Zion National Park (part 1)

May 1, 2024May 1, 20241 Comment

For Spring Break this year we took another trip to southern Utah, to visit some of the beautiful national parks down there. In 2021 we had been to Arches and Canyonlands, staying in Moab after a very long drive from northern California; this time we flew into Vegas and drove to Utah from there, across the desert, passing through a little triangle of Arizona. We were headed for Zion, one of the most famous national parks in America. We stayed in Springdale, a long narrow town that hugs the Virgin River, and our hotel was footsteps away from the park entrance. We are racking up the national parks now, over the past few years. Our room was nice, with a view of red-rocked mountains right from our bed. Zion is one of the most popular parks, and the crowds can get a bit heavy. There is a shuttle bus from the park entrance to get to most of the trailheads in the long canyon, and the lines for this can honestly last 2-3 hours if you get there at the busy time. We went down early, not too early but it was about 8:30am, and there weren’t many people there yet. We got on the first bus, although it’s fair to say the bus was still full, mostly with hikers wearing full waterproof overalls and carrying long thick sticks of wood. They would hiking The Narrows, a well known trail through a series of narrow slot canyons down which you must wade in the cold waters of the river. Usually that might be up to your ankles or your knees; at this time of year it’s more like up to your chest. We weren’t doing that this time, although seeing everyone getting ready for it, I was kind of feeling a little like actually I wouldn’t mind doing that. Then I had a vision of tripping on a rock and going under, and I kept thinking of that one “Charley Says” where the cat falls into the canal and it all gets very sinister. “Charley says, never go into the Narrows when it’s really deep ‘cos you might sick from Toxic Cyanobacteria Bloom.” You might have to be British and from a certain time period to understand Charley Says. Anyway, the Narrows can wait for another time. We got off the bus right at the end to stop #9, at what’s called the ‘Temple of Sinawava’. I drew this sketch above from right there where you pick up the bus. We walked along the Riverside Trail, which leads down to the Narrows, and it was through a deep and pretty gorge, a fairly easy hike.

The whole thing reminded me of the big valley where you have to spend a lot of time hunting machines and fighting bandits in the brilliant game Horizon – Forbidden West. It turns out, that whole area (known in Horizon as ‘The Daunt’ is basically Zion in the far future, so as I explored the park for the first time ever, I felt like I knew it really well, it was all so familiar. We got the bus down to stop #6, The Grotto. We hiked up the Kayenta Trail up to the Emerald Pools; the Middle Emerald Pool wasn’t all that, but it was a steep climb up to the Upper Emerald Pool was worth it. It wasn’t really Emerald exactly, more brown, as I think every single person up there pointed out, like it was the most original comment in the world. Having started out quite chilly in the morning, it was turning into a pretty warm day, with blue skies and sweaty legs. I stopped at the top and sat by the pool, which had a waterfall coming into it from a sheer cliff face, and I sketched this large almost cubic rock that was wedged into the waters. I then made my way back down, and rejoined my family to look around the dramatic sweep of Lower Emerald Pool. I definitely recognized this from Horizon. We ate our packed lunch and I did a quick sketch of the rocks above it (see below). We eschewed the busier trail on the way down (“eschewed”? I don’t talk like that) and walked down a less populous route, peace and quiet, towards the bridge. Of course, the bridge was closed, and it was a good couple of miles before there was another crossing. I mean look, in the video game I could just hop across the water and not even get wet. Life isn’t a video game. In video games, you spend most of the day looking at a screen and pressing buttons, while in real life…more drink! (with cheers to Father Ted there) We walked a long way, being passed at one point by a big group of people on horseback being led by a real-life cowboy with spurs on his boots. I wish I had some spurs, I don’t know what I’d need them for though. I’d wear them on the bus to Wembley just to get a cheap Instagram laugh. We did rest after while, and I did another sketch, see below. I drew this with the brown fountain pen, which was really nice for drawing Zion. I also stamped it later that day at the Visitor’s Center, which for some reason had the wrong date on it. We walked further until we crossed a meadow of long grass and tree branches, and saw a big deer hiding. After going through all the deer puns I could think of, which was surprisingly not many, we managed to find a bridge to cross and caught the bus back to the hotel, where we got straight into bed for an afternoon lie-down. Within minutes of hitting the pillow and daydreaming about maybe hiking the Narrows the next day, a massive rainstorm came into the valley and washed all those silly ideas away. It was nice to be inside and in bed, I can tell you.

