It's Tommy this and Tommy that

Last week I wrote a post about how my Mary tin collection has now been augmented by a Queen Victoria (2^nd) Boer War Chocolate tin. 

I said in that post “the Boer War was not, in my opinion, Great Britain’s finest hour as a country and it’s certainly not a part of our shared history that I would personally celebrate.” I will certainly stick by this. If you need reasons, well, the British invention of concentration camps, in which a conservative estimate of 26,000 died of disease and starvation ought to be enough. Add that to the fact that the grounds for war were extremely shaky, and the end of the war saw the annexation of the two Boer republics, to which the British Empire had no legitimate claim other than by right of conquest.

So as I say, it’s not in my opinion something to remember with pride. But then war is not. War is not always a case of good against evil, nor right against wrong. I think Siegfried Sassoon put it in a nutshell when he spoke of writing about ‘the pity of war’. Sassoon, of course, was writing about the First World War. The first World War left a lasting and definitive mark upon the UK, partly because it was the first war which put citizens at home in danger and partly because there must have been few, if any families who did not lose someone to death of injury. According to the Imperial War Museum there are over 100,000 memorials to the fallen of the two World Wars throughout the UK. Not all of these are public statues or significant monuments, but there’s still probably not many towns of any size that don’t have some form of memorial. I wondered if there are any memorials to the Boer War. According to Google, there’s between 1000 – 2000. Now, I would still imagine that a significant proportion are plaques of different sizes in Parish churches, but nonetheless it surprises me that there are that many.

I’ve made two sketches on the subject. This first one, made in the Leuchtturm 1917 book as one of the last sketches in it, is based on a photograph from the time.

I imagine that this shows the kind of scene which would have occurred when the Tommies received their New Year chocolate gift tins. Incidentally, I did read that it cost Queen Victoria 3d (three old pence) to have each tin manufactured and sent to South Africa. Many of the soldiers wanted to send their tins home to their families, and when they did so they found that they would have to pay five shillings – a very significant amount of money back then.

Which kind of tells you a lot about how the soldiers were treated. Consideration was given to introducing conscription into the British Army for the Boer War, but this was rejected. Every man was a volunteer, and what really interests me is the way that the soldiers were treated. The finest Local Education Advisor for English for the old West Glamorgan as was, Phil, once suggested to me that we shouldn’t be only concentrating of the poetry of the Great War, and he introduced me to Kipling’s Barrack Room Ballads, in particular this poem, Tommy, from 1890 –

TOMMY.’

I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’ beer,

The publican ’e up an’ sez, ‘We serve no red-coats here.’

The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,

I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:

O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy go away’:

But it’s ‘Thank you, Mister Atkins,’ when the band begins to play,

The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,

O it’s ‘Thank you, Mister Atkins,’ when the band begins to play.

 

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,

They give a drunk civilian room, but ’adn’t none for me;

They sent me to the gallery or round the music ’alls,

But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy wait outside."

But it’s ‘Special train for Atkins’ when the trooper’s on the tide,

The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, etc.

 

O makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep

Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;

An’ hustlin’ drunken sodgers when they’re goin’ large a bit

Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.

Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, ’ow’s yer soul?’

But it’s ‘Thin red line of ’eroes’ when the drums begin to roll,

The drums begin to roll, my boys, etc.

 

We aren’t no thin red ’eroes, nor we aren’t no black-guards too,

But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;

An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints;

Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints.

While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy fall be’ind’;

But it’s ‘Please to walk in front, sir,’ when there’s trouble in the wind,

There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, etc.

 

You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all;

We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.

Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face

The Widow’s uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Chuck him out, the brute!’

But it’s ‘Saviour of ’is country’ when the guns begin to shoot;

An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ everything you please;

An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool — you bet that Tommy sees!

RUDYARD KIPLING.

Isn’t that wonderful? Makes you think again about Kipling, who’s often seen as the fully paid up, jingoistic poet laureate of Imperialism. Mind you, Kipling did write Britain’s favourite poem (according to a BBC poll) ‘If’ as a tribute to Leander Starr Jameson. Jameson led the eponymous Jameson Raid, a private military excursion into the Transvaal Boer Republic. This was a spectacularly catastrophic fiasco, and one of the events leading up to the Boer War. Kipling is believed to have written the poem for his young son John, as advice on navigating the complexities of life. On the outbreak of the Great War, father and son both saw this as a great opportunity for heroism in the name of the Empire. John, like his father, was very shortsighted and was rejected for combat. Rudyard was an active member of the War Propaganda Bureau, hugely influential in his own right and a personal friend of Lord Roberts, incidentally the successful British commander in chief in the Boer War. John was promptly commissioned into the Irish Guards. John arrived in the front line during the 1915 Battle of Loos. He had lost his identification disc. He was undoubtedly killed, but his body was not  identified until the 1990s.

