One Sketch #128) Hay Cart

Time accelerates.
Years ago it moved
No faster then the hooves
Of a horse
Tethered to a farmer's cart.

Yes, another prompt from the Sketching Every Day group on Facebook. Looks appealing, doesn't it. And that from me, who think of myself as a confirmed city boy. I like the effect of the blue grey shadows beneath the cart.

One Sketch #127) Penarth Pier and Carousel Horse

Stand at the edge

Of the world

And let the grey green waters 

Carry your soul

While your body hugs the rail

Safe, but empty.

I was at a bit of a quandary today, which image to post, and so that's why I posted the Carousel horse as well. I really wanted to post the Penarth Pier line and wash sketch, but I am fully aware that I sketched the pier in sepia ink from a different vantage point only a couple of months ago.

I try not to repeat myself too much. However, I had the opportunity to meet Gary, one of my internet sketching friends and a man whose line and wash work I really admire. Gary is currently visiting Wales, and waited to sketch the pier, so we agreed to meet. Unfortunately Gary couldn't make it for reasons beyond his control. Still, another member of the South Wales Urban Sketchers did come, and we sketched and also had a cuppa in the coffee shop inside the pavilion on the pier. While talking, Andra mentioned that she had met Gary last week, and passed on a couple of tips and observations about the way that Gary constructs a line and wash picture. I applied these and made the line and wash sketch above which, though I say it myself, I'm really pleased with. It's closer to how I'd like to use line and wash than pretty much anything else I've managed before.

The carousel is my response to the Sketching Every Day prompt today - State Fair. Okay, here in the UK we don't have State fairs - well, be fair, we don't have states. But I just took it to mean a traditional fair. I chose to go back to monochrome blue, partly because I like it - I guess I'm in the middle of my blue period - and partly because I used an ink sketch yesterday, and I don't want the group to figure out just what a one-trick pony I am just yet. I did think about trying to make a verse for the carousel, but to be honest anything I came up with as the germ of an idea was too close to my ferris wheel verse a couple of days ago. As it is, the challenge only requires me to come up with one verse each day, so I thought stuff it - it's my game so I can play by my rules.

One Sketch #126) Jimi Hendrix

It's never much of a chore
To gaze
On the guy who gave us
Purple Haze

Okay, so it works like this. Facebook, as it does, when it sees you belong to a specific group or groups - in this case South Wales Urban Sketchers and also the global Urban Sketchers group - likes to suggest other related groups that you might like to join. I've taken them up on it, and one of them I've joined is called Sketching Every Day. For me the huge attraction is that, as the name would suggest, every day the group is given a prompt for a sketch. Which is fantastic because there are days, like today, when inspiration totally fails me. I've used various internet sites from time to time, but I have to say that I generally find their suggestions pretty unsatisfying.

Anyway, to cut a long story slightly shorter, I just noticed today that my application to join the group has been approved, and so I checked out today's prompt. It's rock icon. Well, I tend to take prompts pretty literally, and so when I see the words rock icon, the first person to pop into my head is Jimi Hendrix. As it happens I have made a quick sketch of Jimi Hendrix before, as part of the 100 people One week challenge - he's number 80, in half silhouette, just behind my own ugly mug.

One Sketch #125) Ferris Wheel

Life is a like a Ferris Wheel

Ups and downs

And going round and round in circles.

This is the biggest sketch I've done in this one sketch challenge. It's in acrylic, on a 16x20 inch canvas board. It's a not very interesting story - basically my wife wanted this design on a large canvas board to put up in the bathroom. I'll be honest, I'm not totally in love with it, but if she likes it then the time I put into it, the canvas board and the black paint are a cheap price to pay. 

I did take some photos as I was making this in my studio. I began in pencil:-

It's not a great photo, but at least you can see the two elipses I started with. 

 At this stage the wheel is beginning to emerge:-

And this is the pencil sketch finished. I'll be honest, I rather wish I'd just gone over the pencil lines in ink, as I do thin that this is more effective than the finished painting. Well, never mind. The client - my wife - likes it so that'll do. 

Sketching Tips 9) Sketching Living Creatures

Sketching any member of the animal kingdom is tricky. That includes human beings. The very thing that makes living creatures so interesting - their life and energy – is exactly the same thing that makes them so difficult to sketch. Living creatures often move. This creates huge problems for the urban sketcher, and as with human figures, it does necessitate finding a method which works for you.

Here’s some things for you to consider doing:-

* Cheating

OK, I say that tongue in cheek. Basically, by this I mean using a photo. Now, as well should all know by now, if you sketch from a photo, however nice it may turn out to be , it isn’t an urban sketch. I want to stress this now. In my opinion, if you possibly can sketch something from life, then you should. Intrinsically a sketch made this way has far more value than a sketch of a photograph, which is at least a stage further back removed from life. However, sometimes you are just not going to have the opportunity to sketch a particular creature from life, and I freely admit that sketches such as these next few were made from photographs:-

The attraction of sketching from a photo is obvious. The animals have been caught by the camera in a particular stance, and they aren’t going to move from that stance. I’m unlikely to encounter most of them without going to zoos or in the case of the Komodo Dragon, taking what would probably the most expensive sketching expedition of my life. 

* Sketching stuffed animals

Is this cheating? Not as long as you’re clear when you’re writing down what it is that you’ve sketched. Now, personally I’m not a great fan of taxidermy. But I have to say that it enabled me to make this sketch of a coelacanth (ironically a ‘living fossil’) in the Zoological Museum in Kaunas in Lithuania. 

Due to the conditions required to keep a coelacanth alive, it’s highly unlikely I’m ever going to see one living, so I don’t feel too guilty about sketching this one. 

* Sketching creatures that don’t move around a lot.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to my cat, Hero. 

