comment

The new quarter is upon us, it starts in a week. The quieter days of summer are over, and the busy busy is back. I’m usually well up for it, but I’ve enjoyed the slightly less stressful couple of months; the last year was a lot of work, a lot of headaches. Still, I’ll feel different when the game starts, I always do, and every year I get energized by the start of Fall quarter on campus. Here is another campus sketch from August, the latest in the new sing of the Chemistry Building, whose development and construction I have followed for about five years now. You can see all those posts by following the ‘Chemistry‘ tag. When a building gets to that end stage, it does become a lot less interesting to draw as it stops being an active moment in time and becomes its long-term self, interesting in the fact that people will come in and out a lot but there won’t be many outwardly different changes. I’ve drawn the Manetti Shrem a lot less since it was finished in 2016, and I’ve not drawn the Pitzer at all since then. Walker Hall I’ve still drawn a few times, but that building is starting to look different already as the freshly planted trees on the Hutchison side are starting to grow and break up the long expanse of architecture. I have probably got one more Chemistry sketch left in this series, the final-final-final one, but the one above is pretty much the end result already, the fences are down and the landscaping more or less done. The windows are all installed, and I think all that needs adding are the people. I wish we had a new building sometimes; ours is relatively new, having opened just a couple of months before I joined UC Davis, but growth happens. I have had a small part in drawing some maps for new rooms in existing buildings, but imagine being part of designing a completely new building, that must be exciting especially when it all opens. The Teaching Learning Complex for example, that was so fun to watch all that come together. This one has been too, and as I pass this way every day it has been easier to follow. I’m looking forward to taking a look around inside once it the new academic year starts.

late July, UC Davis

August 19, 20242 Comments

Here’s what I did in the second half of July. Or rather, half of what I did. When I was in London I bought a Seawhite of Brighton accordion sketchbook, one that is just under 7″ tall (that’s 17cm, I did buy it in England), and each page is about 3.5″ wide (about 9cm that is), and there were about 16 of those pages/folds, and well, you do the math. I mean, the maths. I have got one of these particular accordion books by Seawhite before, about 12 or 13 years ago, but it was bigger, and I never got past the first drawing. This time I was determined, a series of drawings of UC Davis, with another series of drawings of downtown Davis on the other side. To be honest it wasn’t hugely ambitious, it’s all stuff I have drawn a million times before, right, and the individual drawings aren’t exactly long panoramas themselves (unlike the four very long ones drawn on Hutchison in the 2016 panorama Moleskine). It does look pretty good all stretched out though, it does get a ‘wow’, but the idea was to show the two sides of the Davis we know, or I know. For the UC Davis side, we have six locations all drawn in ink and watercolour: Hart Hall, Shields Library, Heitman (formerly the Hog Barn), Mrak Hall, the Memorial Union, and Turner Wright Hall.

No stories with these, just the images as they are, UC Davis in the middle of summer. It’s quiet. In a month’s time all the people will start coming back and the quiet days will turn back into busy days, and before you know it the rest of 2024 will whizz past and we’ll all be six months older. I’ve enjoyed the quiet of summer, if not the heat (it’s relatively cooler now though, which is nice), and my daily sketching has slowed a bit since I did this book, and I have not been to many places, nor have I organized any sketchcrawls, that can wait. I drew some London pictures to go on the wall, and also to go into the Pence’s annual art auction. I have (as of last week) started getting into lino block printing, which I’ve not done since some time in the late 80s at school, and it’s fun so far. The biggest creative project I’ve done this summer (even bigger than this accordion book) is the faculty family tree I finally created for our department at UC Davis, which you can read about and look at in this article here. That was a project many years in the conception but which I finally decided to create when the idea hit me on the London Underground. And finally, I’m running again, albeit slowly and more heavily than before, aiming for the 5k on Labor Day and then (gulp) train up for a 10k by November…

Check back for part 2, a whole spread of downtown Davis.

through the gateway

June 30, 2024June 30, 2024Leave a comment

I started a new sketchbook, another watercolour Moleskine, but this time in portrait mode rather than landscape format. That’s a change for me; I’ve used so many landscape format sketchbooks, indeed in the ‘official’ numbering, I’ve had 50 which I use as my main sketchbook. I’ve used other portrait sketchbooks outside of the numbering, oh it gets complicated. But I have decided that this book will officially be number ’51’ in the list as my main sketchbook, and I will use portrait formats from now on, at least until I get bored and go back to landscape. None of this is even slightly important to you. But I like to categorize my books, and if you want to see them all listed in one place, go to the Sketchbooks page. Anyway, I wanted to start this one in Davis rather than on my London trip, so I sketched this sculpture on the UC Davis campus, the one on Mrak Lawn called “Shamash” (Guy Dill, 1982). It was bloody hot out, but nothing compared to how hot it’s going to be here this week. Oh I’m back in Davis, here comes the very long and very very hot summer. I need to go somewhere else now. I’ve sketched this gateway before. I have never walked through it, I don’t think I have the courage. That’s the Arts building in the background. The library is nearby. This is a gateway into a new sketchbook; having already nearly finished the book (I sketch a lot when I’m travelling, and when I’m not), it’s a gateway to a new format that I’m enjoying. It’s good to do something a little bit different.

