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 #122) The Parting

A last kiss,
From a slowly moving train
I wonder,
Did they ever meet again?

First day of the school holidays, and I've had a lovely day. Still, one thing which my mind has been turning over is the fact that a few good friends, with whom I've taught for many years will not be coming back after the holidays, and so this idea of parting has been very much on my mind. Another blue monochrome special, and once again, though I say it as shouldn't, I really rather like the results. As I've said before, I just don't really get colour - but for some reason, if I stick to monochrome blue I come up with something I can live with.

OOH - I've just realised. This being sketch/day 122 - I've completed my first third of a year. I propose we open something fizzy to celebrate. Mine's a pepsi max thanks for asking.

One Sketch #121) Remo's Aberavon - Sponsored Walk

Last day of term
A sponsored walk
After weeks of sunshine
We got soaked.
Divine retribution
-or sod's law?

Yes, dearly beloved, the end has come. Well, the end of this school year, that is. Am I sorry? Am I hell as like. Still, we had a nice event this morning to bring things to a close - a sponsored walk to Aberavon Beach in aid of Alzheimer's charities.

One Sketch #120) Del Boy

Effervescent he (that means bubbly)
My opinion of the show?
Lubby jubbly.

I may have mentioned this before, but just in case I haven’t, let me start by saying that my ‘day’ job, as it were, is that I’m a teacher in an 11-16 Secondary School in South Wales. Not an Art teacher, no. I have no qualifications in Art at all. I do, however have a Postgraduate Certificate in Education – a PGCE, which is one of several qualifications, any of which enable you to teach in the UK. I also have an honours degree in English, so that’s what I’ve spent a little over 30 years teaching. Today (Monday) and tomorrow are the last two days of this academic year, after which we have a break of just over 5 weeks until the new year begins.

I know that the long summer holiday for teachers is a bone of contention. I may come back to this before I’ve finished this post. Still, once you get to the last couple of days, a much more relaxed attitude sets in. For one thing, attendance takes a nosedive. My first class today is usually one of my more ‘challenging’ classes. (translation from teacher speak –challenging = bloody awful)There were just 4 of them in school. On the principle that Art has charms to soothe the savage beasts, I gave them each a piece of paper, and told them about my challenge to make at least one sketch a day for a whole year, and showed them some of the pictures on this very blog. I asked them if they had any suggestions for what I might do for today’s sketch. One of them suggested a V12 Dodge Charger. Now, okay, I don’t have anything against sketching vehicles in general, and cars in particular. However, this just didn’t really light my candle. Then another of them suggested Del Boy. This surprised me a little, but it does at least show the lasting affection for the series “Only Fools and Horses”. I mean, these kids surely weren’t around when even the last Christmas Special was broadcast. 

There’s a couple of things I remember with great affection. I remember in one episode when Del’s father turned up from Heaven alone knows where, and Del, very much against the old rogue, described him with the memorable phrase “He sold his soul for half an ounce of Old Holborn!” Both my younger brother and I fell off our chairs laughing at that one, since we had often used such a phrase to describe our own father. Long story. 

When my kids were a lot younger, the only family holiday we could afford was taking the 26 hour bus to Calella in Spain, and staying in a ‘2 stars and lump it’ hotel. The drivers had a deal with a transport café somewhere in the south of France, and would stop there at stupid o’clock in the morning on the way there, and stupid o’clock in the evening on the way back. Well, the last time we took most of the kids must have been about 2005. The bus happened to stop while it was halfway through showing the 2002 Christmas Special of Only Fools and Horses. There was a mutiny. Seriously, all the passenger refused to get off the bus until the DVD was finished, even though these later specials weren’t really as good as the series had been in the 80s. Just my opinion, feel free to disagree. Finally, in 1985 I took my then girlfriend, who has been my now wife for the last 31 years, to meet some of my extended family in Brighton. As we were walking out of the station, who should we pass in the street? None other than David Jason. Sir David, I hope that you appreciate the way we smiled and nodded, but didn’t ask for autographs, or stop you to talk to us, or jump up and down shouting OMG it’s Del Boy etc. 

Hmm, I'm burbling again. I might say something about holidays tomorrow.

One Sketch #119) Llanelli Town Hall and Llanelli Library

Even under grey and glowering clouds
Such civic buildings still stand tall and proud.

So, yesterday I was out and about making a couple of direct watercolour sketches of Kidwelly Castle. Not quite so far west is the town of Llanelli. It's a interesting place. The most sizeable town between Swansea and Carmarthen, it has its fair share of impressive civic buildings and chapels which have survived for over 100 years - even if, like most towns, it has some rather crappy modern ones as well.

I decided to go back to have another go at line and wash with these. Unfortunately the particular pens I used, unlike my Faber-Castell favourites - ran when I applied the watercolour. I think that the Library especially is actually better than it looks here. For some reason my scanner sometimes has problems with colours, and here it has accentuated the greys, and hasn't given the actual tone values of the browns. Compositionally though I rather like this as a page. My Spanish sketching adventure is coming ever closer, and if I can aim to produce pages like this in my sketchbook , then I won't be unhappy.

One Sketch #118) Kidwelly Castle

I never will begrudge
Spending some hours
Sitting, painting these
Kidwelly towers.

