why the panoramic face?

June 1, 20165 Comments

Long weekend here in America, which meant longer drawings. Ok, a horse with an injured tail walks into a bar. “Why the long weekend?” asks the barman. No, no it was a bank, he walks into a bank on a holiday. “Why the long weekend?” asks the bank clerk. Maybe not an injured tail, maybe his tail was all overgrown rendering it useless for whatever tails usually are for, hence not being as strong as his front end, for example. So a horse with a less strong, very hairy tail walks into a bank, while on holiday, and the bank clerk says to him, he goes “why the long weekend?” Maybe there’s nothing wrong with his tail at all, maybe he had just been in a race, and had originally been one of the front-runners (that’s a horse racing term) but towards the end he had started to tail off (that’s another one), finally just ambling over the line, not even trotting, just going really slowly, like he had no energy, maybe he was already thinking of his holidays on the beach, before finally he walked into a bar, I mean a bank, and the bank clerk who had been watching the race on the TV, he asks him “why the long, weak end?”. Or maybe, maybe the horse is Bryan Singer and the race is X-Men Apocalypse and I am the bank clerk and maybe I asked exactly that question after seeing that very movie, which I in fact did, not long after finishing this drawing that you see here. (You see I was going somewhere with all of that, I wasn’t just ambling on, or trotting). This is Second Street (though in my opinion, it’s first), Davis. I sat on the corner of F Street (which in my opinion is more of a B+) and drew this familiar scene. In the middle there, the Varsity Theatre, historic centre of the Davis downtown, right opposite the Avid Reader bookstore. I sat drawing for a couple of hours, drawing furiosuly with my uni-ball signo UM-151 brown-black pen, and doing some of the water color on site and the rest at home; pizza dinner awaited me. And then, X-Men. While it was not a bad film (it was not quite Batman v Superman level of “what-the”, there was no “Clark Kent gets into the bath with his shoes on” moment), and it had some good moments and good call-backs to the previous films, it really suffered in its storytelling. I know that sounds ironic given that I spent five minutes trying to tell a joke about a horse at the start of this post but my budget is a little lower. I just felt the narrative started to fall apart somewhere around the middle of the film. It doesn’t stand up to the other X-films. A few good bits – well X-Men The Last Stand had good bits too but overall gets a terrible rap (deservedly if we’re honest). Even “X-Men Origins – Wolverine” was a good idea, though Logan’s (spoiler alert) cameo in this is (spoiler spoiler spoiler) totally unnecessary, inconsequential and utterly shoehorned into the film (you might say it spoiled the movie). Still, Magneto saying “Who the fuck are you?” to Apocalypse was fun. Everyone knows I love Magneto. As I say though, the ending of the film was long and weak, and since it could be said (not by me, but I’m about to say it so I suppose it is by me) that Fox is flogging a dead horse, then that brings us nicely back to “Why did the chicken cross the road? To stop the rights going back to Marvel.”

Hope you had a nice Memorial Day weekend.

varsity, again

May 16, 20157 Comments

At the end of last month was the 10th annual Davis Feminist Film Festival. Unfortunately I was away in Los Angeles so I missed it, but I donated a sketch for their silent auction, and this is it. This is the Varsity Theatre, as you probably know, I have sketched it before once or twice. I sketched it one lunchtime and was so pleased that red Mini was parked in front. I have no idea if it sold (the auction was silent!) but it was fun to sketch. Of course, the festival didn’t take place here at the Varsity, but at the Veteran’s Memorial Theatre, so the sketch was thematically apt but geographically wide of the mark…

Davis Feminist Film Festival: http://femfilmfest.ucdavis.edu/

you know that i gotta say time’s slippin’ away

March 26, 2013Leave a comment

Another view of the Varsity, but this time from the side. It’s a bigger one than usual at 8″x10″ (on Canson illustration board – lovely for the pen, bit too smooth for a nice wash) sketched while sat on one of the benches outside. I’ve not drawn from this angle before, and yeah it was a fun angle, but I also realized that the bit of the Varsity that I like drawing the least – the underside of the roof – takes up most of the drawing. I’ve always hated that bit, with it’s peculiar angles, uneven shading and lights I can never quite line up. You don’t want these buildings to be easy now do you. Oh Varsity, I’ve been sketching you for years now, I feel like I am doomed to draw you forever, but you’re a great building, and in many ways I’ve only started. I did take a pretty long time drawing this though, longer than I’d have liked (funny how bigger drawings take longer). Hard to tire of this iconic structure. All it needs though is a holographic shark to come out and try to swallow me up.

the varsity, but bigger

August 22, 20121 Comment

Hey remember a couple of weeks ago I went and drew a panorama in my Moleskine of that stretch of 2nd St with the Varsity Theatre? I intended to redraw it larger, in colour, and submit it to the Pence Gallery for their annual Art Auction next month. I got cracking on it this weekend past, and learned an important but obvious lesson – larger drawings take longer to do. But it means you get to spend more time enjoying it!

Which meant a couple of late nights, but I couldn’t sleep anyway. I drew on a large sheet of thick Strathmore watercolour paper, whose inherently rougher feel than my watercolour Moleskine made my micron pens cry a little bit, but the uniball signo dx um-151 super-accurate-fineliner-pen and the trusty laugh-in-the-face-of-watercolour-paper uniball vision micro came to the rescue (yes there should be a superhero comic about pens, and I might write it) when the microns were starting to feel the strain, like relief pitchers. I took photos for a step-by-step, in case you absolutely have to know whether I drew left to right or right to left or middle to out (it’s that one, though I painted it in reverse order).

