One Sketch #170) Sir Tom (Tuesday 11th September)

In the land of song
You gotta be something special
For other people to call you
The Voice.

Stuck for ideas I followed the prompt from Sketching Every Day. In September 6 days are consecutive letters of the alphabet with every seventh day being a specific artist. I decided at the start that each of my letters was going to pay some kind of tribute to South Wales, where I've made my home for the last 3 decades. So, J is for Jones, Sir Tom of that ilk, sixties survivor, and The Voice's The Voice. Now come on, you might not be a big fan, but admit, 'It's Not Unusual' must bring a smile to your face when you hear it.

One Sketch #169) Trevithick's Locomotive

And so the modern world began
To settle a bet
Between industrialists.

On 21^st February 1804, Cornishman Richard Trevithick demonstrated the world’s first working steam locomotive, and he did it on the tramway at the Penydaren Iron Works near Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. The purpose was to settle a bet between the iron works’ owner, Samuel Homfray, and his fellow iron master from nearby Cyfartha, Richard Crawshay. Trevithick’s locomotive worked, and Homfray won the bet, even though the locomotive’s weight broke many of the cast iron rails. To put this into perspective, this was 21 years before George Stephenson’s Locomotion worked the world’s first ever steam railway, the Stockton and Darlington, and 25 years before the Rocket inaugurated the first ever passenger railway between major cities, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

One Sketch #168) Hay on Wye - Booth's Book Store

Ah, I can never resist
The siren call of second hand books
The siren call 
Of leather bound, cloth bound
Unbound books
And the smell of old paper.
Old knowledge, old stories,
Old ideas
Whose time came, and went
Or never came at all.

This is Booth’s book shop in Hay on Wye, South Wales. In the late 70s Richard Booth opened the first secondhand book store in the town, buying books in bulk in the USA and shipping them back. His success led to other secondhand book stores opening in the town. It didn’t hurt either that Mr. Booth has an eye for publicity, and acts like declaring independence from the rest of the UK, and proclaiming himself the King of Hay brought him some nationwide publicity which can’t have been bad for business. There are still many, many secondhand bookshops in the town, and it is actually known as The Town of Books. Visitors come from all over the world, and in June the Hay Literary Festival is one of the world’s most prestigious, numbering President Bill Clinton among the illustrious figures who have participated.
Just for a change I made this sketch in Biro. I used to sketch a lot in biro, and this reminded me why I stopped using it! The first half of the sketch was fine, but then it started blotting, the ink stopped flowing smoothly - urrgghhh

One Sketch #167) Geraint Thomas

I've sometimes been told
That yellow can mean more
Much more than gold

We're up to letter G then in my homage to my adopted country. Geraint Thomas is, quite simply, one of South Wales’ greatest ever sportsmen. In the summer of 2018, Geraint won the Tour De France, becoming not only the first Welshman to win the world’s greatest cycle race, but also the first person ever born in the whole of the UK to win it. Previous British winners Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome were born in Belgium and Kenya respectively. Geraint Thomas is from Cardiff, and in August many thousands of people came to Wales’ capital city to welcome him home.

One Sketch #166) Hitchcock and Kubrick inspired by Clifford Bailey

Watch their films,
And you will always know
The mark of these two men
Who ran the show.

Yes, another prompt from sketching everyday. Both of these are based on portraits by the American artists Clifford Bailey. Hitchcock's skin in my picture is far too yellow and orange, which is a shame. The Kubrick isn't bad, though. I sketched this facing the other way from the Bailey original.

One Sketch #165 Port Talbot Steelworks Blast Furnace

Hotter than the fire of hell
We fill the night with marmalade smoke
And the smell of brimstone

I live in a town called Port Talbot, and it’s a town whose history for the last century has been intertwined with the steel industry. The steelworks dominates the town, and the blast furnaces, like the one you can see in the picture can be seen long before the rest of the town whichever direction you approach it from, whether by road or rail. In recent years the future of the steelworks has seemed to be in jeopardy, although things seem to have settled down more recently. I can only hope so. If anything happened to the steelworks it would be a devastating blow to the town

One Sketch #164) Ewenny Pottery

I do love cats
I have to say
-even if they're made
of clay.

E is for . . .Ewenny Pottery. Ewenny is a village just outside the sizeable town of Bridgend in South Wales. It is home to Ewenny Pottery, the oldest working pottery in Wales, dating back to 1610. For the last 200 years it has been run by the Jenkins family, who still run it today. Ewenny Pottery are known for some highly distinctive pieces, such as their trademark cats, and the many handled jug in the sketch.