Iveagh Gardens and top of Harcourt Street

Maybe the cold was brewing already. Or I was too distracted by people who, well, kept talking. But despite completing 5 sketches that afternoon, I was very unsatisfied with my work. 

I actually made this one worse when I got home, adding darks in the wrong places and completely losing where the building goes in and out. I did manage to recover the foliage somewhat by erasing most of it essentially!!

This one was going to be a lot more ambitious, but distractions got the better of me!

By the time I started this one, I should have known that I needed to move and find a spot away from others.  I completely re-did it at home, with Posca markers, which can cover most mistakes.

And even when I found a spot with just myself, my mind was still spinning.

And still not settled

But I did find Ulysses passages that matched everything I wanted.

'You have but emerged from primitive conditions: we have a literature, a priesthood, an agelong history and a polity.'

'Something poisonous I ate.'

' Lovely maidens sit in close proximity to the roots of the lovely trees singing the most lovely songs while they play with all kinds of lovely objects as for example golden ingots, silvery fishes, crans of herrings, drafts of eels, codlings, creels of fingerlings, purple seagems and playful insects.'

'Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. Brrfoo! '

'... tramcars, roadster bicycles equipped with inflated pneumatic tyres, hackney carriages, tandems, private and hired landaus, dogcarts, ponytraps and brakes...'

By the way, three of my sketchbooks are still at the Olivier Cornet Gallery for the Olives, Oysters and Oranges exhibition, until 30th June. And do feel free to turn the pages and look at the books from start to finish. That's what a sketchbook is for! A single page might not tell you much, but altogether, it's a whole different story.