Clogher Head - Looking Back

This view of Clogher beach, looking back from Clogher Head, might be a little more colourful than I had originally intended. But it's growing on me! I have a different colour scheme in mind that I will try soon.

Penguins all over the world!

What a fun session with Eleanor Doughty, Jenny Adams, and guest Emma Carlisle for a Street View World Tour. The theme was penguins and they offered us some wonderful Google Street View pictures to work from. I was in an artistic slump, but the session revived my enthusiasm! I played with a Kakimori nib, watercolour, and some Posca markers. The first two in a Strathmore sketchbook, the other two in an Etchr Perfect Sketchbook.

Somewhere in the Antarctic. Two little penguins looking at tourists!

In Tasmania, a giant penguin statue:

Somewhere on the East Coast of America, a sinister-looking penguin statue looks on as a man is eating his fish and chips!

This one is in Argentina. The viewing platform is well above the penguins, who are literally little dots in the landscape!

Boat people?

No, Just boats and people.

I was in Dun Laoghaire for an ArtNetDLR coffee dock event, and I took the opportunity to sketch for a while, at the pier, in a café, and then the people at the event itself. Lots of interesting ideas and exchanges. And of course, the perfect excuse to draw people. I had been drawing sailing boats practising in the harbour first - sailing boats are not the easiest for a warmup sketch!

Print Museum

I don't have the energy for full sketches these days, so I draw what's in front of me and connect them to other bits. On this occasion, we were at the Print Museum, and I started sketching a linotype machine, but I got lost in the detail and gave up. I felt better when I sat in the café, fortified by a chocolate brownie, and I drew a few plants and a person who was sitting there in my field of view. It all seems disjointed, but I like how it came together in the end!
 

Beara vista

Finally back painting. I've been trying to paint this view for years, since the first time I went to the Beara peninsula with Cathy, I think. That's a good few years ago. I tried to crop the view, change it, zoom in and out. And then today, I found a sketchbook from 2021 where I experimented a little bit. And today, I painted it. The secret for me is in two things - embracing the whole vista and recognising the role that the sky plays in this scene. So I think I finally have it out of my system. But maybe not quite. When will I move up to half sheet? This is slightly smaller than quarter sheet - to keep the feeling of a vast expanse, I reduced the height slightly.

 

Hands

Another page with ink. I just decided to draw my hand, as a meditation and relaxation. 

Chocolate Factory

The place known as the Chocolate Factory on the corner of King's Inns Street is now home to a lovely café called Blas. It provided a warm shelter from the cold and rainy weather in Dublin one day in March.

Essex Gate

Sketching is good for the soul. Sometimes life gets too complicated and it seems trivial to be wanting to sketch. But every time that happens to me, I feel like I am losing part of myself. I know that sketching is my mindfulness meditation, my healing resource. And yet, when I haven't sketched in a while, it's hard to get out there and start again. But I did. And I feel better for it.

I'm back following the trace of the Anglo-Norman defense walls around Dublin. In some places, like here on Essex street, there doesn't seem to be anything left. Just the markers. Some of these are pretty obvious. Others are concealed by fencing and overgrown vegetation.

This house is on the corner of Essex Street West and Fishamble Street, of Handel's Messiah fame. I must go back and sketch the location of the Music Hall, although only a gate marks the location now - I can't believe I missed it!

Sketches as done on location. Colour added at home.

A few photos