There's a couple of reasons why I took it into my head to drive West for the best part of an hour to Kidwelly, west of Llanelli. Well, one reason, really, that is mighty Kidwelly Castle. However, there's two reasons why I decided to paint it today.

Back in 1991 I had only the two children - my oldest daughter, and my son. I passed my driving test that year, and my father in law was kind enough to give us his old Ford Fiesta. This proved to be a terrific little car which did us proud for four years. One of the first trips I took the kids on was to visit Kidwelly Castle. Mikey can only have been about 3 and a half, but I remember the trip with great affection, and I've taken each of the kids there at one time or another.

It isn't just lingering affection which drove me there today, though. For Kidwelly Castle was where I made one of my first ever attempts at a line and watercolour wash picture. I thought I'd see how far I've come in just over a year. So here's the original I did in 2017:-

Well, it's all in the eye of the beholder, and you might say, well, of course this older one doesn't look as good - it's a photo, not a scan. Well, here's the on the spot photo I took of one of today's by way of comparison.

Now, I'm very sorry, but as far as I'm concerned, that's case proven.

Sketching Tips 8) Sketching Vehicles

I don’t think there’s any special skill involved in sketching vehicles, but maybe what makes a difference is whether you like vehicles for their own sake or not. For example, there’s a world of difference between a sketch which has cars in it: -

And a sketch of a car: -

In the top picture it’s the footbridge which is the star. The cars, which are not particularly detailed and not brilliantly drawn, are just there to give the footbridge context and scale. In the second picture, the street furniture, the wall and the car behind are just outlines, which serve to highlight the car itself which is the star of the picture. If the cars are just a background feature, then you really don’t need many lines to suggest the shape of a car to the eye of the beholder. 

So, when you’ve decided that the car – or tram, bus or train – is the star of the picture, what then? Well, the first thing you need to think of is composition, and what I mean by that is, where are you going to put the viewer in relation to the vehicle. I’ll give a couple of examples to help explain this.  In this picture :-

- you can see that we, the viewers, are looking down onto the Bubble Car. This is appropriate, since it helps emphasise the diminutive size of the car which is one of its most interesting features. By the same token in this picture,

we’re looking up at the train. Our eyeline is roughly level with the bottom of the door nearest too us. This, and the rather extreme perspective serve to emphasise the train’s great size, power and speed.

Once you’ve worked out the viewer’s viewpoint in relation to the vehicle, then it’s worth spending some time deciding just how you’d like to contextualise the vehicle. I’ll explain that. Both of the vehicles above appear on the page themselves without any background. That’s because in those pictures I’m only interested in the qualities of the vehicle itself, and didn’t feel the need to contextualise them. However, adding background can help your sketch say more about the vehicle, and it’s not a bad thing to spend a bit of time considering just how much background, if any, you want to use. For example:-

The very light foliage in the background of this beautiful Jaguar XK120 conjures up an image of driving down summer country lanes with the top down. On this next picture:-

the railings and shaded shoreline are just enough to place this ice cream van at the seaside. With this Swansea tram:-

- I felt that the edge of the platform, the passengers and the pole carrying the cable overhead were enough to contextualise it. This can be compared with :-

Where I really wanted to include all the background details to help put it within a place and time within my childhood. This picture isn’t about the train so much as its about my memories of using the Tube, taking it to interesting places to see and things to do.

With this sketch, if you take away the airport buildings then it’s just a single decker bus, so the context is important to this sketch.

As for sketching in the vehicle itself, as with anything else you sketch it is a matter of looking, looking, looking, of getting the shapes right, and applying the shade in the right amount, in the right places. It sounds simple when you say it like that. Yet it needn’t be that complicated either. If you decide to go for a heavy contrast between areas of light and shade, you can end up with something like this:-

It's an effective depiction of a tank engine, even though the train itself really wasn’t a very complicated sketch, having so many areas of complete shading.

Of course, if you use more subtle shading, then you can make what looks to be a more accomplished sketch. This one underneath is not actually that well drawn – the front end of the boiler for example just isn’t quite right, but it still looks pretty good, I think, partly because of the amount of platform detail, and the contrast between the dark underside with the wheels, and the more lightly shaded boiler. 

Of course, if you’re feeling really confident and have time to really work at the sketch, then you can go to town on detail.

If you were to strip away the careful shading, what you’d be left with is still quite a complicated sketch, but nowhere near as complicated as it looks.

For me the attraction of sketching and painting steam engines is that they put a lot more of what they’ve got in the shop window than other types of train, or road vehicles. Look at even a rather simple tank engine and you’re still going to see pipes, domes, handles, and all other kinds of interesting bumps and protruberances.

Going back to my earlier point about viewpoint, you’ll notice that with each of these the viewer is looking up at the train, albeit to a slightly lesser extent than in the diesel train above. 

A few random points:-

·       When you’re sketching a car, bus, tram or train perspective and viewpoint are every bit as important as they are when you’re sketching buildings. If the viewer is looking up at a vehicle, this emphasises size and power, which can be enhanced by exaggerating the perspective more than normal.

·       You can always choose not to sketch in any background to the vehicle. However, if you just sketch in outlines of the background it can give the vehicle a context, while at the same time highlighting it.

·       Even really complicated vehicles, like steam locomotives, can be simplified through the use of areas of total shade, leaving you with a very simple set of outlines to sketch. Careful use of various gradations of shading can really give your sketch depth, body and definition.