Amsterdam - 29th October - 1st November Part Two

Hello, and welcome to the second episode of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook. I’m sorry to say that after the misadventures getting to the hotel, this has been a largely foolishness free trip, and I’m afraid that this episode continues in very much the same vein. So if you want to leave this episode and go and do something else, then feel free.

Right, now they’ve gone, let me tell you what really happened. No, only joking, nothing that exciting, honestly. Yesterday I was only able to book one of the earliest times for the Van Gogh Museum today, so I decided to have breakfast at the hotel. Mistake? Not necessarily. However, notices like “You may only take what you are going to eat NOW! Do not take when you will not eat!” frankly set the wrong mood. Yes, alright, I would have taken a free lunch from the cold buffet as well as breakfast if not for those notices, but I’d like to have been given the benefit of the doubt. Frankly, too, what was on offer was rather, well, spartan. I didn’t expect a full English, but it might have been nice to have something approaching a full Dutch. I felt like complaining after having my third helping of everything that was on offer, but discretion proved to be the better part of valour.
So to the Van Gogh Museum. Now, I’d like to say something very witty and clever and original here. But I can’t. Literally, amazing. Van G. is an artist whom I’ve come to appreciate more and more over the years, and this collection was just out of this world. I was a bit sceptical about shelling out another 5 Euros for the audio guide, but I’m so glad I did. I entered, worked my way through the audio tour, and looked at my watch. Two hours had gone! Honestly, and I hadn’t even noticed. An absolute highlight of the trip.

Mindful of the fact that I didn’t do a great amount of sketching, I decided to head back towards Dam. Dam is the heart of the tourist area of the sity. So called because that’s where the locals first built a dam in the River Amstel – Amster – dam, see? They’re a wonderfully literal people, in my experience. The nearest Metro station to Dam is called Rokin. Now, I’m very sorry, but I cannot read that name without mentally adding the words – Don’t come knockin’. Here I made the first sketch of the day, of an agglomeration of buildings that I liked. This also revealed the great problem with sketching today. It was a bright and very crisp October day in Amsterdam today. If you were moving around, then it was great. But. . . if you were sitting down for between 30 and 45 minutes working on a sketch, the cold began to creep into your bones. All of which, I suppose, is by way of being an excuse for the fact that I only made another four sketches today.

A short walk from Rokin, then, back to Dam, and I sat and made the second sketch, this time of the Nieuw Kirk – or New Church. It’s still pretty old, actually, and now more of an exhibition space than a church. It’s currently holding an exhibition about the Life of Buddha. Arguing against themselves there, I would have thought. The Oude Kirk, or Old Church, which is in the Red Light district, is actually the oldest surviving building in Amsterdam. Before they built the New Church, it was simply called the Church. They built the New Church, so this became the Old Church. Told you that the Dutch are pleasingly literal people.

A Dutch gent came up and had a look at the sketch, and I was a bit worried, because Amsterdammers are reputed to be very forthright and blunt in their views. But he liked it, so I refrained from drawing an ink moustache on his face, which might have been my reaction had he not.

I sat for about 45 minutes, but by then I literally couldn’t hold the pen straight, I was so cold, and so I moved off in search of coffee (and a chance to use a toilet for free). Once I’d had a coffee from a Dunkin Donuts I headed to a bridge over one of the smaller canals which I’d noticed on the walking tour yesterday. It had a handy bench by it, and this is where I produced the third and last sketch of the day. While I was in the process of making it, two American ladies came up, gushed a little, and asked if they could take a photo of the sketch. Seriously. So, if you’re thinking that this made my day, then you know me too well. Once again, about an hour into the sketch the sun had gone in, and I just froze, and had to stop where I was.

