The Custom House

I'm hitting one of those days where I feel I will never draw or paint well again. Frustrating when that happens. But I'll just have to work through it. Life is too short to go without. But I know things are not going well when I'm procrastinating. Maybe that book "The Artist's Way" would be useful after all. All my artist friends seem to have used it to work themselves out of a creative rut at some stage or other. I just don't like the spiritual aspect of it... Plus, my philosophy is that reading art- or self-motivation books is just another form of procrastination!

So why am I still here on my computer, rather than at my easel? Well, I also believe in being gentle with myself. And blogging is something creative, isn't it?

So, to the Custom House. I always called it the Customs House. Nobody ever corrected me. I'm in Ireland 30 years.

A beautiful building. A classical building. An intimidating building. I wasn't in the right frame of mind on Sunday. But I turned up. And I sketched for about an hour. I wasn't satisfied with my work. But when I added a bit of colour to Liberty Hall and the sky after I got home, I felt better about it.

Interesting that these two buildings, The Custom House and Liberty Hall, are so iconic, each in their own right. But they are rarely photographed together. But I did find one just now, from more or less the angle I was sketching from!

In the end, I was glad I packed up when I did, as heavy drizzle came out of nowhere and I didn't have my rain poncho with me!

And I am so glad I recorded the colour of the Liffey in my sketchbook. It's generally quite brown, but the last few days, it's been this amazing green! (PG50+Pyrrole Red+a tiny touch of aureolin yellow, just in case you're wondering!)