jungerman

June 5, 2024June 4, 2024Leave a comment

I needed to sketch, it was lunchtime, so I drew the big building next to the one at work, Jungerman Hall, aka the Crocker Nuclear Lab, and its little Annex right next door. I like the shadows rolling down it. It was a bearable temperature then; it’s getting into the unreasonably hot temps now, with a high of about 102 or so today, and higher tomorrow. there are power outages in parts of Davis, so as I type it’s like we are on borrowed time. Those exploding transformers are out there overheating, as if to say, you’ve borrowed that time, guv, but it’s not yours, now you’ve got to give it back. A famous man once said Time Flies Like a Banana. In the meantime our new HVAC system, that replaced our old one from the 70s or 80s, is working its energy-efficient little socks off. I’m not looking forward to going out tomorrow, in this awful heat.

back in the good life garden

May 27, 2024May 26, 2024Leave a comment

Another from campus, I was attempting a panorama of the RMI (Robert Mondavi Institute) for Food and Wine Sciences, from one of the few shady spots in the Good Life Garden (“morning Margo” “hello Jerry”) but I couldn’t be bothered to colour it in. I’ve sketched here before of course, it’s close to my office. I do wonder sometimes, I get in a rut with my sketching. Like, drawing the encampment on the Quad, it was at a bit of a distance but it’s still showing something different, a moment in time worth documenting. Sometimes though I’m just drawing a place because it’s there, and will probably look the same in 10, 20 years. I do remember when it wasn’t there of course, it was built in my work-life-time. I still have a wine glass from the grand opening, as it was around the time of the UC Davis centenary so it had that motif on it. I think that was from then anyway. My former supervisor got herself about four or five of those free glasses, it was a fun little trip. She passed away several years ago, sadly. I learned of former colleague who died a couple of months ago, very sad to hear, he had retired a long time ago. While looking for his former workmates to tell, I learned of another who died last year, who was on the original team of staff I worked with when I joined our department. Made me quite pensive this week, thinking about all those people, all those old times, when I was brand new to this university. Now it’s my job to make people feel at home in our place of work, as it was theirs before me. Life goes on, doesn’t it, and I keep on drawing it.

gaza protests on the quad

May 26, 2024Leave a comment

As on many campuses, here on the UC Davis Quad a group of students protesting the events in Gaza has set up camp over the past few weeks. It’s a closed off encampment with a big fence around it, unlike the Occupy camp back in 2011. So far it’s remained peaceful, and I hope it stays so. I did a quick sketch of it from the MU; while I sketched, another group set up a long banner in opposition, highlighting the hostages still held after the events on October 7 in Israel. There was a news reporter there, we had helicopters above for a bit. It remained peaceful though, and I hope it stays so, they have a right to protest. Although there have been acts of vandalism across campus, and I’m hoping that it does not attract groups intent on just causing trouble, as we’ve seen elsewhere. Still I had to sketch the camp, documentation of another moment in the campus’s history, it’s all important and there will be more moments. The Whole Earth Festival was scheduled not long after this, that’s usually on the Quad but they decided to move it this year out to Russell Field (not as much shade there).

penny farthings at the picnic day parade

May 15, 2024May 14, 2024Leave a comment

Last month was the annual UC Davis Picnic Day, the largest university open house event in America, and a tradition that’s been going on since 1909. It’s also a day that usually fills me with a bit of dread, with so many people coming to campus, I usually try to find a way to get out of town. It can be pretty busy, not to mention all the parties going on. Still it can be fun, and we always like the parade. So this year we went down and found a spot by the Quad to watch the Picnic Day Parade go past. It was a good one this year, and I tried to get a quick sketch of it all, though it’s not easy to draw things marching past. I sketched the crowd and the trees before the parade arrived, and while I’d thought I might sketch the marching band or maybe even the fleet of DeLoreans, it was the Penny Farthings I ended up sketching, the symbol of the city of Davis. After the parade, we walked about a bit, my wife and mother in law got some plants from the Plant Science dept, we all got an expensive round of smoothies, then we decided to ditch campus and walk downtown to the Farmers Market.