As for the rest of the day, well, after eating I spent an interesting couple of hours in the Amsterdam Museum. Another audio tour, although this one was included in the price, which is all well and good. I did enjoy it, although I did find something a bit strange. You’re led through the story, from he founding of Amsterdam to the ‘golden age’ of the mid 17th century. Then suddenly the story jumps forward, and you’re hearing about Napoleon Bonaparte making his brother Louis – and I have to say that he really looks a shifty sort – the first King of the Netherlands. What happened to the intervening century? Maybe not a great deal, but it would have been nice to have been told something.
Time was getting on by the time I’d finished in the Amsterdam Museum, and I was, as the Dutch might say, knakkkerrred. So I headed back for the hotel. I might head out this evening and see what’s what, but my legs and calves are giving me gyp, so it’s unlikely. 9:30 flight tomorrow morning, so I’d say this pretty much wraps up An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook for 2018.

Amsterdam - 29th Oct - 1st November. Part One

Hello, good evening, and welcome to the first episode of the Autumn 2018 series of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook. I’m sorry I didn’t post yesterday, the first day of the trip, but for reasons I will explain I was just too tired and it was too late by the time that I got to the hotel.
Now, departure lounges are not my favourite places at the best of times. They’re currently giving Cardiff’s departure lounge a bit of a makeover. Judging by what they’ve finished, if they’re going for ‘early 21st century tacky’, I’d say they’re succeeding.

Still, I did find a corner of the quaintly named ‘Beer House’ where I could actually see out onto the apron for a bit, and that’s when I produced the sketch of the Flybe plane. Not mine – I was with KLM.

Funnily enough, I have actually flown with KLM once before. . . sort of. I say sort of. I was on an Air Kenya flight to Nairobi via Rome – where I was getting off, and Air Kenya were borrowing a plane from KLM. A DC10 as it happens, and if you’re a similar vintage to myself, then you’ll know that DC10’s did not have the best reputation for safety. Still, this was 1983 and I lived to tell the tale. As for yesterday, I could say that the flight itself was pretty uneventful. I could say it, but it would be a pit of a porky. This was a small plane – only two seats on either side of the aisle. So when we hit turbulence, it really started throwing the plane around. We were all ordered back to our seats and told to buckle up, which was a bit awkward because I’d just got up to go to the toilet. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever sat through a 30 minute bout of severe air turbulence with a full bladder, but if you haven’t you can take my word for it that it’s overrated.
Before I left home, I’d done a bit of research on the route from the airport to the hotel. The average taxi fare would work out at about 50 euros. Google told me that I could do it for about 6 Euros if I took a bus to the Olympic Stadium, got off, walked around the corner, and took another bus to Surinameplein. Fair enough.
Not as easy as it sounded, frankly. For a start, I was on the wrong bus stop. I got on the right bus, but it was going the wrong way. So I got off again. Then I got on the right bus going the right way and got off at the right place – Olympic Stadium. All I had to do was walk around the corner. Well and good – but which corner? Thankfully, one of the useful things about Amsterdam is that every local person I’ve met speaks English. Very good English at that. So I broke the habit of a lifetime and asked a stranger for help, and eventually found the right turning. It was getting on for about half nine, and I should have been at the hotel within a few minutes. Half an hour later I jerked awake when the bus I was on came to the end of the line. I’d fallen asleep as it sailed way past my stop, and to add insult to injury, I had to get out of the bus, and wait 20 minutes in the freezing cold before getting back on the same one to go back the way I’d come.
Well, soldier on. Things began looking up today. For one thing, the best and quickest way into town was by tram. I love trams. I spent an hour and a half riding from Birmingham to Wolverhampton and back on a tram last Sunday, and considered that paying 4 quid for the privilege was cheap at the price. So I made my first Amsterdam sketch at the stop while waiting for my tram – a 17 – to come along.

