Dublin Sketchers - Botanic Gardens

Two weeks ago, I went to the Botanic Gardens with Dublin Sketchers. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and what better way to spend a couple of hours than to sit on the grass and draw trees!

The subject I picked was too ambitious for my skill level, I have to admit, but I'll definitely come back to it and see how I can cope with all these greens, and the sheer size of the tree on the left. I think in future, I will just go for pen drawing, rather than trying to paint with watercolours as well. I was trying out the Winsor & Newton watercolour markers, and they really didn't work on the sketchbook paper I was using on the day. I've discovered since that these markers are very fussy about the paper - well, that's the nature of watercolours overall anyway - paper is almost more important that the paint itself! More about that another time.

Here are some of the sketches from the rest of the group. We met up outside the Grave Diggers' pub at 4pm, after we were all done with our afternoon's drawing. As you can see, different things caught different people's eye.

After this less than satisfactory watercolour, I decided to go back to drawing. 

Sketching people in the park is great fun. If you feel you've been spotted, just move on to another page and draw trees! Plus, I don't think that any of these subjects would recognise themselves from my drawings anyway!

Then, I went back to the big tree that caught my eye in the first place. This time, I used a pen with watersoluble ink, which enabled me to indicate shadows. That tree was so tall that I ran out of space and never got to the top of it, but, still, this is my favourite drawing of the day. That alone made it all worth it, including the bus journeys across the city. I should have driven, but I was worried the area would be all parked up. It wasn't really, so I'll know for again.