More to come!

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.

a beer at the shoppe

April 27, 2024April 26, 2024Leave a comment

After that last sketchcrawl, it was raining on and off a lot. My legs were in need of more rest after that 7k run, so I popped into the Davis Beer Shoppe for a nice beer and a sketch, while outside the day flitted between heavy rain and spots of sunshine. We were off to Utah next morning, I was already packed so not really in a hurry. The Beer Shoppe was fairly busy, and on the TV screen they were watching the end of Life of Brian, a film I know word for word pretty much. I found myself mouthing along to it all, “…Swedish separate from Welsh…” “…I’m Brian and so’s my wife…” “…you silly sods…”, it’s been a while since I last saw it but I did watch that film a lot when I was a teenager, that and Holy Grail. I settled into a beer and just started sketching the scene, because I can’t stop drawing for a minute can I. I last sketched inside this bar about ten years ago, a similar view, some of the details on the wall have changed but otherwise it’s not really different. After the film was over some people started playing video games on the big screen, Mario Kart 8 I believe, looked like a fun way to spend the afternoon. The couple nearby me were playing chess. Got me thinking, chess, Mario Kart, Life of Brian, beers… sounds like a typical night with my older brother. If there was a game of pool and a Spurs game on, that would be it.

Here’s that one from before, it was actually August 2013, a long old time ago now. I remember coming in here once and saw that they had it as the screensaver on their computer screen, which was funny. I don’t come in here very often to actually sit and have a beer, I usually only come in to buy from the shop, they have a really good selection of beers. I’ve become a bit unconvinced about beers lately, so many of them just taste very samey, or are getting too silly and gimmicky chasing the craft beer craze with new names and labels every season, it is a bit like the football shirt fashion trends in a way (though I still keep buying those football shirts). I am still sad that Anchor Steam is gone. Still it is nice to come to a local bar that has a good atmosphere and have a two or three pints while it’s raining outside. Shame they didn’t have any of the Holy Grail Ale, that’s a Python-themed beer I used to really like.

sketching a rainy day in davis

April 26, 2024Leave a comment

Last month we held another Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl in downtown Davis, this time on 2nd Street. It was a really rainy day too, but we had a good turnout of sketchers not minding that. I sat beneath the shelter of the Varsity Theatre and sketched the Avid Reader bookstore, a local favourite spot (and where I worked a long long time ago). the rain was really hard, absolutely bucketing down. That was a busy day for me; I had woken up early and taken part in the annual Lucky Run, and this time I ran the 7k distance for the first time ever. Usually I run the 5k, but I wanted a bit more of a challenge. I’ve not been running as much and am definitely heavier, but I smashed that 7k and want to run more. I am aiming to go for the 10k by the Fall, so I had better get back to training, cut back on those milkshakes. Next week, maybe.

I went into Mishka’s Cafe to do a last sketch, and several of the other sketchers were there. I sketched the scene in my brown fountain pen, and had a big fruity smoothie (which took several straws to drink, because their plastic straws are a bit too weak to be used in their smoothies, I must remember to bring my reusable metal straw next time). Then we all got together afterwards to look at each others’ sketchbooks, there were some great styles on display.

I recently posted the next Let’s Draw Davis event which will be on Saturday May the 4th, so I made a Star Wars style logo for this one. Check out details at the Let’s Draw Davis FB page.