Unfortunately a lot of today the weather has been what I believe the locals call pisshingdown, so opportunities for sketching have been fairly few and far between. As the rain eased off a little, though, as I was passing the old town hall which is also called a Royal Palace, I chanced upon a Sandeman walking tour about to start. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Sandeman tours. Basically they present themselves as ‘Free tours’ – which they can be. But at the end you’re offered the chance to pay your guide whatever the tour was worth to you. Which means you have the opportunity to pay nothing if you have the brazen cheek. I paid. Our guide was called Kendra, an American whose lived for 14 years in Amsterdam and has just passed her Dutch citizenship exam.
Now, in the last couple of weeks, when I’ve told people that I’m going to Amsterdam, a certain number – men mostly although not exclusively – have smiled and asked if I’m going to be eating ‘funny’ cakes or smoking ‘funny’ cigarettes, and if I’m going to be ‘visiting’ the Red Light district. To which my answer was of course, no, no and no, this is a cultural trip where I will be broadening my mind and employing my meagre artistic talents in immortalising the uniqueness and beauty of the city yuttah yuttah. So of course, Kendra first of all took us through the Red Light District and past a lot of cafes offering various ways of intaking cannabis. Which is still actually illegal in Amsterdam, but let that one go for now.
To be fair, I did enjoy the walking tour, which only passed through the red light district briefly, and learned quite a bit about the history of the city .

From a walking tour, then, to a canal tour. If you’ve followed my misadventures in the past you’ll know that there’s a number of things I want to do when I visit a city I’ve never been to before. One is ride the trams if they have any. Done that. Another is use the Metro if they have any. Did that a bit later. Another thing I do like, though, is a river cruise. Well, if you substitute river for canals, I guess a canal cruise in Amsterdam must have a pretty good claim to being the daddy of them all. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
The biggest disappointment of the day was finding out that since last year, if you want to visit Anne Frank’s house, you have to book online. I tried booking at 6am this morning, only to find that all of the times for the whole of this week are sold out. Thankfully, I did manage to book a ticket for the Van Gogh Museum for 9 am tomorrow. Speaking of museums, after backtracking to a place I’d seen during the walking tour to make the street corner sketch you can hopefully see as part of this post, I did take a gamble that I’d be able to get into the Rijksmuseum just by turning up. This was at about 3 pm, and it worked. In fact the queue for the cloakroom to put my backpack away safely was far, far longer than the queue for tickets.
They have a Van Gogh self portrait which simply blew me away. I’ll maybe say more about this tomorrow after I’ve visited the Van Gogh Museum. Rembrandt’s The Night Watch was breath taking too – I think it’s bigger than my house. On the whole though, I have to say that for my money the Prado was slightly more impressive. And that, my friends is pretty much all of the exciting stuff for today. I did walk to a Metro station and rode to the next station down the line, but I have to say that I wasn’t blown away by what is obviously a very modern system. I felt the platforms were bleak, and the whole thing was just a tiny bit soulless.

August 19th San Isidro

Not long to go now. In fact, not long is an accurate description of this particular episode of an English Fool With His Sketchbook. There just isn’t a great amount to say about a pretty uneventful day.

We visited John in hospital this morning. In all honesty I think he’s getting a bit stir crazy. He was sitting in his chair though, and while we were there he was walking by himself, so at least that shows that he’s quite a bit better than he was when we brought him in on Wednesday. Hopefully they might well say that he can come home tomorrow.

We stayed until lunchtime, but John was getting a bit sleepy then, and so it made sense to take our leave. If you were with me last Sunday you might remember that I told you of the family tradition to have Sunday lunch in a restaurant in Crevillente called Las Palmeras – presumably so called because the outside of the place is festooned with palm trees. It was somewhat quieter today than it was last week, as far as I could tell we weren’t contending with a hen party as we were last week. Then it was back to the Casa Me Duck.

After a bit of a siesta, Jen packed the car to go back to the hospital, and I made the watercolour and ink sketch of the main street in San Isidro looking out of town that’s on this page. As for the Japanese characters, well, it’s like this. I also post in a Facebook group called Sketching Every Day. Each day there is a prompt to sketch, although one can always choose to go off prompt. Today’s was to wok in the style of artist Mateusz Urbanowicz. He’s a Polish born artist and illustrator living and working in Tokyo, and his style really lends itself to Urban sketching. So I did try to use as close to his palette as I could get. To pay respect to the man himself, though, I used Google, and if I’ve got it right, it says San Isidro, and my name. If I haven’t, well, I just hope that the translation isn’t too offensive.