Yes, Hero is a gorgeous looking long haired black and white cat. He can sit in the same position for hours . . . until you try to sketch him. So even with a rarely moving creature like Hero, I find I have to use a technique to capture him. The thing that a creature like Hero is most likely to move is his head. So that’s where I would start. Eyes first. Then outlines of nose, mouth and shape of the head. No shading at this stage – once the outlines are in, then you can capture the shading gradually. In the space of 10 – 15 minutes Hero is going to look away three or four times, so each time he turns back to me I just keep adding a little more, building the picture. I know that unless he gets up to leave, I can easily sketch in his body when I’m happy with the head.

Basically, this is the method I would use to capture any creature. If you look at this one:-

It should illustrate the point. These guys came barrelling down my street one Saturday, in the opposite direction. There were a huge number of them. So when they started coming back, I knew that a lot of them would be coming past. I quickly sketched the moving parts – in this case the front legs of one horse – the back legs of another, and the body and heads of the next 3 or 4. Then another composite of the guys riding in the buggy. Now, when there’s only one of the creatures you want to sketch, the principle still works the same, as long as it doesn’t run off completely.

Whether you’re sketching people or creatures, even when they’re moving they do tend to repeat the same movements, and this fact is your friend. So if we take this sketch I made one lunchtime :-

It pretty much illustrates this point. Both of these were moving their heads about quite a bit, but would repeat pretty much the same position as they did so. I didn’t even start on the bodies until the heads were done, and this worked pretty well. 

Sketching living, moving creatures is hard, and it can be very frustrating. However, if you want to improve your sketching, it really is wonderful for training your hand-eye coordination, and also helping you to loosen up, and get a decent impression of what you’re sketching more quickly and with fewer marks on your paper. 

A few random points:-

·       Make the distinction in your own mind between an urban sketch and a detailed animal sketch. If the animal you’re sketching is just a part of a moment – for example, like the horses and buggies barrelling down my street – then please try to resist the temptation to photograph it now then sketch it later. Sketch it now, then you won’t need to photograph it. On the other hand, if you sketch a photograph of an exotic creature you would never normally meet, well you’re not going to try to pass it off as an urban sketch made the time that you actually met this creature, so I can’t see any issue with that.

·       Sketching a living creature from life – start off by sketching in the parts of the animal that are most likely to move. Go for quick outlines, and you can worry about shading later on.

·       Don’t panic if the creature moves. As likely as not it will repeat the same position if you’re patient. This won’t always happen, but this is what makes it so rewarding when it does.

·       You may have the opportunity to make a composite sketch of two or more members of the same species, so don’t despair.

·       When you first start sketching creatures from life – I’d start out trying to sketch it as quickly as you possibly can in as few marks on the paper. If you work on speed from the start, accuracy will come later.

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I really wasn't expecting this:-

Here’s a turn up for the books, dearly beloved. A couple of weeks ago Steve from Afan Nedd Arts group told me about the Big Art of Swansea competition, which is taking place today. Offering a first prize of £300 you can see that this is a very interesting proposition, basically giving you 8 hours today to go out and about and produce a work of art displaying Swansea’s hidden beauty. Yes, I was definitely interested, but since it clashes with my grandson’s birthday party it’s a real non starter, so I didn’t pursue it any further.

Okay, so, yesterday I was checking in on the South Wales Urban Sketchers group page on Facebook, and there was an advertisement for the Big Art competition. This advert.

Now, if you look at the top right hand corner you’ll see a sketch of Bonmarche and Betfred in Swansea.

My sketch.

This sketch.

Now, while I of course felt flattered that they liked my sketch enough to want to use it, I was bloody furious that someone would just take my sketch and use it without so much as a by-your-leave. Yes, I'm no professional, but on the other hand when people have either commissioned me or used one of my existing sketches in the past, then they’ve always been good enough to ask in the first place, and to pay an agreed fee in the second place.

I emailed the organisers to make them aware that they were using my sketch without permission, and as far as I was concerned, breaking my copyright. I'm no legal expert one way or another. I always thought that once you create something, you automatically have copyright, but whether that is affected by posting it on the net I couldn't tell you. This is what we have lawyers for. But I do think that if you use someone's work to, for example, advertise an event, it's only fair to do your best to contact them and ask if it's ok with you. Looking at the Urban Sketching manifesto – where it says we are committed to ‘sharing our sketches and stories freely ‘- I could if I were being pedantic point to the fact that there are several meanings of the word 'freely' - it doesn't necessarily mean 'without charge' - it all depends on the context. In this context the meaning ' without any pressure needing to be put on us, of our own free will' is appropriate for example. Until my telephone conversation with the organisers, I did not know whether the Big Art of Swansea is a profit making event or not, and this is something which would always be a factor in whether I wanted my sketch to be associated with the event or not.

I would argue that when your work is used without your knowledge then this is absolutely not a case of us sharing our sketches freely - because our own free will has been taken out of the equation. Now, I'm not suggesting for one minute that Big Art of Swansea is anything but a thoroughly reputable event. I have no doubt that it is. But let's say for the sake of argument that a sketch or painting which you were proud enough to have posted on the internet was appropriated by a company or an organisation to which you were opposed. Let's supposed it was used without your permission on promotional material. Personally I don't think that you should feel obliged to accept it just because we are committed as urban sketchers to sharing our work online. Just my opinion - feel free to disagree.

Well, as I said the organisers, to be fair, did ring me promptly and apologise. They were under the impression that this was a freely available image, and offered to take it down immediately, or to credit me. I’ll be honest, my dander was up a bit, and my initial reaction was that this was not going to cut it unless they paid the going rate for my commercial work since essentially this was what they had made out of my sketch. I’m not a professional but I do undertake commission work for a nominal fee. I calmed down though, and we settled the issue amicably between us. 