Rudyard would not accept that John was dead rather than missing until 1919. The guilt he felt throughout the rest of his life is clearly seen in two bitter lines he wrote,

“If any question why we died,

Tell them, because our fathers lied.” Two lines, which, in their own way, are every bit as powerful as Wilfred Owen’s revered “Dulce et Decorum Est”, in which he gives the truth about the old lie that it is sweet and proper to die for your country.

As I said, there are quite a few Boer War Memorials throughout the country. I like this one, from Darlington and made this sketch of it in the Crawford and Black sketchbook:-

I really like this because it’s an ordinary soldier, not some walrus-moustached pompous stuffed shirt on horseback. Thank you Mr. Atkins.

I Don't Get It

I don’t get it

In my last post I gave the damning verdict that the Crawford and Black sketchbook is ‘just about usable’. This rather unkind observation was prompted by the thinness of the paper, which means it allows fine liner to bleed through and also the surface which is more resistant to the pen than I like. Here’s a recent sketch I made in it.

That's not dirt on the right of the picture. That's where the fineliner from the sketch on the other side of the page has bled through. 

Well, yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and try it with watercolour. Here’s the picture

Shiver me timbers, yo ho ho and dare I say it, a bottle of rum into the bargain. I was very pleasantly surprised with the brightness of the colours 

This is what I don’t get. I decided not to do a full page landscape of the sort which I have done in other journals because I couldn’t see how the paper could possibly cope. So I made this pirate sketch. I love fictional pirates – always loved Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” and the first couple of Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I have to say I was extremely surprised just how brightly the colours came out. They blend wet on wet as well as in most of the sketching journals I’ve used which you can see on the hat. But the most surprising thing is there is no bleeding through of the paint on the other side of the page. It has cockled and the other side of the page doesn’t look as if it will be the easiest surface to draw on, but again, it hasn’t done as badly as the Derwent academy book I used recently.

It’s kind of counter intuitive. My mind tells me that paper that is 115gsm like this should be quite a bit worse when you use watercolour on it. I think that the next thing will be, when I have time, to do a full watercolour landscape in it to see how it works out.

As for fine liner, the bleeding through is really annoying. I don’t find it a forgiving or enjoyable paper to work on. But the results aren’t necessarily that bad as I think I’m starting to get to grips with it. See what you think. These were both made in the Crawford and Black sketchbook.

This is a response to a prompt in the Daily Drawing Challenge group on Facebook - 0.2mm fine liner

This is Ongar station, back in the days when it was the very last station on the end of the Central Line. 

That’s something.

--------------------

Yesterday I introduced you to the Nassau sketchbook I started last week. Here’s a couple of the pictures:-

North American Bison - 0.2mm fine liner Nassau sketchbook

Joe Louis - 0.2mm fine liner. This was a response to a prompt in the Facebook group Daily Drawing Challenge

The book is okay. The surface isn’t quite as uneven as the Crawford and Black, but my first impression is that it isn’t as enjoyable to sketch in as more expensive books I’ve used. But one thing I never noticed until I scanned some of the pictures is just how off white the paper is – which wasn’t obvious to me when I made the sketches. I have mixed feelings about this sort of ivory coloured paper. The paper in the Royal Talens Art Creations sketchbook is maybe even more ivory and I enjoyed using that book. However I think it can have an effect on the colour values when you apply watercolour. Time will tell on that one.

Sketchbook Challenge Update

Okay, so let me tell you where I am with the sketchbook challenge. I finished filling my Leuchtturm 1917 sketching journal last Wednesday.

Now that I’ve finished the journal I’ll summarise my feelings about it. The covers do feel quite a bit thinner than those of Moleskine or Seawhite, and they do look to be bowing out slightly. Having said that though this didn’t get any worse all the time that I was using it. The book coped well with no ill effects from living in my rucksack for five weeks and that time included a sketching trip to Tallinn in Estonia.

