Dublin Castle - Women of 1916

Thankfully I have a couple of weeks' worth of sketches to remind me of times when it was ok to be in a crowd, or so we thought!

Dublin Castle held an event 10 days ago to commemorate International Women's Day. The event was an afternoon of music, singing and talk by the Women of 1916, running in parallel with the exhibition about 100 years of Irish Women in Politics that was running at the Coach House. A fantastic performance by all involved. And something I want to see more of, as soon as the Coronavirus is gone!

I started sketching while waiting in the queue. Always a good way to warm up, as people are not moving too much. And of course the people behind me were fascinated and started chatting to me. I already miss chatting to strangers!

When the performance started, it was all a whirlwind - just a few minutes in each room and moving swiftly from one character to the next. Definitely no time to capture any of the stories. Or the faces! So I focused on the costumes and hats!

Sometimes, I couldn't really see much, so I drew the people right in front of me, or even just an elbow!

I did try to draw the actress who was playing Constance Markievicz, but she was moving the fastest of them all. I captured her hairstyle (above) and a bit of her shirt and jacket (below)

Then in the end, we were all sitting together, the women of 1916 and the women of 2020.