Finished the sketchbook (and started the next)

 Yes, gentle reader, I have filled the sketchbook Pip and Ollie bought me for Christmas. Pip is my oldest child, while her sister, Jess, is the youngest of the five. She and her husband, my son in law Dan, took a week off from work last week. They decided to visit Castell Coch, Caerphilly Castle and St. Fagan's Open Air Museum of Welsh Life last Monday. Being as I was 1) off on the sick from work, ad 2) at a loose end they invited me. I've made sketches in St. Fagan's before, but never sketched the reconstructed Gwalia general store before. So here it is.

So that's the book complete. If you'd like to look at all of the fifty sketches in the one place there's a link to them in my links section - it's Christmas 2023 Sketchbook. Look, I'll make it easier for you - here's the link - Christmas 2023 Sketchbook 

The sketchbook itself is a hardbacked book, by Mont Marte, landscape format, consisting of fifty pages. I've thoroughly enjoyed drawing in it, although I will say that the paper is a wee bit absorbent, and the lines you make do come out a wee bit thicker than in other books I've used. It's meant that I really have avoided sketching in anything thicker than a 0.1mm fineliner.

So on Friday I prepared the car for a trip away with the family. I was pleased with this burst of industry and so decided to buy myself a new sketchbook as a reward. I might well have gone for Mont Marte again, but none of my usual suppliers could supply me. So instead I bought a forty six page hardback sketchbook by Seawhite of Brighton, portrait format. I made three sketches over the weekend but have only scanned the third of them so far. Here it is:-

Yes, it's back to my perennial favourite, 19th century London. This is Holborn (pronounced Ho'burn). Some of these timber framed buildings are still standing, although it's fair to say that they have been tidied up a bit. Old Holborn, the title, is a reference to a brand of tobacco available in the UK. My father was a dedicated smoker all of his life - which is one of the reasons why this life was a short one- and he rolled his own. (Dirty sod.) Old Holborn was his tobacco of choice, and many was the time he would send me across the road to Mr. East's corner shop to ask for half an ounce of Old Holborn and a packet of green rizlas. What can I say? I was pretty young - under 10 IIRC - and the authorities were a lot less fussy about kids buying smoking paraphernalia than they are now. I can reassure you that I have never smoked a cigarette in my life - Dad's example was more than enough to put me off. The packet of Old Holborn had a picture of the same buildings on it, although not as detailed or aesthetically pleasing as my one, I'd like to think. 

As for the Seawhite sketchbook, I do find that the paper is a little bit less absorbent than the Mont Marte. I've been able to achieve some fine lines and shading with mostly a 0.03mm fineliner. 

Nearly done

 Yes, gentle reader, I have very nearly finished filling up the sketchbook I was bought for Christmas. I'm up to forty nine sketches with just one clean page left. Here's numbers forty six to forty nine.

This is Kent's Hever Castle. Last week I joined a new art group. I had my book and pens, but nothing to sketch. So I checked my phone and looked at the photos. Last July for my daughter Jess' birthday her husband Dan and I took her on a trip to the castle. Jess is very interested in the Tudors and this is where Anne Boleyn grew up. And yes, Jess has claimed this sketch when I finish the sketchbook.

I love transport and it struck me last week that despite the number of times I've crossed the English Channel I have never ridden on a hovercraft. This is the huge SRN4.It's the largest civil hovercraft ever used commercially and as well as passengers it also carried vehicles. They were used from 1968 until 2000, carrying over 200 passengers and 30 vehicles. Only 1 still remains.

This combines a couple of things I love. The location is Ealing Broadway. Ealing is the part of West London in which I grew up. It also has a tram in it. This particular type of tram is called a Feltham Tram, which was in service in London from the 1930s. 