As a postscript to the above, part of our agreement involved me agreeing to be a judge in the competition. However the event has been postponed due to the inclement weather in Swansea today, and from next Saturday onwards I’m off on my troubles again, so I’ve felt it’s only right for me to withdraw.

One Sketch #124) Holding Hands (Friday 27th July)

I wish you could hold my hand
Forever.
I have seen so much
In my adult years
And could lead you safely through.
Already, though,
You pull and chafe
And let go far too soon -
Just as I did too
When I was 5
Like you.

This is inspired by yesterday looking after my oldest grandson, who has just turned 5 years old. We've been in the middle of a heatwave in the UK which seems to have lasted for weeks, the biggest one since the semi-legendary 1976. However yesterday was dull and overcast in my corner of South Wales, and to be honest we didn't do much else than take a brief walk to the local park. I was just struck by the way that while he was still happy to hold my hand while he walked on the parapet of a low wall, as soon as he came off - woosh - hand pulled back, and no way he was going to hold my hand util we came back past the wall again. He's growing up.

One Sketch #123) The Duke of Wellington, Cowbridge

Here's an offer
Too hard to refuse
Quaff a pint
Where the Iron Duke took his booze

Yes, day two of the school holidays, and with no family commitments I went off to follow my nose and see where to sketch today. I mentally flipped a coin and it came up heads, as in let's head off East. I've been meaning to pay a visit to Cowbridge to make a sketch or two for a while, and so that's where I went.

Cowbridge is an interesting place. It has retained a lot of fine buildings dating from the Victorian and Georgian periods. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that the reason is because the town's elders refused to have the railway. Back in the early days of railways in South Wales, so the story goes, Cowbridge was a far more important town than Bridgend, and the builders of the main line from Cardiff to Swansea wanted to build a station there. Supposedly the town elders refused, and so the station went to Bridgend instead. That's why Bridgend became the large and important town that it is, and why Cowbridge stayed the absolutely charming place that it is. Well, that's the story I was once told, anyway.

There is actually a blue plaque on the front of the Duke of Wellington. This commemorates the fact that the building dates back to the 17th century, and has been an inn throughout this time. There is also a story that the Duke of Wellington himself once stayed there overnight during a visit to the town.

One thing I can say for certain. Up until maybe 6 or 7 years ago there used to be a very good quiz on a Wednesday evening which took place in this pub. My dear friend John and I used to play every other week. Why only every other week? Well, thereby hangs a tale. I think that we've probably known each other long enough, dearly beloved, for me to reveal a little of my ill-spent past. From the start of 1988 onwards I became more and more serious about quizzing. I was lucky to have a friend through whom I became involved in quiz leagues, and came to play for the best team in the local area. Although this petered out in the early 1990s, through a combination of circumstances I started playing for a tea in Neath in about 1995, at the same time as which I became of the regular question setters for the weekly quiz in the Aberavon rugby club.

As I said, I became more and more serious about my quizzing, ad eventually even started applying to appear on some serious TV quizzes. In 2007 I won a very prestigious (although into at all lucrative) BBC individual quiz show, which involved winning a heat, a semi final, and a grand final.

Over the next few years my best quiz friend, John and I came to learn that whenever we found a new pub quiz that we liked, we'd often be welcomed with open arms the first couple of times we played. However, if we started wining on a regular basis - which we often did - then the welcome would often turn to bad feeling from some of the rival teams. Hence we only went once a fortnight, which ensured that, at most, we would only win once every other week.

Unlike a lot of other places, bad feeling didn't actually drive us away from Cowbridge, merely the ending of the quiz on the Wednesday. So I still have a lot of affection for the Duke of Wellington. As regards quizzing, well, when anyone asks me about it now I tend to tell them that I am semi-retired. I no longer play in any quiz league, and only attend one quiz a week, which is the quiz in the Aberavon Rugby Club, where I still take my turn setting the questions now and again. The only serious quiz I ever play in now is Brain of Mensa. Thankfully I won that a couple of years ago, and so I can just play for fun now.

Which is why I stopped playing in the majority of quizzes. It just wasn't fun any more. The other teams in the league in which I'd played for 6 or 7 years weren't getting any better, and there was a significant amount of bad feeling towards my team which came out from time to time. Not fun. One pub quiz we attended in Bridgend saw us win 4 times in a row, after which they cancelled the quiz. Not fun. In the last pub quiz I played other than the rugby club, having never lost we turned up to find that we only had 4 questions wrong all evening, and yet still came last. Not fun.

All of which is rather ironic considering it's Thursday, and therefore quiz night. Should be fun. I'll maybe let you know if it's not.

One Sketch #122) The Parting

A last kiss,
From a slowly moving train
I wonder,
Did they ever meet again?

First day of the school holidays, and I've had a lovely day. Still, one thing which my mind has been turning over is the fact that a few good friends, with whom I've taught for many years will not be coming back after the holidays, and so this idea of parting has been very much on my mind. Another blue monochrome special, and once again, though I say it as shouldn't, I really rather like the results. As I've said before, I just don't really get colour - but for some reason, if I stick to monochrome blue I come up with something I can live with.

OOH - I've just realised. This being sketch/day 122 - I've completed my first third of a year. I propose we open something fizzy to celebrate. Mine's a pepsi max thanks for asking.

One Sketch #121) Remo's Aberavon - Sponsored Walk

Last day of term
A sponsored walk
After weeks of sunshine
We got soaked.
Divine retribution
-or sod's law?

Yes, dearly beloved, the end has come. Well, the end of this school year, that is. Am I sorry? Am I hell as like. Still, we had a nice event this morning to bring things to a close - a sponsored walk to Aberavon Beach in aid of Alzheimer's charities.