August 18th San Isidro - Catral

An English Fool Abroad With His Sketchbook has been out and about a bit again today, although you couldn’t really call it as much of an excursion as the trips to Elche, Murcia and Alicante. We were off early to see John in the hospital this morning. He seems pretty much the same as yesterday, but certainly no worse, and that’s all to the good. While I was there I went two floors down to get John and Jen a coffee each from the cafeteria. Despite distinctly asking for café con leche fria – coffees with cold milk – the cups were so hot that even though the lady behind the counter gave me two extra plastic cups into which I could place the takeaway cups with the coffee in, they were still so boiling hot that I couldn’t hold them for long. In fact, he only way I could do it was putting the two plastic cups together, carrying one cup inside it, and balancing the other on top. Up two floors. You can guess what happened, can’t you? Well. . . you’re wrong. I managed it.

After leaving the hospital we nipped quickly back to the Casa Me Duck to change cars- the Smart car needed filling up, and the trip to Catral provided the best opportunity to do it. On the way Jen took a slight detour behind the station in San Isidro. The reason? To show me the Memorial – which is both behind the station, and also the middle sketch on the page below. I didn’t previously know it, but Alicante was the last city to hold out against Franco in the Civil War. The community of San Isidro wasn’t built until the 1950s, but prior to this part of it had been the site of a concentration camp where Franco put , well, basically anyone he felt like. It’s a very understated memorial – just two huge metal bars, with broken chains connected to them, and a simple stone plaque at the bottom, yet it’s oddly moving.

My ulterior motive in wanting to come to Catral, then, was to take a look at the church, which is the picture on the left hand side of the page below. It’s pretty impressive, but true to form it is in the middle of a square which just doesn’t have enough room for you to make a good sketch of it from the front. I mean, you could do it, but then you wouldn’t get the dome or the tower, which are, to my mind, the church – actually it is a Cathedral, which surprised me – to my mind its best features. We did pop inside. It was very dark, and Jen suggested that we might have entered the Lady Chapel. As our eyes accustomed it became clear that the figures and pictures we had taken to be the Virgin Mary were in fact the Lord Jesus. The unworthy and sacrilegious thought that maybe it was actually the bearded Lady chapel came to mind, and I’m glad that I kept that thought to myself at that time. The sketch below is actually my favourite view of the cathedral, which is approaching it from a side street.

Sooner or later, whenever I stay in San Isidro, I end up in Catral market on a Saturday. I must admit that I’ve never seen it quite as bare and looking quite as sorry for itself as it did this morning. It was gone midday, and some of the traders were clearing up and calling it a day, but it’s also true that a lot of the traders go on their hols in August. So, with little or nothing of interest within it, this left just one more thing. Lunch. Jen suggested Chinese, and who am I to refuse? The fact that I love Chinese food is totally immaterial. Now, you may recall that when I had a Chinese curry in Madrid, I believe it was the medium through which Montezuma extracted his revenge later that night. Well, I have to say that this one, a prawn curry was absolutely delicious. Whether I’ll pay for it later we’ll just have to see.

And that, I dare say, is pretty much it for today. If you’ve been with me this far, you have my thanks and congratulations. We are nearing the end of the marathon – 3 more full days, and then I’m on my way home.

Alicante Day Three (written 12th August)

Well, my friends, I’m sorry to report that today’s An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook is another pretty much foolishness free zone. Well, it’s Sunday, isn’t it?

If you read yesterday’s episode, you may be wondering about the Spanish evening at the Cerveceria which I mentioned yesterday. Well, apparently the wearing white is just a convention, nobody seemed to know any great significance to it. If you go the whole hog you wear it with a red neckerchief as well, but I didn’t notice anyone doing it last night. In fact it seemed as if quite a few hadn’t got the dress code memo, but then who am I to point the finger?

So, what was involved in the Spanish evening? Well, if I’m honest, it seemed pretty indistinguishable from an English evening. The only huge difference was that in Spain things do tend to get going much later. Although scheduled for a 9 pm start, people really didn’t start filling the place until about 10. Now, unfortunately Jen was taken quite ill during the evening – and all she had all the time we were there was a bottle of fizzy water. Trouper that she is she really didn’t want to come away, but by half ten she looked absolutely grey. So I went back to the Casa Me Duck, and fetched the car. I could have gone back after that, but to be honest, that sort of thing really isn’t my cup of tea. I don’t know whether it’s my Scottish ancestry or my profession as a teacher, but I don’t really want to see large groups of people enjoying themselves. Joking aside, I wouldn’t have felt right.