112 pages is a decent amount. The paper is white, which I prefer to off white. I’d say that it’s the best journal I’ve used for making sketches in coloured fine liner, better than Moleskine and even better than the Seawhite journal, and this surprised me. It copes with Watercolour in a similar way to the Moleskine, which is okay but it’s not as good as the Seawhite on this score. It works perfectly well with black fine liner. I won’t lie, it’s a book I enjoyed sketching in. But then at the price, that’s the least I’d expect. The way that the book is constructed, though, the pages don’t really open flat in the way that both Moleskine and Seawhite do and that’s a surprising drawback considering that it’s priced as a premium product

I’m afraid that I can’t get away from that price. I do make jokes about being a member of the International Cheapskates Union and I do like a bargain, but I am prepared to spend over the odds when it is a guarantee I’m getting something I wouldn’t get with a cheaper product. But I just don’t see what it is about this journal that makes it twice as expensive as the Seawhite. It’s not twice as good. In fact, as a sketchbook of all trades, I think the Seawhite has the edge even if you don’t even think about the price. In that way it’s similar to the Moleskine.

Nassau Urban Sketching Set. This contains my next daily sketchbook for the challenge

My next main sketchbook then is a brand I haven’t used before. For Christmas 2024 my youngest daughter Jess gave me a Nassau Urban Sketching kit. A little research shows me that Nassau Fine Art is owned by CCV Companies BV who are based in the Netherlands. I believe that the emphasis with Nassau is on affordable art supplies. After all, the Urban Sketching Kit contains the 120 page journal, 8 fine liner pens, a 2 pencils and an eraser. All for an average price of £12. You know, it strikes me that it’s a pretty good idea, putting all you need to start urban sketching into a kit. After all, it means you can buy the kit, try out urban sketching to see if you like it, then maybe spend a bit more money on equipment when you know that it’s something that you’re going to keep on doing.

Nassau Urban Sketching Sketchbook.
Bigger than Moleskine - smaller than Seawhite.

The size of the sketch book is a little unusual. It’s a tiny bit bigger than the Moleskine book, but not quite A5. I do think that it’s trying hard to give a moleskine vibe, as it looks very similar. It doesn’t have an interior document pocket but you can only expect so much for the price.

Spot the Difference.
Left - Nassau - Right Moleskine

As it is I’ve only made about a dozen sketches in it so far. Almost all of them have been in black, Unipin fine liner. I haven’t tried the fine liners that came in the set yet. I did use a bit of shading in coloured fine liner in one sketch, and it didn’t show through, but it was pretty light shading so we’ll see how it works in other sketches. The paper doesn’t feel very rough but my first impression is that the pen doesn’t quite skate over the paper as it does with some of my other sketchbooks. The results look quite similar to what I was achieving in the Amazon Basics book, which isn’t bad at all.

Talking about the pen not skating over the page, I’m persevering with two sketchbooks on the go. If you missed my post about this, basically while I’m working in a main sketchbook, in this case the Nassau, I will also try to make one sketch a day in the Crawford and Black (The Works own brand.) This has 160 pages in it, so I reckoned that if I can use 40+ pages in it before it becomes my main daily sketchbook then I can reduce the number of pages left to manageable proportions. Smart, eh? Well, please yourselves. If nothing else, at least it proves that I will be able to use the C and B as a main daily sketch book when the time comes. It’s not great, the paper is rough and just too thin. But it’s just about usable.

The truth about my Mary Tins - a Tale of 6 Tins

Well, the continuing saga of the Mary tins. . . well it continues. So, to recap,  in 1914 Princess Mary, daughter of King George V and Queen Mary, decided that she wanted to send a Christmas gift to all British troops on active service on the Western Front. When it was shown to her that she couldn’t afford it, the idea was to have a publicly funded appeal to raise the money to do so which was so successful that, eventually, the gift was given to everyone in the British and Empire armed forces, including nurses. The gifts were presented in a very fetching brass tin and these tins eventually became known as Mary tins.

Now, through a combination of things I have developed an interest in the First World War. For Christmas 2025 my younger brother bought me a Mary tin. I absolutely love it. Even without the history behind it I think it is a lovely object.