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.

two of the usual

April 20, 2024April 20, 2024Leave a comment

After getting back from southern California, a couple of downtown Davis sketches, familiar looking, white houses with a bit of triangle, a tree casting a shadow, the standard Pete sketch. This is my beans on toast. The top one is on D Street, and the bottom one is on that stretch of 3rd opposite Newsbeat, and has popped up a few times over the years. This is already a month ago, the bigger trees are already a lot leafier. Here we are now in Spring. 2024 has been a bit of a slog already, but I have drawn a lot.

Downtown Riverside

April 19, 2024April 19, 2024Leave a comment

And here then are the last few of my sketches from Riverside, southern California. I did consider joining the trip to visit the UC Riverside campus, so that I could add another UC campus to my sketchbook list, but then I thought, nah sod it. I’m sure it’s lovely, with its big concrete block clocktower from a 1960s British town hall in the East Midlands somewhere. I however was surrounded by lots of actually beautiful sketchable buildings surrounding the Mission Inn, even though it was in an apparent Diet-Pepsi desert. The sketch above though was of the dome at the rear end of the Mission Inn, from a relatively quiet street called Main Street, drawn on my lunchtime on day two of the conference. The previously blue sky had become a little cloudier. I was not that interested in my conference lunch, it was a little bit bland and tasted of nothing. Downstairs there was another conference going on for employees of a local fast food chain called ‘Farmer Boys’ (when I saw the sign I at first thought it said ‘Former Boys’) and their food sounded really good (something a lot of us say when we haven’t actually seen a menu, judging it by its logo alone, which is totally fair enough) (example, ‘Happy Eater’, a former roadside restaurant in the UK whose logo was a boy putting his finger down his throat, and the French chain ‘Flunch’, which sounds like the sound you make when throwing up your main course), but I didn’t think I could get away with sneaking in there to try it out. I wasn’t up for any bland conversation that tasted of nothing (“what campus are you from, oh right, Santa Barbara, what campus are you from, oh right, Berkeley” etc; let’s face it, I’m not much of a conversationalist) so I excused myself and made it look like I had to rush to a meeting, which I did, a meeting with my sketchbook.

It was the second time I’d drawn that dome, as I had also skipped out the day before toward the end of lunch to draw a quick one on the corner of Main and whatever street, 6th I think. The sun was shining bright and I drew from what little shade I could fund but I didn’t have much, so I drew fast and ran back to my next workshop. My lunch hadn’t been very interesting, and conversation a little awkward, and there was only so much of that iced water with a little bit of lemon in it that I could drink. The dome reminded me of Balboa Park in San Diego, where I’d sketched back in, I don’t even remember, 2009? I hope I’m better at drawing domes now. These Mission-style buildings and their ornate details can be a little hard. Actually the Mission Inn is a blend of many different architectural styles, and had a number of architects.

This building was a little bit easier and had a couple of small domes. I was not sure what the building was, and then a random man passing by asked me, “hey what’s that church?” and I said, “I was hoping you’d tell me”, but I wasn’t hoping that. It was after I started sketching this that I decided a visit to UC Riverside was not going to make my life complete. The sun was hitting it in a way to give it a golden feel, and when I’ve got light like that, I ain’t going anywhere. You can see the lamp-post thing in the shape of that really old bell from the Mission Inn, you see that all over the area. This building is actually Riverside Municipal Auditorium (not everything’s a church you know), and I was told by a person we will meet in the next paragraph that it was built as a memorial to local soldiers who were killed in World War One.