So to the sketches. Only two of them today. The first is an old Renault Four which is/was parked up a few streets away from the Casa Me Duck. Now, there were tons of these around when I was a kid, and I wouldn’t have looked at one twice then. But that’s kind of the point. I haven’t been a kid for a very long time now, and this car must have been between 40 and 50 years old. So that’s why I sketched it, enjoying a tranquil (and hot) retirement on the Costa Blanca, as indeed are a significant number of the locals. Having said that, John informs me that due to – and excuse me for using the B word – Brexit, a significant number of the ex-pat community on the Costa Blanca have sold up and moved back, and others have taken Spanish nationality. I’ll be honest, I can’t blame them. If it comes to trusting your future status to the British Government . . . Alright. No more political comments if I can help it.

One final sketch today then. This is the Las Palmeras restaurant in Crevillent. It’s a bit of a family tradition that we eat Sunday lunch at Las Palmeras when any family or friends are visiting with Jen and John. It’s a really nice place – inside, that is – though not much to look at outside. One of the huge attractions is that it has its own pool, and if it takes your fancy then you can spend the day in the pool, and have Sunday lunch – although it is frowned upon if you actually eat it in the pool. I accidentally on purpose left my swimming gear in Port Talbot, so that wasn’t an option. I think of it as a valuable public service. The sight of my near naked body has been enough to drive grown adults to vegetarianism in the past, but I digress. In the pool at lunchtime, though, were a very, umm, exuberant, shall we say, Spanish hen party. At one stage they were so loud that the Head waiter went and had a few words with them. I didn’t understand exactly what he said, but I’d lay odds that he wasn’t congratulating them on the attractiveness of their swimwear.

Well, that’s pretty much it for today. Thanks for staying with me over this relatively quiet few days. I’m taking the 10 am train into Murcia tomorrow morning, so there’s every chance of more entertaining news tomorrow. Watch this space.

Alicante Day Two (Written on August 11th)

Yes, An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook is still sketching. This is going to be a bit of a short post though, because although there’s been a bit of sketching there’s been precious little foolishness to write about. Basically I’ve been chilling out yesterday and today, and in all probability tomorrow as well. Don’t panic though. I’m planning on taking a ride on the choo choo to Murcia on Monday, and then into Alicante on Tuesday, and there should be plenty of opportunity for foolhardy Englishness there.

This morning, then, it got to about 11:00, and I did think that if I couldn’t shift myself, I’d have to leave it until the later part of the afternoon, since previous experience told me that it would just be too damn hot. So I just mooched around, taking note of buildings and places which I might like to sketch later on in the week. Last year I did make a watercolour and ink sketch of Jen and John’s house – although mostly it was of Jen’s Smart Car – but this year I couldn’t resist doing an ordinary ink sketch. However, I digress. Gradually I wended my not very weary way to my favourite public space in San Isidro. Incidentally, when I typed San Isidro on my kindle, the predicitve text decided to render it as San Weirdo. Hmm. You may recall that I got the local train from Alicante to San Isidro on Thursday. Well, the station here is very new, and was only built within the last few years. Now, when they demolished the older station which stood there, they re-erected the platform canopy, and the wall of the station building which faced onto the platform, in a street in the town. I’ve never been there for a performance but I understand that they do have music there sometimes. There are a couple of benches though, and it was pleasant to sit in the shade of the canopy and sketch a couple of the houses opposite. It would have been very pleasant if not for the flies. Oh well.

Later this evening we’re going to a ‘Spanish Evening’ in a place I sketched last year. Back then it was called La Cerveceria, but it’s changed hands since. A ‘Spanish Evening’ in Spain does tend to bring to mind a phrase containing the words ‘coal’ and ‘Newcastle’, but be fair, I’m not entirely clear of what the evening’s going to involve, but since we’ve all been asked to wear white, I’m guessing it won’t be that messy.

