One Sketch #62) Saturday 26th May, Grand Theatre, Swansea

I could've been upon the stage
If Life had turned a different page
It's too late now
So blame my age.

Swansea's Grand Theatre - originally opened in 1897, so Victorian, if only just. It was bought outright by Swansea council in a rare act of foresight in the 1970s, and is still owned and operated by the council today.

One Sketch #59) Victorian Pillar box (Weds 23rd)

A wonderful thing is a pillarbox
It takes a long time just to fill a box
Whatever its size
I think you'd be wise
To admit that a mail box is still a box.

Not sure what possessed me to go for this very early Victorian pillar box, but I like it. I think that it's well known that the first UK pillar boxes were the brainchild of a certain Mr. Anthony Trollope, far better known probably for the huge number of novels he wrote, including the excellent Barchester and Palliser novels. The novels, sadly, are no longer widely read. The pillarboxes, though, show every sign of being an important part of British life for the foreseeable future, email notwithstanding.

One Sketch #58) Bela Lugosi as Dracula

There once was an actor called Bela
A frankly quite sinister feller
I'd not be surprised
To learn he resides
In a coffin he kept in his cellar

At work today I have two classes currently writing their own gothic horror stories as an end of unit assessment. So old red eyes seemed an obvious choice. I think I've made his face too long - to me he seems to have more than a touch of the John Travoltas with a dash of Prince Charles thrown in.

One Sketch #53) Gymnast

I coulda been a gymnast,
Although it may sound crazy
The only thing that stopped me
Was, I'm just too flipping lazy.

Just wanted to sketch some movement today, and I remember that a few weeks ago on BBC's Big Painting Challenge the participants had to paint a gymnast in movement, so I though - now there's an idea.

One Sketch #46) World War One Tommy

Born a son of the soil

A westcountryman,

An artisan.

Not especially well educated

In all ways, unremarkable.

Asking for little

And receiving less.

No soldier, but a baker.

Now, just a random number

And a name on a gravestone. 

Sorry about that. I'm currently working on poems by Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen  with some of the children in work, and whenever I do this, I can't help thinking about my great grandfather, a man called Edgar Bennett. He was my father's mother's father, and was killed on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele. I always knew he had been killed in the First World War. but it was only a few years ago that I managed to find out when and where. I'm fairly sure that when I visited his grave in 2016, I was the first member of the family ever to do so. 

One Sketch #27) Patti Pavilion, Swansea

I like to go out sketching on a Saturday, and to day was no exception. What was an exception was that I was so tired because I've been having trouble sleeping, that I only had the stamina to make a couple of sketches. This is the better of the two: -

I sold a couple of sketch commissions last week, and so I spent some of the proceeds buying myself the sepia toned pens that I used on this sketch.

The Patti Pavilion is named after Dame Adelina Patti, an extremely popular opera singer at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It was originally part of her estate in Craig y Nos Castle, and she donated it to Swansea in 1918. It's a venue for the performing arts, though that modern glass extension in the front is an Indian restaurant.

An opera singer called Patti
-Among her own time's glitterati-
Donated this venue
That's generous, but then you
Might have to admit she was batty.