My original tin. I thought this was the genuine article. . . at first

This led me to do a little research about Mary tins. One of the things I discovered was that in 2014 the Daily Mail made a promotional offer to their readers to provide them with a replica Mary tin I think they had to collect tokens or vouchers from the paper. I immediately wondered just how good a replica they were. To cut a long story short I found one for a reasonable price on an auction site and bought it. The Daily Mail replica is much, much lighter than the tin my brother gave me and the embossing detail on the lid seems much cruder.

Daily Mail 2014 reproduction. 

On an online forum I found out that the first reproduction Mary tins appeared as early as the 1920s. The Royal Family objected and so the cameo image of Princess Mary was removed and replaced with the year 1914 inside the roundel. I’m told that these were called commemorative tins, to distinguish them from the original Mary tins. You can buy a modern reproduction of these Commemorative tins today, so what I have here is really a reproduction of a reproduction.

The commemorative tin reproduction. Reproduction of a reproduction

Well, when you have two tins you have two tins. When you have three then you have a collection, and mine was growing. The Daily Mail was not alone in commemorating the centenary of the original Mary Tins. In 2014 royal grocers Fortnum and Mason made their own tin. This was inspired by the Mary tins rather than being a replica in the same way as the Daily Mail tin. It’s more narrow than the originals and has what looks to be the head of Britannia where Princess Mary’s was. Instead of Mary’s head being flanked by M and M, Britannia’s is flanked by F and M for obvious reasons. The tins, called Tommy’s Tins, contained chocolate and miniature playing cards. They were distributed to members of the Armed Forces in Afghanistan. I’d like to think that the Princess would have approved.  

Fortnum and Mason 2014 centenary Tommys Tin. Inspired by the original,  but not pretending to be a faithful replica.

So, with the tin my brother gave me, the Daily Mail tin, the Fortnum and Mason tin and commemorative tin reproduction, I thought that my mini collection was complete. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, though. When I obtained my Daily Mail replica I was struck by the difference between the way the lid attaches to the body of the tin on the replica and the way it attaches on my first tin. In the replica the underside of the lid attaches inside the main body of the tin, while my original attaches around the outside of the main body. The embossing of the design started to worry me as well. The face of the Princess is flat and not contoured at all. In the Christmas 1914 inscription there is no full stop.Then there’s the weight of the tin. It isn’t just that it’s heavier, but that it’s so much heavier. My suspicions were heightened when I read a description of a fake that I found on an online forum that matched my original perfectly. The person who posted the description believed it had been made in India, but I don’t know if that was just a guess.

In one way, feeling that my first tin was what famous art forger Tom Keating would call a ‘Sexton Blake’ didn’t stop me still thinking that it’s a lovely object. But I’d come too far to find that I didn’t yet own even one genuine tin to just leave it there. I bought a rather battered old genuine tin, which has seen better days, but it dispelled any doubt I had that my first tin might still be genuine.

At last the genuine article. A real 1914 Princess Mary Gift Fund Tin

The tin is noticeably heavier than the replica, but only a little and its far lighter than the ‘Sexton.’ The lid of the genuine tin attaches to the inside of the main body, and even though the embossing on the lid has taken some punishment over the years you can tell that the Sexton was not embossed in the same way or with the same care.

Mary Tins - Left to right. Top row - left - genuine tin, right Daily Mail 2014 replica. Second row - left - the 'Sexton' (fake) - right - Commemorative tin reproduction - Bottom  2014 Fortnum and Mason Tommys Tin

Well, that’s my Mary tin collection and I don’t currently plan to obtain any more. However, you may have noticed that this is a tale of 6 tins. The 6^th tin is not a Mary tin at all.

I’m certainly not an expert on war as such and I can’t say I find that the business of war is the most interesting subject in itself. I explained that I am interested in the Western Front, partly because of the poetry and partly because of the death of my great grandfather in the Bettle of Passchendaele and how this led me to amassing a small collection of fakes, reproductions, replicas and reimagining’s of Mary tins and one original.

What I didn’t mention was that when Princess Mary conceived the idea of sending a Christmas present to all of the British and Empire soldiers on the Western front she was following the example set 14 years earlier by her great grandmother, Queen Victoria, during the Boer War. I hope it’s not too controversial if I say that the Boer War was not, in my opinion, Great Britain’s finest hour as a country and it’s certainly not a part of our shared history that I would personally celebrate. But through my interest in the First World War Princess Mary tins that I wrote about in part one I couldn’t help wanting to learn about their predecessor.

