The Dead Zoo and other sketches

Another epic afternoon of sketching. Brendan dropped me into town an hour before the Natural History Museum opened last Sunday. The sun was shining. So it was the perfect opportunity to put into practise Liz Steel's idea that you should warm up into sketching and keep sketching beyond the point where you normally would.

It certainly worked for me on this occasion. 

Well, I love cranes and building sites. I hate what they're doing to the city. But they do make for interesting sketching scenes. So the site below is the new ESB headquarters, replacing the horrible building that was there before (which had caused quite a bit of controversy at the time, because the whole line of Georgian buildings running from Merrion Square to Leeson Street was broken when they pulled down that block - in the seventies I guess, when Ireland wanted to be 'modern'!!

When I was done with that, I moved towards the Government buildings via Fitzwilliam Lane. I've sketched that lane before, but looking in the other direction. The light was good. I was feeling energised and I did the little sketch on the right standing up with just a fountain pen. I added the shading afterwards.

I was still feeling warm, but I knew that it would be getting cool by 3pm, so I headed for the Natural History Museum, or the Dead Zoo as we call it here. There are not dinosaur skeletons here by the way. But it's a beautiful museum. And it's lively with families on a Sunday afternoon. I chose my sketching spot based on comfort rather than subject matter - when I saw a cosy bench set back from the crowds, I knew this was where I was going to spend the next hour or two. The subject matter right in front of my eyes was the skeleton of an Indian elephant. My advice would be to avoid skeletons where possible - they are so difficult to sketch. And never mind that I ran out of space at the poor elephant's knees. But I learned that there are no bones in an elephant's trunk! You learn something new every day!

By the time I got to our meeting place, McGrattan's bar, I was in need of a sugar boost. The fudge chocolate cake was delicious. I didn't draw my chamomile tea pot, as it was too complicated. But I finished the page with a simple line of fellow sketchers. So overall, I'm happy with how my sketchbook pages look after that. And yes, I may become one of these people that sketch through meals - well, only in the company of other sketchers!