One Sketch #120) Del Boy

Effervescent he (that means bubbly)
My opinion of the show?
Lubby jubbly.

I may have mentioned this before, but just in case I haven’t, let me start by saying that my ‘day’ job, as it were, is that I’m a teacher in an 11-16 Secondary School in South Wales. Not an Art teacher, no. I have no qualifications in Art at all. I do, however have a Postgraduate Certificate in Education – a PGCE, which is one of several qualifications, any of which enable you to teach in the UK. I also have an honours degree in English, so that’s what I’ve spent a little over 30 years teaching. Today (Monday) and tomorrow are the last two days of this academic year, after which we have a break of just over 5 weeks until the new year begins.

I know that the long summer holiday for teachers is a bone of contention. I may come back to this before I’ve finished this post. Still, once you get to the last couple of days, a much more relaxed attitude sets in. For one thing, attendance takes a nosedive. My first class today is usually one of my more ‘challenging’ classes. (translation from teacher speak –challenging = bloody awful)There were just 4 of them in school. On the principle that Art has charms to soothe the savage beasts, I gave them each a piece of paper, and told them about my challenge to make at least one sketch a day for a whole year, and showed them some of the pictures on this very blog. I asked them if they had any suggestions for what I might do for today’s sketch. One of them suggested a V12 Dodge Charger. Now, okay, I don’t have anything against sketching vehicles in general, and cars in particular. However, this just didn’t really light my candle. Then another of them suggested Del Boy. This surprised me a little, but it does at least show the lasting affection for the series “Only Fools and Horses”. I mean, these kids surely weren’t around when even the last Christmas Special was broadcast. 

There’s a couple of things I remember with great affection. I remember in one episode when Del’s father turned up from Heaven alone knows where, and Del, very much against the old rogue, described him with the memorable phrase “He sold his soul for half an ounce of Old Holborn!” Both my younger brother and I fell off our chairs laughing at that one, since we had often used such a phrase to describe our own father. Long story. 

When my kids were a lot younger, the only family holiday we could afford was taking the 26 hour bus to Calella in Spain, and staying in a ‘2 stars and lump it’ hotel. The drivers had a deal with a transport café somewhere in the south of France, and would stop there at stupid o’clock in the morning on the way there, and stupid o’clock in the evening on the way back. Well, the last time we took most of the kids must have been about 2005. The bus happened to stop while it was halfway through showing the 2002 Christmas Special of Only Fools and Horses. There was a mutiny. Seriously, all the passenger refused to get off the bus until the DVD was finished, even though these later specials weren’t really as good as the series had been in the 80s. Just my opinion, feel free to disagree. Finally, in 1985 I took my then girlfriend, who has been my now wife for the last 31 years, to meet some of my extended family in Brighton. As we were walking out of the station, who should we pass in the street? None other than David Jason. Sir David, I hope that you appreciate the way we smiled and nodded, but didn’t ask for autographs, or stop you to talk to us, or jump up and down shouting OMG it’s Del Boy etc. 

Hmm, I'm burbling again. I might say something about holidays tomorrow.

One Sketch #119) Llanelli Town Hall and Llanelli Library

Even under grey and glowering clouds
Such civic buildings still stand tall and proud.

So, yesterday I was out and about making a couple of direct watercolour sketches of Kidwelly Castle. Not quite so far west is the town of Llanelli. It's a interesting place. The most sizeable town between Swansea and Carmarthen, it has its fair share of impressive civic buildings and chapels which have survived for over 100 years - even if, like most towns, it has some rather crappy modern ones as well.

I decided to go back to have another go at line and wash with these. Unfortunately the particular pens I used, unlike my Faber-Castell favourites - ran when I applied the watercolour. I think that the Library especially is actually better than it looks here. For some reason my scanner sometimes has problems with colours, and here it has accentuated the greys, and hasn't given the actual tone values of the browns. Compositionally though I rather like this as a page. My Spanish sketching adventure is coming ever closer, and if I can aim to produce pages like this in my sketchbook , then I won't be unhappy.

One Sketch #118) Kidwelly Castle

I never will begrudge
Spending some hours
Sitting, painting these
Kidwelly towers.

There's a couple of reasons why I took it into my head to drive West for the best part of an hour to Kidwelly, west of Llanelli. Well, one reason, really, that is mighty Kidwelly Castle. However, there's two reasons why I decided to paint it today.

Back in 1991 I had only the two children - my oldest daughter, and my son. I passed my driving test that year, and my father in law was kind enough to give us his old Ford Fiesta. This proved to be a terrific little car which did us proud for four years. One of the first trips I took the kids on was to visit Kidwelly Castle. Mikey can only have been about 3 and a half, but I remember the trip with great affection, and I've taken each of the kids there at one time or another.

It isn't just lingering affection which drove me there today, though. For Kidwelly Castle was where I made one of my first ever attempts at a line and watercolour wash picture. I thought I'd see how far I've come in just over a year. So here's the original I did in 2017:-

Well, it's all in the eye of the beholder, and you might say, well, of course this older one doesn't look as good - it's a photo, not a scan. Well, here's the on the spot photo I took of one of today's by way of comparison.

Now, I'm very sorry, but as far as I'm concerned, that's case proven.

Sketching Tips 8) Sketching Vehicles

I don’t think there’s any special skill involved in sketching vehicles, but maybe what makes a difference is whether you like vehicles for their own sake or not. For example, there’s a world of difference between a sketch which has cars in it: -

And a sketch of a car: -

In the top picture it’s the footbridge which is the star. The cars, which are not particularly detailed and not brilliantly drawn, are just there to give the footbridge context and scale. In the second picture, the street furniture, the wall and the car behind are just outlines, which serve to highlight the car itself which is the star of the picture. If the cars are just a background feature, then you really don’t need many lines to suggest the shape of a car to the eye of the beholder. 