In 1899 Queen Victoria decided to send a box of chocolate to each private soldier, NCO and officer fighting in South Africa during the Boer War. Interestingly Victoria’s gift was not to be sent as a Christmas Gift, but a New Years gift for 1900.

Victoria planned to send a tin containing chocolate to each soldier. Only wanting the best for her boys she requested superior chocolate makers Cadbury’s to make and fill the tins. This put Cadbury’s into a dilemma. They did not want to refuse any commission, let alone such a patriotic one, from the Queen. However, Cadbury’s owners were Quakers and they did not want to profit from war or to be seen profiting from war. The solution to their problem was that they invited the Frys and Rowntree, both also firms owned by Quakers, to share the commission. With regards to not profiting from war each firm donated the chocolate inside the tins, while the tins were paid for by Queen Victoria.

The original design for the tins was made by Barclay and Fry of Southwark, but each of the three firms used a different manufacturer. The three companies did not want to put their logo on the boxes. Queen Victoria wanted the soldiers to recognise that she was sending them a quality product so she insisted that each firm put their name on the chocolate itself within the tins. As I said, the tins from the three different firms do look very similar. However it is possible to tell the difference between the tins supplied by the different companies. The easiest to distinguish is the Cadbury’s tin, which is narrower than the other two. The Fry’s and Rowntree’s tins have very similar dimensions.

After completing my Mary tin collection as described, I decided that it would really be nice if I could obtain a Victoria chocolate tin, and so I did so. 

Queen Victoria New Year 1900 chocolate gift tin

My tin, as you can see in the photograph, isn’t in anything like perfect condition, but like the Mary tins I think it’s a very pleasing object. The photographs on the site from which I bought it showed that its proportions meant it was most likely not a Cadbury’s tin. But was it Fry’s or Rowntree’s? Research would be required, I was delighted to see.

I now know that my tin was made for Rowntree. The first two distinguishing marks are the number of beads around the Queen’s medallion and the clear gap between the Queen’s profile and the roundel – on the Fry’s tins the Queen's image touches the roundel in one place. At the bottom of the lid, the Queen’s name and message wishing the recipient a happy new year is slanting upwards to the right. The message on the Fry’s tin is evenly aligned with the bottom edge of the lid.

I mentioned that Princess Mary was following in the footsteps of her great grandmother 14 years after Victoria made her gift. Was Mary consciously inspired by Victoria? It’s hard to say. Did the Queen Victoria tin influence the design of the Princess Mary tin? On both tins the first thing you notice is the roundel with the royal profile. In all honesty it’s difficult to be certain one way of another.

As with the later Mary tins, the Boer War chocolate tins seemed to have been pretty highly prized by the recipients, since they are still fairly common even a century and a quarter later. I’m pretty sure that there was an episode of Dad’s Army in which Corporal Jones was telling Pike all about receiving his chocolate tin in the Boer War, and saving it and keeping it safe, until one day, much later, he decided he fancied a piece of chocolate, opened it and found that the chocolate had been eaten by his best mate. it was funnier on screen.

I think that’s it for the tin collection now. Although there’s always the Cadbury’s and Fry’s tins out there . . .

Art Studio (The Range) Own Brand Sketchbook

I feel that I should give you some kind of excuse for this. I’ve bought another sketchbook. Here I am, slaving away trying to fill the sketchbooks that I’ve already got – so much so that I even have two sketchbooks on the go at the same time now (see my previous post) so what the hell am I doing buying more? As it is I’m more than 2/3 of the way through the Leuchtturm sketching journal I began on 8/2/26. That still leaves:-

A 1/3 full Moleskine

2 Unopened Moleskine

A Nassau sketching journal

A Morrison’s own brand journal

A Crawford and Black sketching journal (currently my secondary journal)

A Shore and Marsh sketching journal

An Amazon Basics A5 Portrait notebook.

That’s 8, most of which have at most only 1 sketch in them already and most of which have a large number of pages in them. I worked it out that since starting the challenge in mid July, I have finished 6 sketchbooks (and am relatively close to finishing another). In the same period I’ve now bought 6 more.