And here is the final thing, framed and ready to go. Larger than I usually draw, at roughly 10″ x 20″. I hope it sells!

in the middle of our street

August 7, 20125 Comments

On Sunday I had to get out to draw. I cycled downtown and stood on a bench (yes, stood, so I could see over the large vehicle in the way) on 2nd Street and drew a famiiar scene, but this time as a double-page spread in that lovely brown pen I have. I do like drawing these panoramas. This took about two hours, maybe less, stood in the shade on that bench. The funny thing about standing so high is that people don’t look over your shoulder quite so much. One other thing about sketching these panoramas is you have to scan them in two sections, stitch them together, and then they are so hard to post. If you want to see a bigger version, click on the image above. Below, you can see how big it is in real life. And the thing is, I intend to redraw this as a bigger and more colourful drawing.

Here is a close up of the middle section, for those who can read the tiny writing and are interested in the movie times…

look around, round, round

April 29, 2012April 30, 20122 Comments

(Click image to see larger size)
Here is something I drew a while ago (Martin Luther King Jr Day, in January, hence the flags), in my panoramic accordion sketchbook, but did not scan and stitch together until now. I sat out there for a couple of hours, followed by another hour or so on a day later that week, and just sketched and turned and curved as best I could. It’s a good exercise, but tricky all the same. It looks even more different now it’s on a computer screen. The plan is to fill the whole book with similar scenes from Davis as the seasons change. Other seasons may be more colourful, but this represented sunny winter. There is a detail below. All drawn on an accordion sketchbook from Cass Arts in London in uniball vision micro pen.

varsity blues

September 2, 20111 Comment

The Varsity Theatre in Davis, drawn last Friday evening after work. I had considered finishing this at home with some additional colour, but I got back and realised I quite like it like this. This place shows a lot of art-house and independent movies, though I’ve only been to see a film there the once (An Inconvenient Truth back in 2006). In fact it only reopened back in 2006 (I was working at the bookstore acros the street the day it opened), but the building dates back to 1950. It makes this place feel very ‘Hill Valley’; I fully expect that it will be showing Jaws 19 with a holographic shark some time in the next four years (but only if Jaws 19 is considered art-house, which is unlikely. More likely we’ll see a Jaws reboot before then – you heard it here first!). People always have great memories of cinemas. For me they are like Tardises, you step inside and suddenly space and time mean nothing, I can never fathom how so many big screens fit into what look like fairly smallish buildings. They are full of memories too; sweeping movie moments, first (or last) dates, that smell of popcorn. This place is no different, is a beloved Davis part of the Davis community. I should know, I’ve drawn it enough times.

boo to the business world

April 27, 2011April 27, 2011Leave a comment

In case you didn’t know, I occasionally sell some drawings on my Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/petescully. I’ve actually had the store for a while but not really added much to it, but lately I’ve been adding some more and plan to add more original drawings (and prints) in the coming weeks. If you’re interested, please visit my Etsy shop…

Above: the Varsity theatre on 2nd St, Davis; see the Etsy listing here. It’s a nice view of the old theatre before they put the new Mishka’s cafe next door. That would look nice in a frame on your wall; something to remember Davis by.

So anyway… I would really like to go to the Lisbon Urban Sketching Symposium this year, and so I’m planning to raise the money by selling some drawings. I’m also open to commissions; I don’t really draw people, but if you’d like a nice drawing of your house or shop, or of somewhere particular in Davis or London or anywhere else, let me know! Etsy even has a ‘request custom item’ feature.

Cheers!

movies, comics and frilly underwear

January 24, 20112 Comments

Worldwide Sketchcrawl 30, Davis Caliornia, continued… after lunch, I was eager to get back outside and do some sketching in the glorious sunshine. And I did, too – I sat right in the sun, almost getting burnt. Forgot my hat; colars went up, and sketched quickly. January in Davis, lads, gotta love it. I sketched the Varsity theatre on 2nd St, yet again. Against a blue sky, it’s impossible to resist.

I then sketched the window display of Luxury OutHouse on F St, which sounds like a showroom for RVs or garden sheds, but actually sells fancy bathroom soap and dressing gowns and stuff, and interesting looking lingerie. I had to sketch it.

And my last sketch of the day, Bizarro Comics on E Street (because lingerie and comic shops seem to go together, for some reason). As I crossed the road after sketching this, an SUV with cowboy-hatted driver almost ran me over, though I was on the crosswalk already – he wasn’t looking ahead, and didn’t see the crosswalk. I raised my eyebrows at him as he passed without stopping, and he shouted ‘asshole how am i supposed to see you?’
‘If you were looking where you were going, you would have,’ I replied, but he was already driving off making unnecessary hand gestures at me.
At which point I used my super lazer eyes to shrink his car to mouse size, and my mutant powers over magnetism to force lift him into a tree full of crows. That might make a good comic…

Photos from the sketchcrawl to come!

when she walks by she brightens up the neighbourhood

October 1, 2010October 1, 20103 Comments

Spread 2 of my Davis Moleskine project: the classic feeling Varsity Theatre on 2nd Street, an oft-sketched building as you know. I sat outside Outdoor Davis on a Saturday afternoon, people stopped to chat as I drew, new students were everywhere spending time with their families before classes begin, there was the air of ‘new’ about the city as the 10-11 year kicked in. For me, just another afternoon of drawing while my son napped. We had been down to this spot just that morning because there is a cool little toystore on 2nd street called Alphabet Moon. This street is changing even since this was drawn though – on the right of the theatre, where you can see just trees, there used to be the old Pump House, but it was moved (I drew it a little while back) to make way for the new relocated Mishka’s Coffee. I passed by yesterday and building is well underway.

This building though is the star of downtown Davis. An old movie theatre, especially one that is actually in use, brightens up the area, gives real life to small-town America. At least, it’s what I always imagined when thinking of small-town America. That and a clock-house, and a corner diner, and hover-boards.