The coming year

A good walk over Penlanffos this morning. I am looking forward to seeing the swallows arrive. The picture above is from last year. Spring cant be far away now and then we have to start preparing for our next exhibition.
It takes months of painting and framing along with working out any theme. Then you  have to make sure prints have been ordered in time, cards to make...A busy time ahead.

North Wales farm

The picture above is a watercolour sketch I did of a farm in North Wales. Secondary colours work quite well for sketches in this type of landscape with a hint of primary (red) for an accent.
Alex has been cleaning the camper today and been doing domestic chores. We are collecting the grandchildren this afternoon. I have picked up another couple of paintings to do.
Thanks for the text Norma.

Brecon

The picture above is of the main entrance to Brecon Cathedral. I did it in a quite spell of an exhibition I held there. Doors are quite symbolic and are often either the subject themselves or contained within paintings for symbolic reasons. Usually explained as being new openings beginings. The three doors of a cathedral are referred to as expressing faith hope and charity. A door is the symbol of passage from one place to another.
Now I don't want you to get this wrong when I sketched the Cathedral door it was because I found it an interesting shape in its own right. Its old so its on a winner with me there also the colours and shapes were worthy of recording.
I suppose to give it a modern context WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get from me). Now I could have written an artists statement making up all sorts of deep reasons for painting this. Unfortunately  I find in the main artist statements are irritatingly irrelevant.

One out all out

The picture above shows a trio of sheep at Dryslwyn Castle. I'm not quite sure about the mental levels of sheep but they have a poor reputation I haven't worked out if they are dumb or not. They certainly seem to have a collective intelligence.
At a local school the children were being tested by their teacher.

"Dafydd"

"Yes Miss"

"If there are twenty sheep in a field, and one gets out through a hole in the fence, how many sheep are left in the field?"

"None, Miss."

"No Dafydd, there are still nineteen sheep left in the field. Obviously you need to practice  your sums."

"Sorry, Miss, I live on a farm I can tell you they will all be gone!" 


I can't argue with that.

Noddy

Today I finished off an oil painting and did the little watercolour of Paxton's Tower.
Its close to my birthday and all the family are coming around for a big meal which is nice.
Alex is out shopping and has a fatted calf in the oven and half a lamb I believe? Mind you our family can eat!
So it could be an eventful night.

I have heard recently of a series of old colleagues passing away. It is always sad to know they now only live in your memory. Alan Henderson affectionately known as "Noddy" was a lovely man. He was a beat policeman in Newtown. He had a very good nature and was able to diffuse most situations. I remember his infectious smile slightly scruffy appearance and jaunty walk.

I am not sure what Saint Peter will make of you but I expect you are pounding those golden streets and making the angels laugh right now.

Havard Chapel Brecon

The watercolour sketch above is of the Havard Chapel in Brecon Cathedral.The Cathedral was formerly the Priory church of St John and dates back to the 1100's. It was apparently a cell of Battle Abbey in Sussex. Havard Chapel is in the North transept of the Cathedral and is the Regimental Chapel of the South Wales Borderers who won 11 Victoria Crosses at the Battle of Rorkes Drift during the Zulu Wars.The window itself dates from the 1920's and shows the entombment of Christ.
 I have had the honour to lead the church parade with the Garrison through the Town to and from the Cathedral. This is how it happened. At the time I was temporary Chief Inspector in Brecon. The Officer in Charge had for several days been worrying about the extremely difficult and challenging (note the irony) duty of leading and marching through the town with the military parade. Come the day he was seen walking round and round his office drinking copious amounts of coffee. With half an hour to go I was informed he had decided he was too ill to do it and had gone home! I quickly found a respectable jacket and was delighted to step in. I would have happily done it for him in any case had he asked.
Anyway the Chapel is worthy of a visit and I have sketched it on a couple of occasions. I am not a religious person but do enjoy visiting and taking in the atmosphere of Churches and Cathedrals.

The Personal Touch

The above pen and ink sketch is of Harlech Castle. I have used it for the basis of a couple of paintings.
This afternoon I was teaching. The pupil chooses her own subject and today the subject was London.
She did a very nice modern take of the Palace of Westminster in the rain at night.

 I was asked if I had worked in London. Good question. Well I have been to London and worked there for a couple of days at a time but never lived there fortunately. The thing I found about the Metropolitan Police was you needed the personal touch. If you rang a CID office and asked them to do a job for you they were, too busy (according to them) or even if you got someone to agree to do a job for you you could never locate them again, they had either left, been transferred, been suspended you name it they had an excuse for it.
If you went there it was totally different they couldn't do enough for you. You would go into a CID Office and be introduced as the boys from the sticks. Hospitality then no problem. A drawer would open a bottle of whiskey would appear they would talk about everything and even the job in hand if you were lucky. Then the whole office would accompany you to the nearest "Boozer". The following day in a haze  you would be transported to arrest or interview the subject of your enquiry. Its probably all different now. DCI Gene Hunt has retired and a 12 year old manager fresh from doing his Phd in business studies is now allocating intelligence (read computer)  related tasks to career desk jockeys. I'm probably being very unfair and looking back the 80's were certainly not perfect but police officers lived and breathed the job.
Anyway so what was the subject today? The Place of Westminster and Big Ben well actually no because Big Ben is the name for the bell in the clock tower not the clock itself.