So, when you’ve decided that the car – or tram, bus or train – is the star of the picture, what then? Well, the first thing you need to think of is composition, and what I mean by that is, where are you going to put the viewer in relation to the vehicle. I’ll give a couple of examples to help explain this.  In this picture :-

- you can see that we, the viewers, are looking down onto the Bubble Car. This is appropriate, since it helps emphasise the diminutive size of the car which is one of its most interesting features. By the same token in this picture,

we’re looking up at the train. Our eyeline is roughly level with the bottom of the door nearest too us. This, and the rather extreme perspective serve to emphasise the train’s great size, power and speed.

Once you’ve worked out the viewer’s viewpoint in relation to the vehicle, then it’s worth spending some time deciding just how you’d like to contextualise the vehicle. I’ll explain that. Both of the vehicles above appear on the page themselves without any background. That’s because in those pictures I’m only interested in the qualities of the vehicle itself, and didn’t feel the need to contextualise them. However, adding background can help your sketch say more about the vehicle, and it’s not a bad thing to spend a bit of time considering just how much background, if any, you want to use. For example:-

The very light foliage in the background of this beautiful Jaguar XK120 conjures up an image of driving down summer country lanes with the top down. On this next picture:-

the railings and shaded shoreline are just enough to place this ice cream van at the seaside. With this Swansea tram:-

- I felt that the edge of the platform, the passengers and the pole carrying the cable overhead were enough to contextualise it. This can be compared with :-

Where I really wanted to include all the background details to help put it within a place and time within my childhood. This picture isn’t about the train so much as its about my memories of using the Tube, taking it to interesting places to see and things to do.

With this sketch, if you take away the airport buildings then it’s just a single decker bus, so the context is important to this sketch.

As for sketching in the vehicle itself, as with anything else you sketch it is a matter of looking, looking, looking, of getting the shapes right, and applying the shade in the right amount, in the right places. It sounds simple when you say it like that. Yet it needn’t be that complicated either. If you decide to go for a heavy contrast between areas of light and shade, you can end up with something like this:-

It's an effective depiction of a tank engine, even though the train itself really wasn’t a very complicated sketch, having so many areas of complete shading.

Of course, if you use more subtle shading, then you can make what looks to be a more accomplished sketch. This one underneath is not actually that well drawn – the front end of the boiler for example just isn’t quite right, but it still looks pretty good, I think, partly because of the amount of platform detail, and the contrast between the dark underside with the wheels, and the more lightly shaded boiler. 

Of course, if you’re feeling really confident and have time to really work at the sketch, then you can go to town on detail.

If you were to strip away the careful shading, what you’d be left with is still quite a complicated sketch, but nowhere near as complicated as it looks.

For me the attraction of sketching and painting steam engines is that they put a lot more of what they’ve got in the shop window than other types of train, or road vehicles. Look at even a rather simple tank engine and you’re still going to see pipes, domes, handles, and all other kinds of interesting bumps and protruberances.

Going back to my earlier point about viewpoint, you’ll notice that with each of these the viewer is looking up at the train, albeit to a slightly lesser extent than in the diesel train above. 

A few random points:-

·       When you’re sketching a car, bus, tram or train perspective and viewpoint are every bit as important as they are when you’re sketching buildings. If the viewer is looking up at a vehicle, this emphasises size and power, which can be enhanced by exaggerating the perspective more than normal.

·       You can always choose not to sketch in any background to the vehicle. However, if you just sketch in outlines of the background it can give the vehicle a context, while at the same time highlighting it.

·       Even really complicated vehicles, like steam locomotives, can be simplified through the use of areas of total shade, leaving you with a very simple set of outlines to sketch. Careful use of various gradations of shading can really give your sketch depth, body and definition.

One Sketch #117) Lunar Module Airfix Kit

Mine never would quite land upon the Moon
The closest that it came, my living room.

I probably don’t need to explain this one, but what the hell, I’m going to. Exactly 49 years ago today, a Lunar Excursion Module, named Eagle, landed on the Moon, and shortly after the landing, Neil Armstrong, swiftly followed by Buzz Aldrin, became the first men to step out on the surface of the Moon. As I said, I have sketched and painted Buzz Aldrin walking on the Moon during this one sketch challenge, and that means I’ve written about it before. So you already know about how it captured the imagination of the 5 year old me, and I’ll always be grateful to my parents for getting us out of bed in the middle of the night to watch the landing live on telly.

The sketch shows an Airfix model of the Lunar Module. Airfix were – are – a company that made moulded plastic scale models in self assembly kit form of a wide range of things. Most popular were probably military aircraft from World War II onwards. But during the early 1970s, they also made models of various spacecraft. My older brother had the massive Saturn V rocket. This contained a small lunar module which fitted into one of the top stages. I had the smaller Saturn 1B, which I think was used for the Apollo 9 mission which tested the Lunar Module in Earth orbit. This model also had a tiny lunar module in it. I also had the Soviet Union rocket which was particularly good value since it came with both small Vostock and Soyuz capsules. My favourite, though, was the 1/72 scale model of the Lunar module, sitting on its own small circular Lunar surface, together with two astronaut figures – Neil and Buzz, obviously. 

