One Sketch #18) Laisves Aleja in Kaunas (Thursday 12th April)

Laisves Aleja is a long, straight pedestrianised thoroughfare - whose name I believe translates into English as Freedom Avenue. It runs to the Archangel Michael Church, and almost has something of the aspect of a Parisian Boulevard.

It's well worth taking a stroll along its length - if you like architecture as I do you'll see a range of different styles. The avenue is well furnished with benches along its length, so it was very pleasant to sit down and make this watercolour sketch.

I quite like this. I don't find colour an easy thing to use or to judge, so I can't help being pleased when the end result resembles what I was trying to achieve in my head.

Sun is on my back
And now that the wind has dropped
Feel the breath of Spring

* To see ALL of my Kaunas Sketches , use the link on the right to visit my sister blog, Sketching Around Europe

One Sketch #16 Bristol Airport (Tuesday 10th)

D'Oh. I've just realised that the rucksack sketch I posted on Tuesday was actually made on Monday, and only posted on Tuesday. This has put me out of sync - the Bridge sketch posted yesterday was made on Wednesday. Therefore here's one of three sketches I made in Bristol Airport waiting for my flight on Tuesday. I shall renumber the Bridge one when I've posted this.

This could have been quite difficult. I'm sure that the beardy guy on the left was aware that I was sketching him and his friends, and it turned out that they were on the same flight as me. I was driven to sketching by boredom and frustration, since my flight was subject to a typical Ryanair one hour delay.

A sea of disgruntlement
Or an oasis of anticipation?
Some going here
Others there.
Nobody wants to stay.

* To see ALL of my Kaunas Sketches , use the link on the right to visit my sister blog, Sketching Around Europe

One Sketch #17) Vytautas the Great Bridge, Kaunas (Wednesday 11th)

Yes, I know that I haven't posted for several days, but that was because I couldn't log onto the blog in Kaunas. I still sketched ever day - in fact in 4 days I did the best part of 20 sketches. This first is from Wednesday 12th, my first full day in Lithuania. Whenever I go for a city break anywhere I always like to seek out the mot impressive or interesting bridge in the city, if it has one. I have a thing about bridges. This one is interesting because it was built in 1948, just after the end of war, and during the Soviet occupation.

I did cross the bridge - all part of the ritual - and again the next day, where I made a watercolour sketch of the Vytautas the Great Church as the other end.

Water flows below this bridge
Moved by the maelstrom of History

* To see ALL of my Kaunas Sketches , use the link on the right to visit my sister blog, Sketching Around Europe

One Sketch #15 My rucksack

It was a busy day for me yesterday. I' flying to Lithuania a little later today, and there were a lot of bits and pieces I was having to take care of. My rucksack is what I tend to take if I'm going for less than 5 days, so I've been sorting it out, taking out all but my sketching essentials to make way for less important stuff like clothes.

The trainer is added because it's the most comfortable pair I have, and one of the features of my city break sketching trips is walking. Don't get me wrong, I love public transport, but there's nothing quite like wandering around and just following your nose. This is my first trip of 2018, and I have to say it's a bit more off the beaten track than my visits to Prague, Alicante, Berlin and Budapest were in 2017.

An empty rucksack
A promise of new horizons
New places
Strange words
Hard beds in cheap hotels
A reminder of who I once was
And might have been

Blimey, that sounds a bit melancholy, doesn't it. I dash these lines down off the top of my head, so doubtless it's all deeply psychological. Despite that, I really enjoy these trips, and I'm looking forward to posting some interesting sketches - although the posting might have to wait until Saturday unless the hotel's wifi works well.

One Sketch #14 2000 Forints

Right, this came about because I'm off on my travels in a couple of days. - Ah - say you, seeing that I have sketched part of a 2000 forint note - the must mean you're off to Hungary! - . You'd think so, wouldn't you, if you know your currencies. However that's not the case. For the fact is that Hungary was the last place I visited in Europe, back at the start of November.

Here's the sketch: -

This is how it works. I've been trying to tie up some loose ends today, sorting out airport parking and what have you. One of the tasks I set myself was clearing out my rucksack. Lo and behold, this 2000 forint note was lurking in a side pocket. I suppose that I might have put it there for an emergency - although it would have had to be a cheap emergency, since 2000 forints is about £5.50

Well, there we are. I'm actually off to Kaunas this week, and I'm really rather looking forward to it. I paid three visits to central European cities in 2017 - Prague, Berlin and Budapest, and I enjoyed all of them. So going a little bit further North and East is rather exciting to me. Of course, Lithuania's currency is the Euro which makes life a bit easier. It also means that anything I don't spend will be kept for my next trip, or for Mary's next visit to her mother in Spain.

Well, there we are. That's week 2 done. Yay. Halfway to one month. What's that? Where's the verse? Oh very well, if you must. I will admit that I did a little research for this one, finding out that the chap on the note is Bethlen Gabor, former Prince of Transylvania . . .

Impassive figure on my note,
Were you just a sad old goat?
Did you suffer from some mania
Being Prince of Transylvania?

Apparently not, as he did much to develop his country - well, they wouldn't put an absolute rotter on a note, would they?

One Sketch #13 Aberavon Shopping Centre

I did make this sketch on Saturday, but again, time and life got in the way of posting it. So here we are. This is illustrative of the fact that I was looking after my granddaughter Mimi yesterday. Now, I'd made an offhand comment earlier in the week that when I saw her again, we'd do some painting together. I forgot about it, but apparently Mimi had been telling her mum all week that she was going to go painting with Grampy.

So, when she was dropped off at my house, I decided we'd make a special thing of it yesterday. I took Mimi into town to buy her a set of watercolours all for herself. This is the local shopping mall, called the Aberavon Shopping Centre: -

I haven't scanned Mimi's paintings yet, but I will do that later.
As for the accompanying verse

What can you say
For a shopping mall?
If you've seen the one
- You've seen them all.

One Sketch #12 In the Barbers

Yeah, I'll be honest, I found it very difficult to get any energy to do anything today. Since reading "Why We Sleep" I've really tried to cut right down on the amount of caffeine I'm drinking. I did sleep longer than 7 hours last night, but I've just not had any oomph today - caffeine withdrawal? Still, next week I'm heading off to Kaunas in Lithuania for a few days, and I wanted to get some Euros for the trip. While I was out, I popped into the barbers to get my hair cut, and made this very quick, surreptitious sketch while I was there: -

As you can see, it's just a very simple line drawing made very quickly on the spot, but sometimes you've just gotta work with what you've got. I remember having my hair cut in the same place this time last year, while I was off work with depression, and talking with the barber about my upcoming trip to Prague. It was while I was in Prague that I started to feel just a little more like myself - so a good memory.

As for verse. . .

It don't take long
To cut my hair
Each time I go
There's less hair there
I'm not quite bald
I think that's fair
But on top there's
More skin than hair.