One Sketch 333) Hippo

Whenever I've been with a hippo
He's never afraid to let rippo
Each gigantic fart
Is only the start
-Be wary of giving him lippo.

That's terrible. Why a hippo today? No idea, other than some days you just know are going to turn out to be hippo days - no point resisting it.

One Sketch 332) (Weds 20th February) Fleet Street

City of Smoke
Frozen in monochrome
Between two wars.

Now you know that I love street scenes, don't you. You might also know that I love Old London - although anyone who says I grew up in Old London is unkind and technically inaccurate. Born in the 1960's, don't you know. I was looking at some old photos looking down Fleet Street towards St. Paul's, and was very struck by the one which I based this sketch on.

One Sketch 331) (Tuesday 19th Feb) Favourite Smells

Citrus, coffee
Roses, bread
What's your favourite smell instead?

OKay, not the nicest sketch I've ever made. The prompt for this one was favourite smells, and rather than do just one I sketched 4 of them.

One Sketch 330) Clement Attlee

Unsung heroes
Don't always come
in Uniform

The prompt on Sketching Every Day today was Dead President ( or Prime Minister). Well, I did consider going down the obvious path with Lincoln or Kennedy, but then I'm a Brit, and their praises have been sung often enough (and in JFK's case, his vices as well). So let's give a cheer for the memory of Clement Attlee. Maybe he suffered by comparison with the colourful and witty Winston Churchill, to whom he was Deputy Prime Minister during world war II. However many people, of whom I am one, would argue that Clement Attlee was a far more effective politician than Churchill - who was absolutely the right man in the right place in 1940, I make no bones about that. Still, it's difficult to make a case that Churchill, had he won the election in 1945, would have done so much for the ordinary person in the UK as Attlee's government did. We would certainly not have had our National Health Service, and it's quite likely that we'd have embarrassed ourselves as a nation trying to hang onto our overseas Empire. Attlee's groundbreaking Labour Government, elected by landslide in 1945, had its share of failures, but considering the almost impossible difficulties they faced, what with the country having been bankrupted by World War II, it's incredible that they achieved as much as they did.

One Sketch 329) Featured artist Alphonse Mucha

Lines on a blank page
Are all I can offer
 Sometimes
That's enough.

Today's prompt in Sketching Every Day was featured artist Alphonse Mucha. He's pretty well known, but a brief potted biog is that he was a Czech artist who lived and worked in Paris during the Art Nouveau period leading up to the First World War. He was particularly known for his lavish posters and illustrations. I did toy with trying to reproduce one, but then I found the original of this pencil sketch, and decided tis would be doable within a reasonable period of time, and also would give me a chance to keep my hand in with an ordinary graphite pencil.

One Sketch 328) Gone With The Wind Movie Poster

Rhett Butler, a lusty old ram,
Did not waste a second's time, ma'am.
He grabbed Scarlett's waist
And kissed her with haste
Cos frankly, he don't give a damn.

Prompt on Sketching Every Day today was movie poster. As I commented when I posted this there, when it comes to movie posters, in fact, when it comes to a lot of things, I'm really old school. I've always liked this poster, so it was a bit of a no brainer to use it.

One Sketch 327) (Friday 15th Feb) Monsieur Orson Peluche

The teddy examines the train
"A mystery here, yet again!"
No driver, no guard
Oh isn't it hard
Such mysteries drive me insane"

I really didn't have time to make anything approaching a proper sketch yesterday. So I started doodling with a red biro on a piece of file paper during lunchtime and ten minutes later this is what I'd come up with. This is Orson Peluche (ours en peluche) the world famous Belgian teddy near detective, in a scene from his most famous case, "Orson Peluche et la Locomotive Abandonee. He has just discovered the abandoned locomotive and suspects foul play!