The building above was just across the street and most definitely a church. The amazing bell tower really stands out in the neighbourhood, although it sits among many interesting looking buildings and churches. It’s the ‘First Congregational Church Riverside’ and is pretty historic, according to the fellow that spoke to me outside it. He saw me taking a photo of the tower and told me that it was the oldest, er, oh man I forgot. You see this is why I have to write everything down, because I will forget otherwise. Ok, I think he said, this was the oldest Spanish-colonial-revival church in California and was built in 1913, though the church dates from 1872. “Ah, so not very old then,” I said. I think he understood that I was from Britain, so that made sense without having to explain, and it turned out that he had been to Britain many times. Anyway he told me some more of the history, which I have unfortunately forgotten, so you’ll just have to look it up online. The tower is ‘churrigueresque’, which means ultra-baroque and is obviously a word I found on Wikipedia. My wife told me that she thinks her grandma used to go to that church; my wife was born in Riverside but left as a baby. I definitely wanted to draw this, but had to get the right angle (and right amount of shade). It was warm, and I was thirsty, and water just wasn’t going to cut it, I wanted a nice cold Diet Pepsi, but as we have established I appeared to be in a Diet Pepsi desert with no convenience stores and honestly after quite a lot of looking it was feeling a bit strange. Then I remembered – there was a Farmer Boys restaurant a couple of blocks away, that I’d walked past when I arrived into town. I was hungry (having had a bland taste of nothing for lunch) and still pissed off from the “he used to be a redhead but isn’t now” comments made by total strangers pretending to be administrative management professionals, so that sounded perfect. So I got there and ordered what sounded like a really tasty fried chicken burger and a big Diet Pepsi, and they said well you can have the Diet Pepsi, but unfortunately because our machine isn’t working you can’t have any chicken. Sorry, your ‘machine isn’t working’? Is it a machine that makes chicken? Right well, that has put me off food for a while, Farmer Boys. So I just got an unnecessarily massive soda and went out to sketch the building above, stood next to a bus stop where a random local man was harassing or just talking to another random man; moments earlier the same random man had said something to me from behind which I hadn’t heard, and then followed it up with a louder “hey! I was saying hello to you!” in one of those aggressive ways random people like to talk to you. So I said, “Hello!” brightly, and I think he realized I was not very good at conversation and moved on to randomly talk to someone else.

And of course we cannot leave a new place without sketching its fire hydrants. These two were within a short walking distance from the Mission Inn (that is, a short walking distance for me, but a very difficult walking distance for the fire hydrants). Fairly typical specimens for Southern California. And that was it, those are all my Riverside sketches, not bad for a brief couple of days. There were other places I wish I had sketched – the Fox Theater looked interesting, but what I didn’t know was that was the first place in the world that showed the movie ‘Gone With the Wind’, which I’ve never actually watched much of; Tico’s Tacos, an amazing taqueria with all sorts of weird and wonderful sculptures and artworks all over the place, a literal urban sketchers dream yet I didn’t go there; and the UC Path Center which is in a boring concrete building in an industrial estate, but since UC Path (a new payroll system) has given us so much grief since our campus adopted it I think it only fair I go and sketch the place, or not. I don’t know I’ll ever be back so I think I made the most of my trip to Riverside, and then I flew back home from Ontario airport (which is confusingly not in Canada). I was now into my 50th landscape sketchbook, that is my 25th landscape watercolor Moleskine.

UC AMP 2024

April 18, 2024Leave a comment

I recently attended the UC-AMP conference in Riverside, a meeting for administrative management professionals in the University of California. I had been to the same conference last year in Berkeley, and for my own professional development it was an eye opener, and I came away with lots of new ideas and energy for my day to day job. It was around the same time as the Urban Sketching Symposium in New Zealand which I was missing (because it was in New Zealand), so I was feeling extra itch to sketch everything, but I have that anyway. In the end, I actually won the conference’s picture contest for a drawing I did on the Berkeley campus, so I won free registration for this year’s conference in Riverside. I’d never been to Riverside (my wife was born there, but based on her description it was never high on my must-visit list, which is a very long list), but the conference hotel was the Mission Inn, which I had always wanted to visit, and when I looked at it online it shot right up that list. See my previous post for the sketches. The opening reception for the conference was held in this courtyard and hall next to the big chapel there, a beautiful setting, though because I had not arrived right when it started the food was already gone, so I had some ice cream and a glass of wine. People were mingling about; I am not and never have been an ‘enter the room and start making friends’ type of person, I’m more of an ‘enter the room and start hiding’ person. Our name tags revealed our campuses, and when I heard someone from Davis going up to people from Davis and loudly squealing something like “OMG! DAVIS!” to gather them together I made more of an effort to be a bit more invisible. I didn’t see anybody I knew, though there were faces I think I recognized from last year. I really wanted to sketch the courtyard, it was beautiful, but I knew all I’d manage was a quick sketch, so I did the pencil sketch above in my little Fabriano book. The sun was setting, and my tummy was rumbling so I went and found the restaurant for dinner.

