One Sketch #61) Lazerzone, Swansea

Laser fighting's not for me
It's really not my cup of tea
I find activities like this
Bring out my latent pacifist.


As an end of course treat I accompanied a group of pupils to Lazerzone in Swansea. Lazerzone, as the name suggests is a place where kids get to shoot each other with Lasers. Rather than slicing each other to pieces, all this does is set off sensors on their vests which register hits and convert to points. I'm sure that you know the sort of thing. What makes Lazerzone interesting to me is that it takes place in the building of what was previously the Castle Cinema, and indeed, the rear of the building, sketched here, still has the castle cinema sign on it.

One Sketch #60) Old Hospital Bed

My tonsils gave me constant gyp
The Doctor said, "Let's get a grip,
It's time that you were sent, old Scout
To hospital to whip them out
I wasn't brave, just sad and glum
And made a fuss, and cried for mum.

One of my classes had to produce a piece of autobiographical writing for an assessment, with the them being a time that you learned a valuable lesson. I wrote one as an example, telling of how , when I was 8 or 9, I had to go into a grim old Edwardian hospital in Ealing to have my tonsils out. Horrible as the place was, the anticipation of having my tonsils out was far worse than it actually happening.

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 #57) Ealing Christian Centre - Former Odeon Cinema

At night
In the dark
Do you play host
To the flickering ghosts
Of flickering ghosts?

I'll explain that cryptic verse. This is the Ealing Christian Centre, an Elim Pentecostal Church. I have no issue with that. When I passed the building it looked to be in very good condition, and I thank them for that.

I grew up in Ealing, and when I was a kid, Ealing contained 3 cinemas - the Studios 1 and 2 (formerly the Lido) which was very much the bargain basement - the ABC in Ealing Broadway which was a step above, and then this building,which was the Odeon Cinema and very much the best of the bunch. It was built in 1932, in very much a Spanish Moorish sort of style. The cinema - which was a Coronet Cinema by then, closed as a cinema in 1985, a year before I moved away from Ealing for good.

I'm not really sure what prompted me to want to sketch the building today. But I'm glad that I did.

One Sketch #56) Ford Zodiac - Cardiff Classic Car Show

Unreliable, slow
thirsty, and prone
to breaking down.
For all of that
Not only wines
Are vintage.

I've been wanting to sketch a classic car on the spot for some time now. I wasn't planning another trip out sketching after yesterday in front of City Hall, but if the mountain won't come to Muhammad. . . I reckon that this Ford Zodiac is slightly more than 60 years old. So actually it's older than me.

30x30 Direct Watercolour 2018

Over on both Mac Taro Holmes' and Liz Steel's blogs there's announcements about 30x30 Direct Watercolour 2018. It's a challenge which works on a similar basis to the one week 100 people challenge earlier this year. This is from Marc's blog: -

What is #30x30DirectWatercolor2018?

·        PAINT 30 watercolors in 30 days, from June 1-30 2018.

·        POST your paintings in our new Facebook group: <HERE
We’d like to centralize the discussion around this group, to spare our usual sketching clubs all the extra traffic this might create :)

·        HASHTAG your work on any other social media (twitter, instagram) with the hashtag: #30x30DirectWatercolor2018.
Any size, format or subject is ok. 

·        I plan to paint in watercolor, working as directly as possible. But if you want to tint drawings, or add in some mixed media, we’re not going to be enforcing rules. I won’t however, have a lot of advice about techniques I’m not thinking about this month.

·        Our goal is experiencing sustained daily practice. If it’s better for you to do seven paintings on the weekend instead of one a day, that’s totally ok. Same with posting progress. One a day makes a good story – but do what works for you.

·        It’s also completely normal if you fail to make 30! Or to need a few extra days. Like any marathon, just participating is the first reward. Though I’m sure any of us can catch up with some super fast, super small sketches if we have to!

I plan to have a go, which will probably mean painting more sketches as watercolours in order to keep up my personal one sketch a day for a year challenge.