I could get quite nostalgic about Airfix. I doubt that every boy in the 60s and 70s was into Airfix, but I’d imagine that the majority were given a kit at one time or another. The airplane kits themselves could be very tricky, especially if you were trying to produce a model of, let’s say, a world war II fighter plane, with moving propeller and retractable moving wheels. There were other companies who also produced kits. Revell are an American company who produced a similar range of models. I didn’t mind Revell, but I think that we always had this snobbish attitude that Airfix kits were better because Airfix were a British company. I also recall a Japanese company, Tamiya. The interesting thing about Tamiya, if I recall this correctly, is that they were producing models that neither Airfix nor Revell were. A slightly later entrant to the market during the mid 70s was Matchbox. This was a British company at the time, although it has since been bought by Mattel, I believe. They were primarily known for their die cast replica cars and motor vehicles. In the 70s they produced a range of kist, which were notable for being made from more than one colour of plastic. For example, their first model which I believe was the Alpha Jet had parts in red plastic and parts in white plastic, which meant that it still looked quite striking even if you didn’t paint it. However, I digress.

Going back to the landing itself, it’s funny to reflect on what we thought was going to happen next. I remember reading a book about NASA’s manned space programme at the time, and that it said that following the Moon landings, the next step would be a manned landing on Mars, however, being as this involved travelling a far greater distance it was likely that this would not happen for at least 10 years! I confidently poo-poohed this as defeatist nonsense at the time. Shows how much I know.

It’s tempting to ask whether we might ever have gone to the Moon had it not been for JFK’s assassination. Originally the Apollo programme was supposed to consist of at least another 3 landings, all with heavy scientific programmes. But when push came to shove, although each of the 6 successful Apollo landings did carry out important scientific experiments, the real main purpose of the programme was achieved when Armstrong stepped onto the Moon’s surface, that purpose being beating the Soviet Union to land a man on the Moon. This certainly seemed to be the prevailing view of the public, as viewing figures dipped for each subsequent moonshot, apart from the drama of Apollo 13’s near disaster. 

Will we ever go back to the Moon, or finally make the trip to Mars? In the very long term, I think it’s extremely likely. I think it’s likely that we’ll go back to the Moon eventually because in relative terms it’s so close. We already have the technology to get there – we had the technology 50 years ago, and if we just take the field of computers, you could install a computer many times more powerful yet many times smaller and lighter than those used by the Apollo craft now. As for Mars, I tend to think that if we could do it more cheaply than we could do it now, then we would do it now. Will it happen in my lifetime, though? Well, I have my doubts. If we take the Moon programme, it took pretty much a decade from the start of the Mercury programme to the Eagle’s landing. If we started a serious Mars landing programme today. It could easily be well over a decade before the vehicles and procedures were fully developed , tested and ready. And we aren’t starting a serious Mars landing programme today, we won’t be starting one tomorrow, and nobody really knows when or if we ever will.

One Sketch #116) The Prince Regent

After Thomas Lawrence

A Prince he was
But when he had the chance
To be a husband too,
Well, he was pants.

I couldn’t resist this one. In another life, 11 years ago, I played in the UK’s highbrow quiz show “Mastermind”. If you’ve never seen it, the contestants – called contenders for the purposes of the show – nominate a specialist subject to be quizzed upon. Each in turn sits in a black interrogation chair for two minutes and tries to answer questions on their own subject. After each contender has done this, they return to the chair in turn for another two minutes to answer general knowledge questions. The contender who has answered the greatest number of questions correctly wins. Well, it’s a tiny bit more complicated than this, but that’s the gist. For my semi final appearance I chose “The Prince Regent – later King George IV” as a specialist subject. Today, 19^th July, is the 197^th anniversary of his coronation. 

George’s Coronation was one of the more eventful in British history. As Prince of Wales, George rightly had the reputation of a terrible spendthrift, gambler, womaniser and generally a drain on the country’s resources. It didn’t help that this was all happening at the same time as revolution in France. He did make an illegal marriage to the Catholic widow Maria Fitzherbert in the 1780s – a marriage invalid in British law due to the Royal Marriages Act. However in 1795 he was faced by an ultimatum from his father, the King, that he must make a suitable marriage to provide an heir in order for the King and Parliament to clear his debts. The Prince faced the selection of his bride from the suitable European protestant princesses, and remarkably he delegated the selection to his current mistress, the Countess of Jersey. She in turn selected probably the least appropriate person ever to be married to a man like George, his own first cousin, Caroline of Brunswick. 

Caroline’s mother was George III’s favourite sister. The younger George was not the least bit attracted to Caroline, probably, one would think, because she resembled him physically, being relatively short, overweight with a propensity to obesity, and possessed of the Hanoverian slightly bulging eyes. Reputedly he asked for a medicinal brandy immediately upon seeing her for the first time in the flesh. The plausible story is that he slept with her on their wedding night, and never again. Whether that is true or not, Caroline very quickly became pregnant with their only child, Princess Charlotte.

Very soon after the marriage and the birth of Princess Charlotte it was clear to all that they were leading separate lives, a fact which soon became official. George went so far as to accuse Caroline of giving birth to an illegitimate child. The subsequent enquiry seemed to disprove this, but it did establish that Caroline’s behaviour had become as wild and sexually indiscreet as her husband’s. King George III took over the care of Princess Charlotte. With access to her daughter severely restricted, the Prince of Wales also saw to it that Caroline was socially excluded. People who attended her parties could expect to never again be invited to the Prince’s far more lavish and prestigious entertainments.  Eventually the Foreign Secretary of the time, Lord Castlereagh offered Caroline an annual settlement in return for her leaving the country. Caroline moved to Italy, and never saw Charlotte, who died in childbirth in 1817, again. She only  learned of Charlotte’s death from a visiting courtier, since Prince George was determined not to tell her the news.

