106) Santa's Grotto - Aberavn Shopping Centre

Yes, the year moves on , and the decorations are already out in the Aberavon Shopping Centre. To be fair, Santa's Grotto, although ready, isn't actually open yet. When I first moved to Port Talbot there would always be a parade on a Saturday at the end of November, when Santa would arrive at the station, then make his way along station road to his grotto on a float dressed up to be like Thomas the Tank Engine. That has happened for quite a few years sadly.

100) Talbot Memorial Park War Memorial and Bandstand

Yes, dearly beloved, I decided that I would return to the subject of my very first sketch, the war memorial for this one hundredth. 

1) Talbot Memorial Park War Memorial

Of course, I wasn't going to show just the memorial, which is why I've included the bandstand. A grade II listed structure in its own right, the bandstand is typical of the sort of thing that almost every park in every town could boast once upon a time. It's in a bit of a state at the moment, but the calls on the public funds are many, and I understand that repairing the bandstand is not a priority. 

15) Forest Veterinary Practice, Theodore Road

I still think of this building as the Afan Arts Centre, which was a previous incarnation of the same building. This sketch was made from the adjacent Talbot Memorial Park, ad I have to say it's possibly my most successful ink and wash picture. There's loads of things I like in architecture, and a hotch potch of pitched roofs is one of them, and this has a great collection of roofs, which I concentrated on in this sketch. This is one of the last three sketches I made before the trip to Prague, which I mentioned in the introduction post, and which was so important to me for the reasons I've already gone into.

1)War Memorial - Talbot Memorial Park - Graphite HB Pencil

This HB pencil sketch is one of the first sketches I made after reading about the Urban Sketching movement. I was still very much experimenting with materials for sketching , and so this was pretty much a case of using what I know - and ordinary pencil. The statue stands on top of the War Memorial in Talbot Memorial Park in Taibach. I made the sketch sitting on a park bench close by. As I was doing so, a young lad approached me, had a good look at it, and then passed judgement with the words - "You quite a good draw-er, aren't you." Thank you very much. 

The memorial itself was rected in 1925; since then names of men of the town who died in the forces in World War II have also been added. It was sculpted by Louis Frederick Roslyn, and was unveiled on 4 July 1925 by Sir William R. Robertson. The park in which it stands was donated to the town by Miss Emily Charlotte Talbot of Margam Castle, and opened to the public in 1926. Currently the memorial is one of Port Talbot's Grade II listed buildings.