Last sketch in Kaunas

So, yesterday my sketchpedition to Kaunas ended. I'd already planned the journey to the airport the night before, and decided that ideally I wanted to leave the hotel at 8, and that at the latest I needed to leave at 8:30. I was ready by 7:30, so that was it, I was off.

This gave me actually a good three quarters of an hour between arriving at the Railway station, and catching the bus to airport just outside it, and so I took a wander towards ton. Just round the corner I saw these guys. This wasn't a market, they'd just placed their goods on the pavement and were selling them to anyone who seemed at all inclined to buy.

It's nice from time to time to try to catch figures in poses. There's three distinct pairs of figures here. Each pair was done very quickly in one go, which means that this exact scene never quite happened - it's a composite sketch to that extent, although still faithful to the scene itself. Also I did the filling in of shapes after I'd done the outlines.

Kaunas Day Three

Day three was my last full day in Kaunas, but this time I didn’t have a concrete itinerary. I had a couple of objectives in mind, but was also inclined to follow my nose. Once in Kaunas town centre I headed for a huge, white, art deco church on top of the hill overlooking the town. This is the Church of Christ’s Resurrection. It was begun in the 1930s. The building of a church in Kaunas, the temporary capital, to celebrate Lithuanian independence from Russia was an idea which came about very soon after the end of the First World War, but they didn’t get round to having a design competition until 1928. Ironically it was just about completed by 1940, when work naturally enough had to stop. After the war, Stalin decided that it would be used as a radio factory. Money being scarce after Independence, the Church was not actually consecrated until 2004. To me, it’s so art deco that it brings to me two buildings – neither of which it actually looks at all like – the Hoover Building in Perivale, and the original Wembley Stadium.

Back down the hill then, to do a wee bit more painting in Liesvas Aleja. Here I had my first conversation with a passer-by. He sat down just as I was finishing, and when I replied to what he said with my usual shoulder shrug and “Sorry – I’m English”, he started a conversation . His English wasn’t, it must be said, completely intelligible, whether through a lack of vocabulary, or from the alcoholic fumes wafting from his breath, I couldn’t be sure. I think he said that the UK are crazy, and it’s America for him. You’re welcome, I said. I made my apologies and left.

Museums, then. Handily placed on the Liesvas Aleja is the Zoological Museum. Now, if you like stuffed animals, this is the place for you. Look, I kind of expect that from a Natural History Museum sort of thing, but I did think the room full of mounted stags heads and antlers was taking the pee. I did make a sketch of a coelacanth. Childhood memories of watching Sir David of Attenborough’s “Life on Earth” demanded no less.

On to the Vytautas the Great War Museum. I entered the door, and the woman behind the desk looked at me, and when I did the shoulder shrug thing she asked , “What do you want?” What did she think I wanted? Don’t tell me they get so few visitors that they’ve forgotten what visitors are supposed to do, I thought. No, actually, when I told her “I’d actually rather like to see the Museum.” She told me I was in the wrong place, and that entry was upstairs. Of course it was.

Time was getting on, and I still had one place I really wanted to visit. This meant another long walk back into the Old Town. This time I went by the riverbank for variety’s sake. You may remember that I said it was like a breath of springtime yesterday. Well, this afternoon in Kaunas we had the 12 inch version of that. It was absolutely beautiful, and the first time I can remember being hot outdoors since last summer. Back at the Old Town I wanted to go into the St. Peter and Paul Basilica. I passed by it yesterday and Wednesday, but hadn’t been inside. However I’d since read that the Basilica contains relics of Pope John Paul II, since his canonisation, and thus intrigued I popped in for a holy shuftie. Well, it’s true. There’s a huge oil painting of the lad himself, and a box continuing relics underneath. I couldn’t see what was in it because there were half a dozen worshippers kneeling in front of it. I’m not so impious that I’d have wanted to disturb them, so I left them to it. I hope their prayers are answered.