There was no question of getting a divorce while King George III was still alive, even though the Prince, who was Regent from 1811 until 1820, had effectively assumed all the duties of the King. When George III died though, George IV immediately set out to obtain a divorce from Caroline. Even for the King this was an exceptionally difficult thing to achieve, requiring an Act of Parliament. Caroline, pushing her luck, had returned to the UK on George III’s death, intent on being treated as the rightful queen. By the law and ancient custom of the land, Caroline had become Queen on George’s accession, and she was determined to assert her rights to the title’s privileges. Caroline proved immensely popular with the London masses, primarily one suspects because they thought that anyone so hated by the hated George IV was worth supporting, rather than through her own intrinsic qualities. Jane Austen herself said as much. This convinced George that he would fail to obtain his divorce through Parliament. 

George had his revenge, though. He declared that Caroline would be barred from his coronation, on 19^th July 1821. Caroline actually made several attempts to enter Westminster Abbey on the day, but each time she was turned away by guards and officials who had been specially posted on the King’s orders. Eventually she was forced to admit defeat. Almost as if she was acting according to a prearranged script, Caroline took ill that very night, and died within three weeks. As per her instructions she was buried in Brunswick, in a coffin with a simple inscription referring to her as “The Injured Queen of England”.

When you read about historical figures such as George and Caroline, it can be difficult to remember that these were real people, real human beings with real human feelings. It’s very easy to feel very sorry for Caroline, and she does deserve some sympathy, to an extent. Only to an extent, though. Caroline, once it became clear that her husband was no longer going to be a husband to her, didn’t shrink into the background and meekly accept her lot. She decided that what was sauce for the gander could be sauce for the goose as well, and this at a time when different moral standards were applied to the sexes. Yes, both a husband and wife if they were rich and privileged enough could choose to take a lover, but woe betide the lady who sought to flaunt this like a man could.

While on one hand I admire Caroline for going her own way and not just accepting the raw deal that this arranged marriage had offered her, I really rather think she made her own bed with her actions after George became King. We can’t really know Caroline’s feelings about her daughter Charlotte, and how badly she was affected by their separation and Charlotte’s tragic death. But after Charlotte died, in many ways the life Caroline had between 1817 and 1820 was rather enviable. She had been given a generous annuity. £35,000 a year is enough to live on now. Back in the 1800s it amounted to a fortune, and not a small one at that. In return all she was expected to do was stay out of the country, stay out of George’s life, and try not to embarrass herself or him too much. While one can understand that the realisation that she had now become Queen might have certainly made her think again about her situation, the idea that George would ever even accept her as Queen, let alone allow her to be crowned such is a display of hubris, or at the very least an inability to see things as they really were. She’d accepted Castlereagh’s deal in the first place, and breaking its terms in this way was never going to bring success. So I find it difficult to be sympathetic towards her in this last year of her life.

As for George, I find him a fascinating and very contradictory character. He was a wilful man for all of his life a man for whom his own ego and wants were his own little god. He was a persistent debtor, to whom the concept of living within one’s means was unknown. For example, he squandered huge amounts on his white elephant Royal Pavilion at Brighton, while people starved to death in different parts of the country. He was very vain, and sexually incontinent. Normal behaviour for the Prince would be at the very least described as sexual harassment in the present day and age. As the young Prince of Wales his behaviour during his father’s first bout of dementia in the 1780s was disgraceful. As a friend he could be extremely disloyal. Prior to becoming Regent his closest political friend was the radical MP Charles James Fox. Immediately on becoming Regent, George dropped Fox like a hot potato, and revealed his true, reactionary colours. As King his attitude to the relaxation of laws against Roman Catholics was particularly reprehensible. His attitude towards his wife, whom he viewed, at best, as a baby making machine, and whom he discarded as soon as she had fulfilled this function, is rightly condemned. 

And yet.

This is in no way an excuse for George’s faults, but the fact is that he did contribute to the lasting cultural heritage of the United Kingdom. For example, he had a large hand in the genesis of the institutions that became the British Museum, the British Library and the National Gallery. For such an infuriatingly self-centred and wilful person, he had great taste. Certainly in terms of art and literature, if not in architecture. Despite her personal antipathy towards him, Jane Austen still dedicated “Emma” to him, while Sir Walter Scott stage managed his triumphant visit to Scotland as King. Even in terms of architecture, while the Brighton Pavilion might not be everyone’s cup of tea (I personally love it) his patronage of John Nash resulted in the building of Regent Street, one of the most elegant streets in the whole of the capital.

One Sketch #115) John Wayne (Wednesday 18th July)

He had staying power
That's a fact
A constant superstar
(Who needs to act?)

You might be wondering why I painted John Wayne for Wednesday’s sketch. After all, he’s another movie icon, but I painted the first two – Laurel and Hardy, and Marilyn Monroe whole England were playing in the World Cup, but the World Cup is now well and truly over. Well, the fact is that I had cast around for suggestions whom I should paint should England reach the finals , and the Duke was a suggestion I really rather liked.

Which is odd. For I have never been anything that could even remotely be described as a fan. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I hated John Wayne – I didn’t – but it’s a little complicated. 

It all stems from my father. A lot of blokes born in the 30s and 40s – my Dad was born in 1940 – loved Westerns as a genre, and John Wayne in particular. With my generation, it was different. For a lot of blokes who were born in the 1960s, I’d guess it was space stuff and science fiction. After all, I was 5 years old when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon for the first time, and that made a huge impression on me. I was 12 or 13 when Star Wars hit the UK, and that also made a great impression. So I can understand the affection my Dad’s generation had for the Western genre, I just never felt it myself. As for John Wayne, well, I don’t want to upset anyone, but I don’t think he was the world’s greatest actor, for all that he won the Best Actor Oscar for “True Grit”. For the record I rather enjoyed that one. 

Whenever I was in the same room as the old man when he was watching one of Wayne’s films, it always struck me that he was playing the same character in all of them, which was probably what he was like in real life. But looking back, I guess that this is the point. A huge number of people liked that character, and didn’t tire of seeing it in film after film after film. I did read that John Wayne stayed in the top 10 box office stars for the best part of three decades, which puts pretty much anyone else you can think of to shame.

