Everyday joys

I have been in avoidance mode in the last few weeks (it's about 2 months actually! - I don't really know why, nothing in particular, maybe an accumulation of distractions and stresses, maybe I'm more tired than I would care to admit? I also have a stye that's stubbornly troubling my vision!). I can't seem to continue on the path I was on. So I'm trying other things. Rather than confront the problem straight on, I'm looking at other nudges, other things that have been catching my attention lately. The reality is that I live in the city, in the suburbs of Dublin. And I do love my life here. And I do notice all the beautiful little things that we spend most of our lives ignoring, like the song of a blackbird in the afternoon, the Spring light and shadows from the trees, the big bubbly clouds in the sky. None of it as dramatic as the Atlantic crashing on the West coast, but I'm appreciating these little daily joys all the same. And if I look at the photos on my phone, there's plenty that catches my eye, so why not try and paint some of it.

So, I started with cherry blossoms on cheap cartridge paper, buckling lots with the amount of water I use in my watercolours. It doesn't look quite so buckled in reality. Moved to heavy cartridge paper, more cherry blossoms from down the road on our afternoon walk. Third one is an attempt at shadows on the footpath. Didn't work out. But I really enjoyed painting the first two pieces, finding ways to express the pinkness of a cherry blossom at its peak!

Pencils4Tea 30 April 2026

I missed last week as I was in Belgium, so I was glad to participate in this session.

 

Top of Capel street

Don't be foold by the lovely sunshine. It was still not that warm in the shade and wind. Which is why I picked a seat in the sun, even if it meant that I wasn't going to sketch the designated building. Does that sound familiar? I'm not great at following instructions, or even just suggestions. Not anymore. I used to be such a good girl, doing what was expected of me. It took me long enough to get to this stage.

What really caught my eye wasn't the jewellers/pawn shop, but the shop at the top of the road, still far enough that I couldn't really see the details. Perfectly framed by street planting and other buildings. Then I decided I wanted to sketch the sketchers, and the spectacular lilies. Not sure about the overall result, but I'm glad I experimented. 

Fude pen (Platinum Carbon ink), Inktense and Ecoline markers.

Cropping and exploring - no colours

More cropping. What can I say, black and white doesn't excite me as much as colour.

 

Cropping and exploring

Remember that A2 piece on cartridge paper that I was reluctant to crop? Well I took the bull by the horns today and went for it!

Crop and collage 1. Love the marks and colours and shapes. Might need something with darker values somewhere, but it's got enough interest for now, to inspire me to get moving again.

2 is quite a vertical view, a slice of that big wide landscape on I could see from Bolus Head during my Cill Rialaig residency. I found it interesting to narrow the view so much.

3 is really all about the vegetation and wildness of February on that barren coast. It doesn't have as much in terms of composition, but I want to keep a record of those marks and colours. Maybe it's about the roots that appear where the road has been cut and the stones have collapsed. And the mountains on the other side, so far away, and yet so close.

Testing Inktense pencils and Ecoline markers (and others)

I dug through my collection of old Inktense pencils and Ecoline markers (and a few other brands). And yes, a few colours are the new ones I bought that I mentioned previously, like the Iris Blue and the Pink Flamingo. I'm loving the intensity. And it's sometimes easier than deploying the watercolours, particularly if I'm standing. Although I'm adding more to my backpack, so a cull will be needed soon. I chose one yellow, two greens, a pink, a blue, a red and a sepia. Plus all the Arrtx acrylic markers I have swatched below. Definitely too much to carry. I will regret this!

Irishtown

We were sketching in Irishtown. So much to sketch there. But I wanted to draw the pub, the Merry Cobbler, and the alleyway to the side of it. I could sit within that 100m radius and find dozens of interesting things to sketch! The weather wasn't quite as warm as forecast. Maybe 16 degrees, but with a sea breeze, I was glad of my woolly hat (26 April). 

Liz Steel had set Frames as the theme for April in her Patreon, and I was really inspired after watching her video to wrap up the month. I'm particularly happy with my sketch of the alleyway, where a nothing-special view becomes interesting when framed! Also, I'm applying the theme from a previous month on Liz's Patreon, using neglected art supplies, in this case Inktense pencils and Ecoline markers. Though I have to admit I bought a few more Inktense pencils in new colours. I'm very fond of that Iris Blue that I used for the pub!

More pigeons

More pigeons from photos. I never thought I would say that, but they're growing on me, pigeons. 

Pigeons voyageurs

Actually, the pigeons were going nowhere, but I was on my way to Belgium, and for some reason, I don't feel like sketching on these trips, even in the airport. So, since I learned how to draw birds with Andrew James, I just make sure I have photos of birds on my phone and I draw them with the supplies I have. Also did a blind continuous line drawing at the gate, with people waiting for the previous flight, using 3 different pens. That's all I did over that 3-day trip. I'm glad I did these!

 

Fade Street

The sun was shining and the crowds were out. Yet, my first doesn't include a single person, or car or bicycle. So I had to make up for it in my second sketch. So much to sketch in this area of Dublin. It was crowded, but not too touristy. In my initial sketch, all done on location, it was hard to separate the buildings on the street across the way and the building to my right. So I added a darker layer (some marker, some inktense) to create a better separation using a darker value nearer to me. Not sure if I like it more, but it reads easier I think.

Someone told me a great story about Decwells. A long time ago, it was set on fire by an angry young man, who ended up in jail. While in jail, he met a playwright, who wrote a play about his story. When he got out of jail, he cleaned up his act, and became a well-known councilman representing his community in the inner-city. He also became a writer.

The crowd scene was done with a Pilot Parallel pen and watersoluble ink, to which I added a little water with a waterbrush to create the blue-grey tones.

 

Legit café on Meath Street with Nathalie

I love the area around Meath Street. It's still the real Dublin, it's not full of tourists. It still smells of the Guinness Brewery down the road. It's got some peaceful hidden corners, like the grotto at St Catherine's church, where you can sit in quiet contemplation, and then you can get back onto the busy street and go for a nice coffee or tea at Legit Coffee, and if you're lucky you will get the window seat and have a great view of the street. I spent a wonderful hour or so there with Nathalie from Belgium. We chatted and sketched and it felt good. And I love it that the graffiti on the Vets shutter reads SPUD. I love Dublin.

Using old art supplies, and buying more

This was always gonna happen. I was using some old Inktense pencils that I had neglected for years. And of course when I started using them, inspired by Liz Steel's Patreon, and then I had to go and buy some more! And when I see them on the same page where I swatched some Arrtx acrylic markers, I'm thinking, oooh, they would look nice together.

"Exchanged for other gold"

I'm continuing to explore the idea of a gold thread running through my landscape. I think there is plenty more to explore with this. This time, I worked in layers, glazing over existing pieces that I had created earlier in the week. They were lovely, but lacked something. I'm much happier with them now, except for one that was a total disaster! 5 out of 6 ain't bad. In one of them, the Ocean became a sky, another a bog. I might turn them around a little more and see what happens. They were all inspired by a video of the coast and mountains near Allihies on the Beara Peninsula. I have glued one to claybord, and applied some Dorland's wax medium to protect it. I really love how it turned out, the thread of gold colour, the rhythm of it all, the feeling of being on the edge of the Atlantic.

Here is what they looked like at the first layer

Pencils 4 Tea 16 April 2026

All the songs in this session were about 3 minutes long. I missed having a few longer songs in there, I have to say. It was hard, but so much fun!