Here’s a lot more information about Picnic Day: https://picnicday.ucdavis.edu/history

as sure as eggs is eggs

April 28, 2024April 27, 2024Leave a comment

Before I show you all my Utah sketches, I’m fast forwarding to this month, which was the 30th anniversary of the installation of the Eggheads by UC Davis professor and renowned sculptor, Robert Arneson, who dies in 1992. The campus has been having special celebrations in honor of Arneson and his beloved Eggheads, which are a series of egg-shaped sculptures all over campus. I’ve drawn the Eggheads before of course, but over the past few weeks I decided to draw all of them again, starting with “Yin and Yang” (above) which is outside Turner Wright Hall, a pair of eggs having a bit of an argument. One of the big parts of the Egghead celebration was a special event at the Manetti Shrem to which I was invited, where Robert Arneson’s widow Sandy Shannonhouse (a renowned artist herself) gave a short talk, and Robert Arneson’s son was there, and the Chancellor Gary May, the L&S Dean Estella Atekwana, and above I sketched the Manetti Shrem’s director Rachel Teagle talking about Arenson’s legacy and his famous Eggheads.

Above, this Egghead is called ‘Stargazer‘. It’s over behind North Hall near Dutton, staring up at the sky. It was installed in May 1994.

Back to the Manetti Shrem event, I sketched people talking, including an MFA Creative Writing candidate Trevor Bashaw who had written a poem dedicated to the Eggheads, I tried to write some down while I sketched. I was sketching in the fountain pen that I had used while sketching people talking in Riverside; for some reason it wasn’t quite coming out so easily, perhaps it was because I was standing (I hold my book in a funny way when I stand) as opposed to sitting at a desk, usually I would use a different type of pen for this sort of thing. Still it was fun enough and I still love that brown ink. The food at the the event was quite nice, I had a nice bowl of ice cream and a glass of wine. I did speak to a few people, some I knew, and the folks who invited me gave me a nice bag of Egghead related goodies. I also bought some big stickers at the little pop-up Egghead shop.

Above is “Bookhead“, I think the earliest installed Egghead, which is located outside of Shields Library. It’s a slightly different colour, being ever so slightly blue around the edges, and the tradition is that students rub or kiss Bookhead for good luck when taking their exams. I haven’t looked at those particular statistics but I am going to guess it has made marginally less difference than actually going into the library to study. This is a fun one though. I think if Arneson had lived he may well have created a new Egghead just staring at a phone.

This one is another fan favourite Egghead, an upside down laughing face with an ominous eye on the back, staring upwards at Mrak Hall. It’s called “Eye on Mrak/Fatal Laff“, an older sketch I did of it recently appeared in Sactown Magazine. In fact I think I even did a sketch of this back in 2005 on that very first sketchcrawl.

Here’s the last sketch from the event at the Manetti Shrem. There was an interesting video being played on loop so I sketched people watching it and mingling. There were media people there and a photographer going round. I was not feeling too well due to those seasonal allergies so I was starting to flag a little, but I had a look around the Deborah Butterfield exhibit “PS These Are Not Horses” which was pretty amazing. I had planned to walk over to the public events celebrating the Eggheads over at shields Library and the MU, which would culminate in the ‘Lighting of the Eggheads’, but my tiredness totally beat me and so I just went home to bed. It was a fun event though and I’m glad I went. You can see the video they played on UC Davis YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/aPmQf-oqnFU?si=UYA2uudwhmbDmzWT. It’s really interesting, and you’ll probably recognize some of the places from my sketches.

The last ones I did were a couple of days ago, on the other side of Mrak Hall outside King Hall. They are two Eggheads called “See No Evil/Hear No Evil“. I do remember they were in a slightly different spot when I first came, outside King Hall, but they were moved into the current spot when King Hall’s new wing was built. I drew all that from the Arboretum years ago, I’ve been here for ages. Anyway, I wanted to draw a few angles of this, so I stood behind one and drew looking out at the other (above), before sitting down right in front of it to capture its bizarre expression. I liked that one, but the sun was shining down on me, and suddenly a big group of schoolkids on an outing arrived and started rolling down the little hillocks the Eggheads are located on, so I got up and went over to the shade, where I grabbed a quick pic of the other Egghead before going back to the office (I actually added the paint while I was in a Zoom presentation, while also taking notes about summer courses). It’s fun drawing small quick sketches.

