One Sketch #71) Penguin (Monday 4th June)

Antarctic bird
You're quite a sight
And that's a fact
In black and white.

I wasn't very well yesterday at all - I had throwing up bouts every two hours. For all that, though, I forced myself to go into work, and did made it through to the end of the day. I was so tired when I got home, though, that I knew I was only going to want to make a very simple sketch. So this is what I came up with.

One Sketch #70) Sir Anthony Hopkins - Emma Thompson #30x30DirectWatercolor2018 6 and 7

It had something
Which other movies lacked
- 2 Oscar winners
Who could also act.

Although to be fair I haven't ever actually watched the film! If you've been following the blog you'll know that I'm doing the 30x30 Direct Watercolour challenge, and I though that being as it's day 3, I ought to stretch myself, and do a couple of portraits, and having recently seen a still from the film I thought that this would be a good subject to start with.

#30x30DirectWatercolor2018 Caerphilly Castle

Yes, sorry, I know that I've already posted today. But I can't help it - I feel so useless at watercolor that I just couldn't help posting having produced a direct watercolor that I think isn't actually at all bad. I went to Caerphilly today to paint the largest castle in Wales. This is what I came up with:-

Considering that the only thing I used to draw lines was the paintbrush itself I'm really quite pleased with this.

One Sketch #69) #30x30watercolordirect2018 Margam Park Stag

I stand before you,
When all is done and said
Defiant, proud and tall
Don't you think my head
Looks far, far better
On me, than on a wall?

Yes, I'm afraid that I see myself using my watercolor direct sketches as my daily sketches for the time being. Let's look on the bright side, though. This specific challenge ends at the end of this month, and at the rate I'm going, there are going to be days when I'll make more than one watercolour - yesterday for example - and days when I won't make any, so there will be some ink sketches coming this month, I'm sure.

As for this choice, well, while I was in Kaunas in April I visited the Zoological Museum - where I sketched a coelacanth - and one thing I didn't like about it was a room literally full of mounted deer heads and antlers. As the verse says - I think they look far better still attached to the living animal.

One Sketch #68) #30x30 Direct Watercolour 1 - Spaghetti Bolognese ingredients

Put these things together
Then reveal
My version of a classic
"British" meal.

Yes, today is the first day of the 30 day 30x30 Direct Watercolour challenge I posted about a week or two ago. You can see that I sometimes use watercolour on my ink sketches, but I've never sketched directly just with paint like this. I quite like it.

One Sketch #67) Ibex

It cannot be too hard to cope
With the fact I'm not an antelope
So would you people please take note
Misnaming me really gets my goat.

Yes, I felt for variety's sake I ought to pick something other than a Swansea building to sketch for today, and so I came to settle on the ibex. Why? Well, I'm a long time quizzer, and the ibex is one of those creatures where people almost always get the wrong idea about what it is. If you ask people what sort of mammal is an ibex, I guarantee that the majority, if they answer at all, will call it an antelope. Yet it's a goat, and when you look at it, it is hard to imagine why anyone would think that it's anything else.

One Sketch #66) Mount Pleasant Baptist Church

A place of quiet prayer
And of peace
Transplanted to South Wales
Via Ancient Greece

Yes, being as it's half term week and Swansea is literally on my doorstep, it's another sketch of an interesting Swansea building for today. I look at the portico of the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, and more than anything else I'm reminded of the original Tate Britain Gallery in London.