Mushrooms and garlic

Although we've only just had our first Olives, Oysters and Oranges sketchwalk, I've been drawing and painting on the theme of Ulysses for a few months already. I'm not sticking strictly to the script, i.e. more of my sketches are about places and feelings than about food, but I keep finding connections that excite me all the same. I am fascinated that Joyce refers to vegetarianism and animal welfare in this book that was written a century ago! And I am also really interested in Leopold Bloom's sense of otherness and longing for acceptance into Irish society. But that's another day's work!

As we get organic vegetable deliveries occasionally, I've started to sketch our day-to-day veggies. The last time I did this, it was aubergine, courgette and red pepper, which are probably the only three vegetables that don't get a mention in Ulysses. I was wiser this week, and checked the text before I sketched!!

'How they change the venue when it’s not what they like. Ask you do you like mushrooms because she once knew a gentleman who.'
Now innocent me just found the meaning of 'dirty mushroom' in the urban dictionary!! Or worse, 'The mushroom'!! Mmmm. I'm not sure I wanted to know!!

'After all there’s a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from the earth garlic of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp of onions mushrooms truffles. Pain to the animal too. Pluck and draw fowl. Wretched brutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe to split their skulls open.'

Snotgreen

Getting into the spirit of Ulysses!
'A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. You can almost taste it, can't you?' - James Joyce, Ulysses

Music for babies

Did you know that they have music for babies in the NCH? And all the buggies are left in the foyer!

A house by the sea

A quick little sketch on a grey day.
"Looking out over the sea she told me" - James Joyce, Ulysses

Life Drawing - Anuta

Another fantastic model at Dublin Drawing, Anuta. And I managed to get 100! 

One week 100 People - Days 4 and 5

I knew that if I wanted to achieve my target, I needed to draw faster. So I turned to Sktchy!

Simple line with a Pilot Kaküno and the Pilot ina-ho colour, which translates as 'rice field'. It's not waterproof but it blends beautifully with any colour you throw at it! 

And by the way, (more or less) all of the sketches were done in my beloved Firmo Diário Gráfico!

I got to 85, but I still had an evening of life drawing to make it to 100!!

One Week 100 People Day 3 and life drawing with Ray

I didn't get as much life sketching as I was hoping on day 3, as I tried to add more detail than I usually do. I tried a couple of selfies, but they were disappointing. But a life drawing class in the evening filled the gap and I was still on target!

The model at life drawing was Ray. I learned a lot about negative space and shading. With practise, some of it will stick eventually!

For the last two poses, we learned about tone. They were longer poses, about 25 minutes each I think.

One Week 100 People Day 2

Croquis Café was a life saver on a busy day. I discovered their dance challenge section and I was in heaven! All the squiggly sketches were done live, with the pose changing every 15 seconds. And for the more elaborate ones, I paused the video to give myself two or three minutes per sketch! And I even got to try and add a few facial features!!