And so these are Arneson’s Eggheads, happy thirty (or so) years. You can find a tour of the Eggheads at https://www.ucdavis.edu/campus-life/arts-culture/eggheads-tour, and read “The lasting legacy of Arneson’s Eggheads” to find out more about them and about Arneson. Big characters on our campus these, and look! I managed to get through a whole blog post without making a single egg-based pun.

another march on campus

April 23, 2024Leave a comment

Here are some sketches drawn around campus last month, all different media, I suppose. Above, that’s the UC Davis water tower as seen from the Arboretum, very close to my office. I drew in brown fountain pen, and there was this little cat on the path. I like this sort of sketch. The redbuds were really glowing then too. I’ve been on this campus eighteen years now, I sometimes look back and think, funny how that happened. That building next to the water tower, the Earth and Physical Sciences Building, wasn’t even there when I first arrived, in fact I was there at the ceremony where they laid the foundation stone, my old manager insisted I come over to witness that. I’m glad I did, but I always regret not sketching the building that was there before, which was knocked down. I do remember sketching the empty space, back in 07 or 08.

There was this one day last month when one of my coworkers announced that there would be llamas on campus, over at the Quad, that people could go and have a look at. This caused great excitement, as it had been a very busy 2024 so far, and everyone needs more llama, less drama. So we all walked over there. I had my llama jokes ready. It was lunchtime so I thought, alpaca lunch. As we got there, it turned out there were no llamas to be found. I guess they hadn’t set their a-llama clock. Disappointed but not despondent, I decided to draw this interesting old tree, and sketched it in pencil before adding some watercolour. I sometimes wish all my sketching looked like this, it felt very free.

This one above was sketched in the UC Davis Silo, on another boring lunchtime. I haven’t drawn the interior of this building from this level for a number of years. I used to come up here all the time, years ago, it feels like something from another time, but it isn’t, it’s just a different end of the same time. I think I would wonder in those days how long we would be in Davis, where we might go next, but we stayed, and I took it upon myself to draw all the changes here over a long period. While it’s not my actual job, it’s kind of become my other job, and I don’t mind that at all.

And finally, a panorama that will remain unfinished. I was cycling across campus one lunchtime when I was hit with the thought of drawing the Chemistry Building, not the side that’s all being built (and which I have drawn a number of times), because the shapes the shadows were making as they hit the inset windows was really quite dramatic, you would have loved it. In the end I said sod it, too much detail, and focused on sketching that wicked blue and cloudy sky, which was pretty spectacular in itself, leaving the Chemistry Building to be nothing more than a big outline left to the imagination. Behind it though is another building called ‘PSEL’, the ‘Physical Science and Engineering Library’, which is not in fact a library any more but has been recently redeveloped to house space for several units, including my own program (in fact I’m on the building committee that manages it); it will see a name change at some point, though I can’t say for sure what that will be. There’s still work being done, and I have drawn the building before, but I’ll do a more proper sketch of it at some point, but I made sure it got into this sketch.

to rest my eyes in shades of green

March 20, 2024March 20, 2024Leave a comment

I sketched this in my small Fabriano sketchbook, I really like using that one, especially with pencil. I have a larger one I might start using at some point. This is that bridge in the Arboretum that I’ve drawn a few times before, but not for a few years. I was heading downtown at lunchtime and it was a day of intermittent sunshine and clouds, just as I like it, but I wanted to stop and draw. I can’t get enough drawing done can I. I like this sort of sketch as I am just working quickly and scribbling, which makes it fun. March came in after a long long February and is already sweeping by fast, It will be April before we know it. And then another Summer, and another Fall, and another year over, until everything stops working. Look at the world while you can. I am still getting used to these new progressive glasses I got, which for the first week or two made me feel super dizzy, but that’s worn off a bit now. The ground is still a bit blurry but I am noticing that less, I suppose. My sketchbook looks clearer when looking down at it in poor light, such as indoors, while giving me a clearer far sight view. But it’s strange, and makes me feel tired. Everything makes me feel a bit more tired nowadays. I hoped that I’d be running a lot more, but I’ve found it hard to motivate myself there. I’ve been sketching a lot. I’ve been creating a lot of snippets of music, a few chords and a tune taped into the Music Memos app on my phone, the app my now-old phone keeps telling me will go away and I should transfer over to Voice Memos, but I like to keep my guitar chords separate from my random voice notes, plus in Music Memos it can generate a bass line or a drum beat behind it. I have a lot of tunes in my head now though, floating around waiting for me to finish them off, but I prefer a sketchbook of unfinished music than an actual thing. It’s not technically good, in any way, I’m not doing like big complicated riffs, more just a few feelings set inside a few chord changes. It’s how I used to do things when I had my little tape recorder, just recording whatever came out, sometimes it might be interesting, a lot of time just random nothing, and all for my ears only.