What's Happening? Well . . .

Sorry. After the one sketch a day for a whole year challenge I've been sitting back on my laurels for a bit. Not that I haven't been doing anything at all. I've done a few sketches - I made a trip to Cardiff sketching a week or two ago, for instance. I've also made the odd sketch for Sketching Every Day - here's a couple of them: -

The second one was a challenge to make a self portrait based on the style of a favourite artist - being a natural show off I did 4. I pasted that self portrait sketch I made in March 4 times onto the same Word page, printed it off and sketched the additions over the top.

Since I finished my plough horses painting, though, I have made another couple of paintings in acrylic. First there was this one:-

basically my wife said, these horse paintings you've been doing are all well and good, but couldn't you do an old railway poster for me? We looked on Google images and she gave me a shortlist of three. This was my favourite, and it must have taken about 15 hours to make.

Then a little over a fortnight ago I started painting another 16x 20 in canvas in Artists Group and in my spare time. I was so taken with the plough horses painting which I made over Easter that I wanted to see if I could do a totally different large animal. They don't come much larger than an elephant, so this is what I decided to do. Here's the finished painting:-

I didn't keep a stop watch on it, but again, I'd reckon that this was about 15 hours from first putting pencil to canvas to signing my name.

Coming up though, from tomorrow it's June, and the 30x30 direct watercolour challenge for 2019 begins. I'm not committing myself in the same way that I did last year, but I'm certainly going to start it and see how far I can go with it. Watch this space.

State Capitol Building - Nebraska USA

Today's prompt on Sketching Every Day was Capitol buildings. Well, there are a lot of American members of the group - nothing wrong with that either. So I spent half an hour or so this morning looking at photos of the various capitol buildings o each state. The vast majority of them are very reminiscent of THE Capitol Building in Washington DC. I decided to go for something a bit different. This is the capitol building of the state of Nebraska. I like it, even though, judging by some of the lists that it features on it certainly isn't everybody else's cup of tea. This particular 1920s/30s idiom is one I'm quite familiar with. Swansea's Gwyn Hall and Magistrate's Court are quite reminiscent, and the Great West Road and Western Avenue of my home town of suburban West London had several buildings in this particular 'Metroland' style.

One Sketch 352) Coral Reef

My only beef
With life on a reef
Is huge great sharks
With razor teeth.

Yes, another Sketching Every Day prompt - and it would probably have been better to go with vivid colour - but sorry, pushed for time and lacking energy. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

One Sketch 333) Hippo

Whenever I've been with a hippo
He's never afraid to let rippo
Each gigantic fart
Is only the start
-Be wary of giving him lippo.

That's terrible. Why a hippo today? No idea, other than some days you just know are going to turn out to be hippo days - no point resisting it.

One Sketch 332) (Weds 20th February) Fleet Street

City of Smoke
Frozen in monochrome
Between two wars.

Now you know that I love street scenes, don't you. You might also know that I love Old London - although anyone who says I grew up in Old London is unkind and technically inaccurate. Born in the 1960's, don't you know. I was looking at some old photos looking down Fleet Street towards St. Paul's, and was very struck by the one which I based this sketch on.

One Sketch 330) Clement Attlee

Unsung heroes
Don't always come
in Uniform

The prompt on Sketching Every Day today was Dead President ( or Prime Minister). Well, I did consider going down the obvious path with Lincoln or Kennedy, but then I'm a Brit, and their praises have been sung often enough (and in JFK's case, his vices as well). So let's give a cheer for the memory of Clement Attlee. Maybe he suffered by comparison with the colourful and witty Winston Churchill, to whom he was Deputy Prime Minister during world war II. However many people, of whom I am one, would argue that Clement Attlee was a far more effective politician than Churchill - who was absolutely the right man in the right place in 1940, I make no bones about that. Still, it's difficult to make a case that Churchill, had he won the election in 1945, would have done so much for the ordinary person in the UK as Attlee's government did. We would certainly not have had our National Health Service, and it's quite likely that we'd have embarrassed ourselves as a nation trying to hang onto our overseas Empire. Attlee's groundbreaking Labour Government, elected by landslide in 1945, had its share of failures, but considering the almost impossible difficulties they faced, what with the country having been bankrupted by World War II, it's incredible that they achieved as much as they did.

One Sketch 324) Fisherman Statue

The thought alone
Sets tingling my lips
A freshly battered fish
On a bed of chips

This was today's Sketching Every Day prompt - every month one of the days the prompt offers us a choice of 4 or 5 photographs to use as the basis for a sketch - this statue of a fisherman was what took my fancy this month.

One Sketch 312) Chicago Streetcar

My kind of trams
Chicago had
Now they're all gone
That's kind of sad.
Simple explanation - today's Sketching Every Day prompt was  Chicago, so couldn't resist taking this tack with it. This is based on a photo from the mid 50s.

One Sketch 311) (Weds 30th January) Westminster Abbey

For a thousand years
My bells have tolled
For kings,
And their dust,
Is my buried treasure.

