Old West Gun Room, El Cerrito, CA

This very old gun shop is located about a mile from my house, next door to the new Peet’s Coffee. I’m sure that the only reason it continues to exist is that it’s always been here. It would never be allowed to open on the edge of a residential neighborhood in this liberal community now.

I needed a walk and I needed coffee beans and I needed to draw. So I packed my little painting kit in my backpack and headed towards Peets with a plan to get my coffee and paint the gun shop. Every few feet I saw a tree or flower I wanted to draw but decided to come back to those things later.

I walked the mile, got my pound of Peets Special Decaf beans, a cup of mostly decaf, and sat down on the sidewalk across the street in front of Payless Shoes to draw. I felt a little silly sitting on the sidewalk, making the occasional pedestrian walk around me, but I got over it once I started drawing. I drew in ink, added watercolor, decided I was more than finished, and stood up. Yikes! It took a block to work out the kinks in my legs.

When I got home it was earlier than I expected–time just seems to stretch out and expand when I’m in “the zone,” I thought. But as I was scanning the drawing I got a call from Nora asking when I might be arriving for the 6:00 dinner at Michael’s. I looked down at the clock on my computer screen and it was already 6:30! But my watch said 5:30–sometime during the walk my watch’s display had switched to “Time 2,” which I’d never changed to daylight savings time, so it was an hour behind. They were nice enough to wait for me and dinner was great!

I enjoyed the extra hour I had today, even though it wasn’t real.

Lamy Safari pen, Noodlers ink, Moleskine large watercolor notebook.