Naturally I could not help but sketch at the conference. Most of the reason is that I like to take notes at these things, since I’m here to learn ideas, but it becomes a fun kind of documentation. I used to fret about these things, because you can’t write everything down (boy do I try sometimes, I’m an avid note taker at meetings, it’s how I remember), and you want to be sure that you catch the important bits that at least illustrate the gist of their talk, but I’m better at listening out for those things now. I was drawing mostly with my Lamy fountain pen with the brown De Atramentis ink.

The talks were pretty good, although I didn’t come away from day one with a great deal of enthusiasm or particularly new ideas, unlike the previous year. It was more generic work conference stuff in many ways, and even the breakout I attended didn’t really get me going. Partly though that was because it was using a TV show that I’ve never seen as reference, Gilligan’s Island, though I understood the gist of what was presented I didn’t necessarily agree with the categorizations. Also, I came away not feeling particularly happy, because after dividing us into groups based on characters from the show, I ended up being in a group based on someone called ‘Ginger’, and the presenter made some comment that there were no redheads in our group, to which I said that I respectfully disagreed. While he acknowledged, oh right, other members of my group, people I did not know, decided to take it upon themselves to say I wasn’t, or that “no, he used to be!” and event “he said he used to be redhead but isn’t now”, which I did not say, but now a loudmouthed person has declared to the group that I had. “What? I didn’t say that.” I said, before another woman in our group said “No you used to be, but the stress of working for the UC changed that”. I mean, how fucking rude? This was in front of people. I was ready to argue, but that wouldn’t have been very administrative management professional of me would it, but I was not happy. My hair, which I keep really short anyway (shaved to #1 on the sides), is much lighter than it used to be even a few years ago, but I’m not all faded yet, and still obviously a redhead, just not the idea that someone else has we should look (which is basically how I looked at 11), but either way, that having been an important aspect of my self for my whole life, especially growing up when it is simply put the main aspect and all anyone ever comments on (and I get the idea that’s definitely more true for growing up in Britain than over here), and it’s not just another hair colour, there’s a very real skin identity in there (cf, my own higher risk of skin cancer). It’s not something I particularly wanted a debate on, but frankly I felt that for a group of people who have been patting themselves on the back during this conference on how great they are with people, it was a bit shitty to then make comments about someone’s hair colour in front of a large excited group. It reminded me of Edgware School, but instead of a gobby rabble making the class laugh at the fact I have ginger hair*, now a more grown-up and professionally dressed group of no less gobby people were doing the same in reverse. (*I actually actively avoided the word ‘ginger’ in my life because it had always been used to insult me, until I found the David Devant song ‘Ginger’ which was all about us and very much on our side). Anyway, after that I wasn’t feeling particularly in a mind to socialize so I ditched the afternoon and evening social activities and went and did some really good drawing instead. I enjoyed the second day’s talks quite a bit though, in fact the first presenter Steve Yu gave a talk about body language and public speaking that I definitely took things away from, plus a few interesting phrases. “How you do anything is how you do everything” was a good one. I don’t know what it was, but I came away from it with a “yes, I can do that” feeling. I went to one other talk about Influencing which was really interesting, by Crystal Petrini, though I ended up just writing down all the points but it did make me think about my own place on our campus and how I navigate the various relationships to try to get things done; not easy, often quite a challenge.

There were other talks I didn’t have time to attend, and the big group parts where they presented during lunch about the conference organizing committee and other stuff, plus a huge presentation on Oracle which I only caught the last fifteen minutes of, but by this point I was done and had to fly back home. They told me the 2025 one will be at the Hyatt Embarcadero in San Francisco, a place I’ve stayed at a few times, so I might go to that one. I have some more Riverside sketches to show you in the next post.