Where I grew up in Ealing we were not so very far from Heathrow Airport. We were on the flight path and I grew up used to the sight and sounds of planes flying over the house. I really liked the idea of drawing a picture showing how Heathrow has changed . Propeller planes like this were still flying out of Heathrow when I used to cycle to the airport and watch the planes from the Southern Perimeter road - British Airways still had some Vickers Viscounts on some short haul destinations. 

It's Been A While

 It's been over a month since I last posted. Sorry about that. I've been off work with mental health issues, then back in work, then off again with he same issues. Add to that a week in Bucharest. The good news is that I've kept going with the sketches even though I haven't been posting them. Here's the latest 

A significant number of drawings in this sketchbook relate to my personal family history. I started working on researching it over 20 years ago and have found out a decent amount about all sides of my family. The drawing above related to my father's mother's father. Edgar George Bennett was killed on the first day of the 3rd battle of Ypres in 1917. This one shows the utter devastation visited on the city.

My mother's mother's family owned a prosperous tailors in Windsor for a lot of the 19th century. The premises are still there, but they are now a Lloyd's Bank.

My mother's father's great grandfather John Joycewas the village blacksmith in the charming village of Chilton Foliat near Hungerford, Berks. 

John's son, my 2x great grandfather, did rather well for himself. He picked up an education somewhere, and became a clerk. At one time he ran the village school in Fernhurst in Sussex before returning to London and clerking, eventually settling in Ealing, where I grew up. 

Away from Family History for a bit. This was one of a small number of sketches that I made during a city break in Bucharest. I love metros and trams and whenever I go to a city with either, or both, I always try to make a sketch of them.

A church in the centre of Bucharest Old Town. There was a massive line of people around the front and so I found a wall to sit on around the back and made this. It wasn't very cold, but I was frozen and my arthritis was aching when I got up. 

The older style of Bucharest tram - I prefer this sort. 

Another Family History picture. My great, great grandfather Peter Clark was a stoker in the early days of steamships. When he met my soon to be great great grandmother he came ashore and spent the rest of his working life as a stoker in a steelworks in the Dundee area. 

Old London Town. Apart from growing up in West London, one arm of my family lived and worked in the Covent Garden area and would surely have been familiar with this particular view of Fleet Street looking towards Ludgate Hill and St. Paul's Cathedral.

Not family history this time. This is he Mumbles tramway, which was the first ever passenger railway in the whole wide world, when it opened in 1807. Then the wagons were horse drawn. This is from the fifties, when the largest trams ever used in the UK were used. Sadly the tramway was bought up by the bus operators. The trams were scrapped and the tracks pulled up. The building in the picture that housed Blackpill tram station still exists and is one of very few tangible reminders of the tramway. 

Hanwell Broadway, Ealing. I grew up specifically in Hanwell, and this shows the Broadway as it looked just a few years before I was born. 

This particular one relates to a 3x great uncle, Jabez Rainbow. Jabez was in the army, and he got so off his face on laudanum that he cut the throat of his mistress in a pub in St. Albans. He was sentenced to transportation to Van Diemen's Land for fourteen years, although he ended up spending the rest of his life there. His descendants live in Tasmania to this day. The Edwin Fox is, I believe, the last surviving convict ship in the world.

My father, George Clark, joined the Army immediately on leaving school, and he was still in the army several years later when he met my Mum. In the army he learned his trade as a motor mechanic. He was a good one too when he was taking time and trouble, concentrating, and sober. Sadly the days when he was like this became fewer and farther between. Still, I remember him working in a succession of garages just like this one when I was young. 

The earliest Clark ancestors I have yet managed to trace were my 3x great grandfather James and his father, my four x great grandfather George Clark. George owned a boat in the small coastal town of Panbride. I don't know for certain that they were fishermen, but it was very much a fishing community at the time, so I think it's a fair bet. 

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I have five more pages to fill in the sketchbook I was given on Christmas Day. I want to try to finish it off so that I can say that all of the sketches are pretty detailed, and representative of the best that I can do. Not far to go now.