10) Spain - Alicante Area - Catral-Dolores-La Marina area - Early August 2017

Church - outside Dolores

 Confession time. I saw this church as we waited by traffic lights in the car, and took a phot. This line and wash is based on that photo, and not made on the spot, sadly. It would have held up the traffic if I'd tries to do it in situ.

El Pinet Beach nr. La Marina

 This I did do sitting on the sand by the water's edge, and it's not too bad thought I say it myself.

Catral - late breakfast

 Will you please put your pen and your sketchbook down and eat your breakfast - I think that's what they said while I was doing this one. To which the answer was - no, sorry.

Catral Saturday morning market

 Too hard to stand painting in the market so had to make do with an ink sketch . I found that I got far more interested in combining figures to make the picture than I was in the scene itself.

Catral - evening in main street

Again - will you please put your bleep sketchbook down so we can go in and eat. We had a lovely Chinese meal too once I finished this one.

9) Spain - ALicante area - early August 2017

San Isidro Church nr. Alicante

 My mother in law, and my wife's stepfather live in a wee village called San Isidro, about 15/20 minutes outside Alicante on the Costa Blanca. The village itself was a new construct in the 1950s, and this modernist church dates from 1956. I'm not the greatest fan of modernism myself, but this building is clean and unfussy, and has a certain elegance. One thing I found about being in Spain was that the brightness of the light was an encouragement to be more adventurous with line and wash watercolour.

Backstreet roof garden San Isidro nr. Alicante

 I just liked this back street roof garden.

Former San Isidro Station platform shelter - San Isidro nr. Alicante

 Now, when they rebuilt San Isidro - Catral - Albatera station a few years ago, they did a very clever and rather wonderful thing. They took this, the back wall of the station and the canopy over the platform, and transplanted it in another street to provide a rather lovely public performance space. Bravo.

La Cerveceria - San Isidro - nr. Alicante

 This is the Cerveceria - a restaurant which hosted my mother in law's birthday party, while the painting below shows her house and smart car.

San Isidro Street - nr. Alicante

8) Wales - May 2017

After returning from Prague, I still had a couple of weeks on my sick note, as it were. I was aware of the therapeutic effect that making the sketches in Prague had brought me, and so I tried to get out and around in Wales to make some more sketches.

Dylan Thomas' boathouse - Laugharne

 It's a source of shame to me to admit this, but before this, despite living in Wales for 30 years, and despite me being an English Literature graduate and English teacher, I had never previously visited Dylan Thomas' boathouse. Laugharne is an achingly beautiful place on a bright Spring day like this.

Back alley - Laugharne

 Laugharne has this really charming higgledy-piggledyness, being built on little hills which reach down to the sea, and I fell in love with this view, and stood there for about an hour, trying to get it all down before fatigue set in.

St. Fagans Open Air Museum - former Aberystwyth tollhouse

 The Museum of Welsh Life in St Fagans just outside Cardiff is a place I've visited with my kids on several occasions. At a loss for what to sketch one cold day towards the end of April, I went and made this and the following two sketches.

St. Fagans Open Air Museum - Gwalia Stores

St Fagans Open Air Museum - Oakdale Institute

Brecon, Mid Wales

 Brecon is another Welsh town which has a charming randomness about its streets. In centuries past Brecon was an important market town, and the county town of Brecknockshire, and its streets still follow the medieval street plan.

Brecon - Mid Wales

 Although I say it myself, I think that you can see how I'd started to develop a personal sketching style since returning from Prague - a more graphic style, with heavy use of shade and shadow to give texture.

Brecon - Mid Wales

I do like street scenes, and this sketch from Brecon is one of my favourites. Something as fiddly as this does take time though, and if there's no convenient place to sit you can get some very funny looks from people who pass on the narrow streets.

Cardiff

 Finally, three street scenes from Cardiff. All of them are composite sketches - using the technique I used in Prague of adding a couple of figures at a time before sketching in the buildings to build up the whole picture

Cardiff - nr. Cardiff Castle

 The two figures in the foreground here are my daughter Jess and future son in law Dan

Cardiff - Hayes

I like the contrast between the dark, almost silhouetted figures, and the light buildings.