Not a lot to say, other than I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the good old Abbey in my home town.

One Sketch 310) (Tuesday 29th January) Exeter Cathedral

A house of worship
Laying heavy bonds
On the surly earth,

Not sure what that means either, still, when I posted the York Minster sketch a few days ago, one of my fellow group members asked if I'd ever tried sketching Exeter Cathedral. Have now.

One Sketch 302) Usain Bolt

A Jamaican sprinter called Bolt
A sprinter supreme with fault
Who tore down the track
Without holding back
A bugger to bring to a halt

Challenged on sketching every day to match the prompt - the Carbbean - I chose this iconic figure.

One Sketch 300 (THREE HUNDRED!) - Murcia Cathedral

We've come so far
Well, what d'you know?
300 down
And 65 to go.

The prompt on Sketching Every Day was - I was here -. Well, this is Murcia Cathedral, and I actually was here, back in August. You may even recall me posting pictures sketched on my day out in Murcia back at the time.

How about that then? 300 days! I'm really happy about it, especially since that second hundred, since that second hundred, between July and October, seemed to take forever, while this third hundred seems to have gone much more quickly. I'm tempted to start discussing now what Effect I think it's had on me that I've made at least one sketch of some kind every day for 300 days in a row, but that would be premature, and it can wait until the end of March when I will complete the challenge, providing that I can keep it up for 65 more days.

One Sketch 287) Aeolus statue

What's he got on his head?
Must be often said

This gentleman here is Aeolus. Today's prompt on Sketching Every Day is Wind Chimes. Well, I gotta be honest, that left my boat unfloated and my candle unlit. Still, I did enjoy sketching the statues as part of my stamp design yesterday, so my imagination did start working on how I could combine sketching a statue with the general idea of wind. This was the best I could come up with.

Aeolus is an interesting character. At some times he is depicted as a man and at other times as a deity- at some times a personification of wind, and at others as the keeper of the winds. He's probably most well known for featuring in Homer's Odyssey. In this he is a man, the keeper of the winds. On his way home from the Trojan War, Odysseus stopped off on the isle of Aeolia (in the Lipari - or Aeolian - Islands off the coast of Italy), after his escape from Polyphemus the Cyclops. After being blinded, Polyphemus cursed Odysseus and begged his father Poseidon, the God of the Sea, for revenge. Poseidon was told by Zeus , King of the Gods, that he may not kill Odysseus, but decreed that Odysseus would not be able to return home until all of his companions were dead, and ten years had passed.

Odysseus stayed for a month in Aeolia, at the end of which Aeolus promised him a west wind to carry him home to Ithaca, and tied up all the other winds in a bag which he gave to Odysseus. This is presumably the bag that the statue is holding. After several days they come in sight of Ithaca. Odysseus, who has vigilantly guarded the bag night and day, falls asleep, and the inquisitive crew open the bag thinking it may contain gifts and valuables. The winds let loose blow the ship all the way back to Aeolia. Seeing that Odysseus was obviously not favoured by the Gods, Aeolus refused to provide any further help. Which is all to the good, since the Odyssey would have been a much shorter poem otherwise.

One Sketch 259) American truck

American truck
Size isn't everything
But it's pretty impressive
Still.
A symphony
In steel and chrome

A photo prompt on Sketching Every Day this one.

One Sketch 252) The Little Tramp

While Chaplin remained at the helm
So often he would overwhelm
With slapstick, with cheek
Such laughter he'd wreak
He ended a knight of the realm

Not a lot more to say - always been a fan. His silent shorts were often showed on British TV when I was a kid. Very complex and interesting personality too - at one time banned from re-entering the USA. Ungrateful sods.

One Sketch 251) The Great Stoneface

The thing I would say about Buster
- apologising for my bluster
With each new decade
The films that he made
Just seem to take on greater lustre.

At a bit of a loss today, so decided to paint this quick monochrome portrait of a comedian I have a lot of time for, the great Buster Keaton.

One Sketch 250) Macau Skyline

The region that's known as Macau
Is all part of China by now.

Just following a prompt in Sketching Everyday.

One Sketch 235) Baby Pug (Thursday 15th November)

Ladies and gents

I give you

A living oxymoron

- Ugly but cute.

Just a matter of personal opinion, of course. I didn't have a lot of time, and so dashed this off fairly quickly. 

One Sketch 232) London Tram

Slow, rattlesome
Uncomfortable
And for all that
I'd give a lot
for a time machine
to take me to ride one

Yes, given the Sketching Every Day prompt transportation, there was only ever going to be one choice for me.

One Sketch 229 (Friday 9th November) Indian Elephant

An elephant
It must be said
Is better off living than dead
So leave them alone
When tusks they have grown
Pull out your own teeth instead.

Yes, another prompt from Sketching Every Day - don't worry, nearly caught up now. This was just India, and since eephants are amongst my most favouritist creatures in the whole world, and Indian elephant seemed the obvious choice. You know me by now, I try not to miss an obvious choice.