Grafton Street

The centre of all things Christmas, Grafton Street is getting busier by the day. It was a packed location for sketching, and a wet afternoon, with violent showers, after a gloriously sunny morning. But there were plenty of places to take shelter with all the pubs and cafés nearby. Some sketchers were more comfortable with the quiet surroundings of the National Gallery. Each to their own.

I went up to the café in Dubray Books. It was busier than I had anticipated, not with shoppers, but with students, who seemed to hog all the tables, with their laptops, notes, and not a cup of coffee in sight. I don't understand why the owners of that business do nothing about it. Genuine customers were turning back, disappointed after climbing the two floors to get there. Me? I just commented about the lack of tables to the barista, who offered to ask someone if they minded sharing with me! So I sat across a young woman who was reading a book on Renaissance English literature (or something like that). She did have an empty cup of coffee in front of her, at least. She was still there a good hour later, when I left, having finished my sketch and a delicious hot chocolate. I was in another café recently, doing a recce, and it was the same situation, with single students taking up tables of six just for themselves. Why are these students not in the library? Surely a café is not the best environment to concentrate on your studies, with people chatting at tables nearby, and the risk of spills on precious laptops! If I was the manager, I would just turn off the Wifi.

In my main sketch, I was trying to draw two buildings on different planes, i.e. one on the main street, and the other further back on the opposite corner of an intersecting street. I wasn't satisfied with how it worked out initially, so I added a thicker line on the main edge of the foreground building, and I think that did the trick. What do you think?

I also did a sketch of one of the street entertainers at the top of Grafton Street. Drawn while standing on a street corner. Colour added while I was in the café. When I got home, I realised that the juggler/mono-cyclist didn't stand out enough, as I had painted his jacket olive green (which it was). So I scrubbed the green and painted the jacket red instead!