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.

a plate full of pancakes at the original pantry

April 10, 2024April 10, 2024Leave a comment

I had a lie in on the Sunday; well I woke up very early (even after the time change) to watch Spurs v Villa through the corner of my eye, but I fell back asleep when it looked like it wasn’t going anywhere (actually we ended up winning 4-0, best performance of the season). I needed the kip anyway, and was still feeling a little full from the pre-bedtime burrito I bought at the food truck across from the hotel. So it was pushing lunchtime when I finally went out into the world. I thought I might do some drawing around downtown LA before heading to Riverside, but my main goal was to eat at The Original Pantry. I first saw this place way back in 2010 when I sketched it but didn’t eat there; I came back in 2017 with my mate from England, but the line was so long we decided to go to Denny’s (and waited even longer just for our food), so I’ve wanted to come back for ages. The Original Pantry opened its doors a hundred years ago in 1924 and boasts to have never closed its doors since its open 24 hours a day (I don’t know about during the pandemic). It’s a proper classic little diner with excellent food and beloved by locals. I absolutely didn’t mind waiting in line because I knew I’d be hungrier by the time I got in, and I could sketch the line while I was out there. Their website does say they want peoples’ stories from being in line. So I stood and whipped out my little Fabriano sketchbook to draw my wait (see below). However, I hadn’t been there for more than about three minutes, when one of the staff came out to check the size of each party going in. Since I was by myself, they already had a seat at the counter for me so I was led past the long line, some of whom were saying “oh man you’re lucky!” to me (I resisted the urge to say “see ya later suckers!” but I did feel excited at being called in to eat). My seat at the counter was close to the very hot cookers, but there were other locals eating there and reading their papers, it felt pretty awesome. I didn’t fancy a big lunch, but I ordered a plate of their famous pancakes, and wow that was a big plate of pancakes. I couldn’t even finish it, it was so filling. My stomach (and my soul) well satisfied, I got up and went back outside, and finished off the sketch of the line that I had started (below), before heading across the street to draw the full scene (above). That sketch above took me about an hour, but it was nice standing on the corner of the street in downtown LA, it’s a bit different from Davis.

The last time I stood there sketching was in 2010, my wife and I were visiting Los Angeles for our anniversary, though she had a work event in DTLA that day so I spent the day exploring. The hydrant drawn in that old sketch is now different, and I stood at a slightly different spot of the corner. It’s not actually the corner of Figueroa and 9th (9th is the street on the other side of the main road) but at the junction of Figueroa and James M. Wood Boulevard (the stretch of 9th was named for local labor leader James M. Wood in 1997). Anyway I wanted to show this sketch here again, I always liked it.

Eating pancakes wans;t all I did that day. My hotel stay also gave me entry to the Grammy Museum a bit further down the road. I didn’t have a load of time before I needed to catch my train but I figured it would be fun to look around, and it was. The only sketch I made in there was of Michael Jackson’s jacket from Thriller, because we used watch and dance to that video so much when we were kids. I enjoyed the hip hop sections too, there was a lot of history there. It’s not a very big museum but was worth seeing, but I had a train to catch to I headed off to Union Station.

I had hoped to arrive a little earlier and spend some time sketching Union Station, but as it was I was able to take my time, and a very helpful young volunteer showed me the right ticket machine and the way to the platform, he was a university student who apparently helps at the station because he is so into trains; I understand, me too. I’ve been thinking a lot about taking a great train journey lately, one of those that goes across the country taking several days, with time to sit and think and read and get into adventures. Well maybe not adventures. Would I get bored? Probably, but I’d be moving towards somewhere. A couple of those long distance trains stop in Davis (the Coastal Starlight and the California Zephyr) so who knows, some day. As it was, I took a 1.5 hour regional train across the LA metropolitan area and into what’s called the ‘Inland Empire’, to the city of Riverside. And of course I sketched on the train.