In all honesty I did not set off from the house this morning with the intention of buying a new sketchbook. No, I set off to The Range to buy some new Uniball fineliners. If you’re UK based I don’t know how well you know The Range. For several years they’ve been my first port of call for good art supplies as opposed to cheap own brands. Well, recently the stock of proprietary brands in my local store has shrunk, while the amount of space devoted to the Range’s own brand – Art Studio – has grown hugely. This has been a source of disappointment to me. Thankfully they still do Uniball pens. Well, just as I was about to go and pay for my pens, this caught my eye.

It’s an A5 sketchbook. 100 pages of 160gsm paper for . . . £1.99. 1.9p per page. I don’t really like wire bound books, but £1.99! Had the paper been thinner, I wouldn’t have bought it. Had they had a casebound option in the shop, I wouldn’t have bought this. But as it was I couldn’t leave without buying one to try.

For reasons that I’ve already covered it’s going to be a while before I can really try this out. But I have made one sketch in it today.

You might notice that I’ve used coloured fine liners. This is partly because I’m enjoying using these so much in my Leuchtturm. But it’s also because it’s a pretty decent test of how robust the paper is. Because if I’m honest, to the touch it doesn’t really feel that heavy. Many of the sketchbooks I’ve used struggle with coloured fine liners. Well, I have to say that there is absolutely no show through on the other side of this page.

It’s far too early to review this having only made one drawing, but it has certainly passed the first test. Oh, I just wish it was case bound rather than wire bound.

2 Journals on the go

You know all about the sketchbook challenge so I won’t go through all the details again. I’m ploughing on through my Leuchtturm 1917 A5 journal, and with one day of this third week left to go I’ve already made 20 drawings in it this week. Happy days.

Now it occurred to me during the week that I’ll finish this journal in early March. Then I’ve a Nassau journal to use, but then I’ll either have to go back to Moleskine or start to use up the own brand books I’ve bought. Well, this gives me a problem. The thing about the own brand books is not just that they pretty much seem to have inferior paper in them, but that there’s so many pages in them. Let’s take the Crawford and Black (The Works own brand) I bought in November. Now, I stick with almost everything I said in my review. The paper really is not good. However, what I got wrong was that there were only 80 side of paper in it. No, there’s 80 pages and each page has 2 sides, so that’s a whopping 160. I don’t think it’s good value though because of the paper, but I must conceded that just in terms of cost the price per page is pretty good.

Now, at 160 pages it’s going to take more than 50 days to fill it even making three sketches a day. So I came up with this idea. While I’m making 3 sketches a day in the Leuchtturm and then the Nassau, I am also going to try to make one sketch a day in the Crawford and Black. By the time I’ve finished the Nassau I reckon I’ll have also made about 40 Crawford and Balck sketches and that will bring the total left down to manageable proportions. Here’s 4 sketches I’ve made in the last few days in the Leuchtturm and 4 I’ve made in the Crawford and Black. Can you tell the difference?

1) 

2)

3

4)

5) 

6)

7

8

So there you go. 8 pictures I've drawn recently but can you tell which were drawn in the £6 sketchbook and which were drawn in the £20+ sketching journal? Well, numbers 1,2 5 and 8 were all made in the £6 Crawford and Black and 3,4,6 and 7 were all drawn in the much more expensive Leuchtturm. You might have been able to tell because three of them were drawn in brown fine liner and it's very hard to use coloured fine liner in the Crawford and Black, because it shows through so badly on the other side of the page. You can see this in picture 1, where the dots of coloured fine liner from the drawing on the other side of the page show through badly.

For all that, though, I guess you can't see much of the difference between the books from these scans. My God, but you can feel it when they use them though. The C and B is just nowhere near as pleasurable a surface to draw on as the Leuchtturm 1917. Which seems pretty much a given considering that the Leuchtturm 1917 is more than 3 times the price. 

Well, my plan is to soldier on making one sketch a day in the C and B, then finish it after I've filled the Nassau.

Receiving his Mary Tin sketch

It did occur to me that maybe I could find some way of combining art – sketching with my recent interest in Mary tins and their replicas (if you missed this the best way for you to catch up would be to read the page from my links section).

Mary Tins

So this is my sketch based on a photograph showing a corporal on the Western Front opening his tin at Christmas in 1914. We can only imagine how the recipients must have felt when receiving their gift. The fact that so many of these tins still exist suggests that they must have been treasured by a lot of the recipients and continued to be so long after the tobacco and cigarettes had been smoked or the sweets had been consumed.