One Sketch #114) Geoffrey Chaucer

Father of English
That's what they call you.
It must have been expensive
When your child's birthday
Came round.

Over the last few weeks I've read a number of works on some famous pilgrimages, and of course, the most famous pilgrimage in Britain is that to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. And one of the greatest works of English literature is Geoffrey Chaucer's Middle English masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, which uses a pilgrimage from Southwark to Canterbury as its framework. In the course of reading  I came upon a reference to a book called "Who Murdered Chaucer?", authored amongst others by Terry Jones. Decades ago I read and enjoyed his "Chaucer's Knight". The book arrived in the post today, and I've literally just started reading. Hence the choice of Geoff for today's sketch.

One Sketch #113) World Cup Trophy (Monday 16th July)

Croatia, Belgium, England
Must keep dreaming.
- France is where the World Cup Trophy's
Gleaming.

Yesterday France won the World Cup, in one of the best final games of one of the best World Cup tournaments I can remember.

One Sketch #112) McArthur Glen Designer Outlet Bridgend

Sunday's routine doesn't take much topping
Worshipping the retail gods of shopping.

Like many families we do have our own little family routines. My kids are all grown up, and my wife and I tend to do our own thing on Saturday - she often helps out my daughter who is the manager of a local charity shop . . . and I don't. But on Sunday, barring unusual circumstances we go out to a car boot sale - most of the time accompanied by at least one of our five children and at least one of our grandchildren. We leave early in the morning, and once we've done the boot sale, then we have a cooked breakfast in the Toby carvery. Often, that's it. However it's not unknown for us to go to the Designer Outlet on the way home. Today we went because of the offer from the Build A Bear Workshop - long story. Now, I'll be honest, I don't like McArthur Glen. I don't like shopping generally. Still, at least I was able to sit on a bench and make this composite sketch as my wife and the kids were doing whatever it is that they do in the shops.

Sketching Tips 7) Sketching foliage

Foliage

It’s been a while since I last gave a ‘lesson’ and so please let me start with a reminder of my usual caveat. I’m totally self taught, and all I can tell you is about my way of doing things. I’m not recommending it as the right way or the best way, just explaining that this is how I do it, in the hope that this might help. 

Now, most of the time foliage – by which I mean trees, bushes and grasses – is definitely not the ‘star’ of my sketch. I’m not deiberately dissing foliage here, but I’m a city boy originally, and what I find excites me is achitecture, machinery and people. So I tend to keep to limit the foliage to outlines with a few light shading marks. This usually provides a nice contrast with the actual object of the sketch. For example, in the sketch of a bridge in Aberavon below, the lightly sketched grass and the sky together frame the bridge, which is the real ‘star’ of the picture. A few vertical or almost vertical strokes do a good job of conveying the suggestion of grass to the eye.

In a similar way, in the sketch below which shows Pontrhydyfen Aqueduct, the darkness of the stone contrasts with the outlines of the forestry, which have not been shaded at all. To keep it light, I sketched in a few areas of shadow, but merely left them as outlines, which is a technique that I find can work particularly well when you’re trying to sketch in trees and bushes.

A couple more examples of me using this technique are these two sketches:-

The British Lion Pub Cwmavon. In this sketch I’ve even included outlines of some of the larger leaves, but again, none of the foliage is actually shaded, because the building is the focus, not the trees.

I like this sketch below, of Dyffryn Rhondda Post Office in the Afan Valley, because there is a contrast between the trees on the right, and the grassy hill side on the top left of the sketch.

Now, this minimalist technique for sketching foliage is fine when you are making a building, or something else the focal point of the sketch. However there may be times when you want to sketch the foliage itself in more detail.

This is a sketch of the disused Cynonville Railway Station. The track was ripped up decades ago, and the station now is on the route of a cycle path from Afan Argoed Country Park. Its leafy, overgrown appearance is very much the point of what I wanted to show about it.

As with the bridge picture, I’ve used vertical, or near vertical lines to show grass. However, as you can see I’ve applied far more shading to the bushes. If I was really focusing on the hut, then I’d just have only drawn the outlines of the shaded patches, and not all of them either for that matter. With this amount of shading you just can help but be struck by how overgrown the place is, and the hut itself seems to be merging into the foliage, which is very much the idea that I wanted to convey – that the trees and grasses are slowly reclaiming the land.  

Then there’s this sketch I made of my own back yard:-

If you look at it closely, you can see that it’s actually an inversion of the way that I usually depict foliage in a sketch. The buildings are lightly shaded, where shaded at all, while there’s heavy shading on the bush, and many of the individual leaves are sketched and even some of their marking details are sketched in. And the reason is that when I made the sketch, I felt that the bush was as much the ‘star’ of the picture as any other element.

A few random points

If foliage is not the most important element of the sketch:-

·       The more shading of the foliage that you do, the more you will draw attention towards the foliage and away from the main elements of the sketch, which isn’t what you want to do.

·       You can get good effects by simply sketching in the outlines of blocks of foliage, and also the outlines of areas of shading.

·       A few vertical, or near vertical lines sketched close together can give the appearance of grassy areas.

If foliage is one of the most important elements of the sketch:-

·       Sketch in areas of shading. As with many things, the more different gradations of shading you use to suggest lighter and darker areas, the more detailed your foliage will appear.

·       Heavy shading tends to make foliage appear denser, bushier and more overgrown if this is the effect that you want to achieve.

·       You can achieve some very appealing effects by using areas of dark shading around negative space in the shape of individual leaves, especially if the background to the tree or bush itself is lightly sketched in.