Sketch Blog 2024
Out Sketching in 2024. This time I'm just adding pictures labeled with the day I painted them.
The lych gate, St Cadoc's Caerleon. Many people have seen my picture of the gate at st.Woolos, and thought for a moment it was Caerleon, so I thought I would try a picture of the actual one in Caerleon. The stone roof looks very 'Lych Gate' but the rest of the sonework, the cross on the tall thin spire above and the two pillars on either side look very much in the style of the cenotaphs and memorials built in early 20th century. Which turned out not to be a coincidence , reading the plaque inside the arch I found that the whole thing is a memorial to the Caerleon citizens killed in the 1914 -18 war. The most difficult thing in composing this picture was to find a view which wasn't dominated by huge and ugly bits of street furniture. If the picure went even a few millimeteres to the right there is a massive, and not particularly useful roadsign. Another one a few feet to the left of the image. If I painted more foreground in I would have had to include half a dozen more aesthically unwelcome bollards. I find it difficult to leave out stuff that is actually there - for one thing it isn't quite a real picture if I do, and it isn't as easy as you may think to do. In this picture though I did leave out a site safety notice pinned to the fence, and I streached the truth by moving some more attactive looking street furniture, the victorian post box, so that it could just creep into the left hand corner of the picture.
April 24th
When I finished painting the previous view I turned my painting stool round and painted the opposite scene at start of Commercial Road.
April 18th
This started off as a picture of the block on the left hand side - I liked the silhouette of the buildings with the spire of St.Paul's behind them. While I was painting the couple on the bench turned up and started feeding some of their chips to birds. The seagulls quickly bullied the pigeons out of the way, and made such a noise that I skeched a few of them in (there were many more than three really). Then I thought that the picture needed an explanation of where the chips were coming from, so I quickly sketched in the couple and the bench, and then went back to my orginal picure on the left hand side. The gulls and chip chuckers were just left in pencil, and I also added a rough massing shape for the buildings on the right. At home I painted on the figures and birds over my pencil drawing, and the next available day, nearly a week later I went back to finish the block of buildings including the old King Billy pub.
April 12th & 18th
It was windy, but looked a good bright day, I thought I would cycle over to the wetlands reserve to have a look round. The view across the channel there is pretty open, flat and featureless. but there was a small squally rainstorm moving over the islands of Flatholm & Steepholm, so I thought I would try to catch it in a picture, with the muddy banks of the estuary as a foreground. I'm not sure how well I caught it, but about 20 minutes later it certainly caught me! there's not much shelter there. I did manage to get my sketchbook covered with only a little rain damage though.
April 9th
Back to Newport, and back to wintery cold in April. There are some realy intersting trees in Belle view park, including this Cedar grove.
April 2nd
There was some beautiful sunny weather on Easter weekend. I visited my parents in Surrey, and painted a magnolia bush in their garden
March 30th
I came back on a second day to finish the picture below, but as the tide went out I saw a better way to bring those muddy banks into a picture, so I turned my sketchbook 90 degrees and started again.
March 22nd
I have tried several variations of the view south down the river Usk from the town bridge. When I did this one I was trying to make the mudbank the central feature.
March 21st & 22nd
My sketches never seemed to capture the scene quite like I saw it as I drove past on the SDR. So I went and sat in the traffic island between the lanes of the road and sketched the Maltings again from there. And the transporter of course.
March 18th
I have tried to sketch the ruins of The Maltings before, but never been completly convinced with the results. A lot of the jungle like bushes around it have been cleared recently, so I thought I would try aclose in view. I also got my first sketch of the year involving the transporter bridge.
March 11th
A bright sunny day at last. I cycled up to near the Twmp on Twmbarlwm, and sketched some of the wind swept trees there .The twmp, the 'Giant's nose' is right behind them..
March 6th
Yet another view on the Canal. Again up some beyond Goytre, I saw some unusual Muscovy ducks, so I sketched them.
February 16th
This is one of the 14 locks at... Fourteen locks. For some reason this one is called 'The mystery lock' in literature at the 14 locks centre.
February 12th
A view of Risca from another ride along the canal path. I have tried a similar view before, but I think this one worked better
February 1st
I often seem to want to sketch around the mouth of the Ebbw river in Jan & February. I was certainly cold, but not quite raining.
January 31st
I stopped when I got too cold! Back home I tried finishing up a version of the Sugarloaf part of the sketch
On a rare day of fine weather I cycled up the Mon & Brecon canal, and somewhere in the Goytre to Abergavenny section I stopped to sketch a view of the Sugarloaf & Skirrid.