In a recent post - Warts and All – I explained how I’e come to realise that my pen and ink sketches of Port Talbot, my home town for the last 30 years, have tended to reflect just the one side of the town – it’s finer and more beautiful older buildings. I’d made up my mind to try to sketch more of the other aspects of the town as well. The same day that I ame to this resolution, I was also persuaded by a work colleague to try to add watercolour washes to at least some of my sketches. Okay. Now, I would imagine that if you ask most people what they know about Port Talbot, if they know anything about it, then they will say it’s the steelworks. Rightly so, the steelworks is a massive employer for Port Talbot, and whatever prosperity the town possesses is due in no small part to it. So I set out yesterday to get myself to find a good position looking out across at least part of the steelworks. This meant getting up to the hills around the town. When I made the original pen sketch I was consciously trying to simplify the view, and to avoid heavy shading, or much more than just suggestions of shapes and forms. These I’ve tried to find through the painting. In the picture you can compare the bare ink sketch with the finished picture.