2017 - 2018 - 2019 - Castle Comparison

Yes, I thought it might be interesting to compare three on the spot watercolour sketches I made of castles during the last three years. Let's start with this picture made in Kidwelly Castle in 2017:-

Actually, I look at this now, and I think that it's not as bad as I once thought it was - for a long time I hated it, and despite me having on many occasions said that you should never be ashamed or try to hide your own work, I did feel annoyed with it. Why? Well, this was one of my early line and wash pictures, and it didn't end up looking anything like I wanted it to look. Why? Well, the ink dominates everything since I think that the ink outlines are just too heavy here. Also, it might have benefitted from some ink shading as well, apart from just shading in all the windows completely. More than anything else, though, I made the beginner's error of being afraid of colour, and applying washes which are just too pale.

So let's come forward to last year, when I made this picture in Kidwelly Castle again:- Now, I'm very pleased with this one, which I made as a direct watercolour. So you can certainly say that the paint isn't overwhelmed by the ink outlines, as there aren't any. It is actually better than it looks in this scan, since my scanner doesn't always pick out blue very well - the sky is less blotchy than it looks here. The shadows within the doorway arches I like here, and generally I think it's quite a successful composition. However there are just a couple of features which ight have been a little more distinct if I had made some minimal, judicious use of ink outlines.

This last picture is the one I posted a couple of days ago, and wasn't made in Kidwelly Castle, but the rather less impressive Ogmore Castle outside Bridgend. This is a genuine line and wash picture, and I'm pleased with it. Well, I'm always pleased with a picture just after I've finished it - in most cases. I like this because I'm using the colour as effectively as in the previous picture - in fact probably a little more effectively, but also the ink complements the paint, working with it rather than dominating it. This is a lot closer to what I wanted to do with line and wash when I made the first Kidwelly Picture.
* I made the key decision when I started that I was going to take a double page spread in my sketchbook. This would mean that I wouldn't have to really squeeze the scene down to make it fit, which also meant I could include more details.
* I started on the sketch intending that I'd make the monochrome ink sketch, and decide later whether to apply some watercolour. However, in order to keep my options open I didn't apply as much hatching and cross hatching for texture as I might have done. Likewise, I deliberately left a lot of areas for the paint rather than the ink to create the texture.
* I ended up spending a lot of time working on the main layer of ink. It was only when I had most of the ink down on paper that I made the decision to apply colour.
* The first wash I applied was the blue wash for the sky. I moistened the areas where the sky was going to be with a wet brush, then applied the blue immediately onto the damp areas. It is actually a lot more even than the scan suggests.
* The second wash was the grass. I applied a layer of blue to the shadowy areas on the left. Then I waited for sky and grass to both dry before applying more.
* I worked with successively darker washes of brown, mixed with varying amounts of dark blue and crimson to the stone work, applying the lightest wash first, and allowing it do dry. Dabs with a small brush created the stone work.

Castles near Bridgend - Coity and Ogmore

I so enjoyed the sketchcrawl on Saturday that on Sunday, and again on Bank Holiday Monday, I wanted to go out again. The only tiny regret I have from the sketchcrawl is that I didn't try to put watercolour washed on the craw - I could have done, because I had paints with me.

So I did a little research on relatively local attractions, and came up with the two castles. The first sketch I made of the gatehouse at Coity. It's not awful, not by any stretch of the imagination. However it wasn't quite what I was trying to do. Not quite. There's not enough of a contrast between the front of the gatehouse in the light and the side in the shade. The greenery of the mound isn't very well done either. However, there are things which I think aren't so badly done. The small tower on the extreme left of the gatehouse has a lovely colour variation between the brown walls and the moss on it. Also I think that the front of the gatehouse is more effective because I did enough line work with the bricks and stones, but not too much, and the patches of different shades complement this. If I'd extended the wall on the right, maybe it would have been more effective. I didn't try to make another one on the Sunday because I was gasping for a coffee, and my son and daughter in law live nearby.

So, yesterday, then, and a visit to Ogmore Castle. There were generally more people about that there

had been in Coity, and that was a good thing because it meant that a few family groups came up to where I was sitting at different times, to have a look and a chat about the picture. I know that not everyone enjoys this aspect of urban sketching, but I usually really enjoy it. So, the idea was to have another go, and use what I felt could have been done better with the Coity picture to make a better picture of Ogmore.
One way that I did this was to take a double page in my sketchbook. This meant that I could sketch the ruined keep of the castle large enough to be effective. I made the ink sketch first, and used quite a bit more shading than I had on the previous. However there were still a load of spaces where the light and shade was going to appear through the use of the paint. I probably used about 6 subtly different shades for the brickwork, and the patchiness for me does convey the feeling of rough, broken up brickwork.

One Sketch #164) Ewenny Pottery

I do love cats
I have to say
-even if they're made
of clay.

E is for . . .Ewenny Pottery. Ewenny is a village just outside the sizeable town of Bridgend in South Wales. It is home to Ewenny Pottery, the oldest working pottery in Wales, dating back to 1610. For the last 200 years it has been run by the Jenkins family, who still run it today. Ewenny Pottery are known for some highly distinctive pieces, such as their trademark cats, and the many handled jug in the sketch.

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 #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.