St Andrew's Resource Centre

Dublin Sketchers were invited to sketch around the St Andrew's Resource Centre as part of the South Docks Festival. Some of our sketches were displayed at the Grand Canal Dock Bank of Ireland and the Resource Center itself in late July. We were even given chairs and biscuits! Royal treatment when you're a sketcher!!

I did a piece on loose paper, which I forgot to photograph and two in my sketchbook. My favourite is the doggies from the dog show in the courtyard at the back of the community center. I just saw a video that says that pets can help regulate our nervous system. Not surprised! Being near these gorgeous dogs made everyone happy!

At the market with Suhita

I absolutely love these monthly session with Suhita Shirodkar. She picks a subject, sends us a photo or two and for half an hour, we sketch together, sometimes chatting, sometimes in silence. That half hour is the perfect sweet spot for me. I don't feel rushed. I know I will have time to sketch everything that I want. But also I won't overwork. I love it at the end, where we each get to share what we did and the choices we made. Suhita's substack community is well worth subscribing to.

Ongoing experiments

Lots of experiments in progress. Some will go nowhere. Others are more promising. But if you don't try, you will never know. This was done after nearly two weeks of doing no painting, due to a bad cold. I still feel tired, so it's hard to paint energy. Maybe I just need to sleep more?

Coastline

I'm done with this one, for now. I will most probably come back to this view. I like the layering, but I don't want to go too far with it, as I'm working in watercolour mostly - with some collage, gouache, oil pastels etc. It's not like I'm working in acrylics and doing layer upon layer. I still want to feel the light hitting the paper. 

Pencils4Tea 17 July 2025

I always think I'm too tired to draw, and then I feel great. Drawing is good for you!

 

Up on the roof

We were supposed to be sketching the GPO on O'Connell Street, but it was too busy for me. Too many people, too much noise. Plus I wanted a different view. So I went up to the top of Arnott's car park and was rewarded by the wonderful Dublin skyline. And lots of seagulls. It felt so good. I added grey shadows and a blue sky (acrylic markers) when I got home. Dublin is finally getting a few skyscrapers (well, not quite, but buildings that are a bit taller than the usual) and I enjoyed playing with that sense of scale. Plus the chimney pots, which are so gorgeous.

 

Trying new flat brushes

Fuumuui or something like that - an impulse buy on Instagram, a set of flat brushes. They smelled strongly of glue when I unpacked them. But I like how they moved (tested on Arches rough paper, which I don't really used much at the moment.)

Tea and Sketch party

I don't do these very often. But occasionally I invite a few people over to the house, everyone brings cake and we spend the afternoon/evening sketching. It's so easy. All I need to do is provide tools (on this occasion, acrylic markers) and keep boiling the kettle so everyone has enough tea. I added text to some of the pages afterwards. And it was a great excuse to explore what I can do with the acrylic markers.

When a sketcher comes to town...

I can't believe Srivani and myself had never met in real life before yesterday (earlier in July). Some people, you just know that you're going to hit it off straight away. Sketching helps! And delicious food.

PS: she's much prettier than I've drawn her. Everybody I've drawn before knows that.

PPS: someone seemed to be surprised that I had sketched the street scene in perspective. Whatever!

Thumbnails

Exploring thumbnails with Uma Kelkar on Vivify.

Loved the one-line continuous sketches. The 3-value thumbnails were hard - I can't make decisions so quickly. My brain needs more processing time. So it felt too random for me.

 

Other beginnings, or maybe dead-ends

In this first one, I see possibility, another beginning maybe.

 

In this second one, a dead-end. I might just cover it with gesso.

Coastline Stage 3 (& 4)

Adding more layers to this piece. Some watercolour and plenty of gouache too. Some elements I really like, but the whole isn't there yet.

Some of the bits I like:

Stage 4 - glued some Mulberry paper over the bit I didn't like. Now I need to wait for it to dry and then I can throw paint at it.