A lot to learn about cars

All to do with measuring. When I do, they turn out ok. When I don't, mmm. The nice thing is that I can always have a little sketchbook in my bag. As I tend to often be early for appointments, that gives me regular opportunities for practise.

 

Rocks and waves

As I got frustrated with the field and the tree, I moved to rocks and waves. And as you can see in a previous post, maybe a change is all that I needed. Before I moved to the quarter sheet , I did a few watercolour thumbnails in my sketchbook. The granulation in the sketchbook is always more interesting that on the sheet. Well, it's different paper. And the big question is will I be able to reproduce the effect in a larger format. Practise Practise!!

And by the way if you want to observe spectacular waves, the best place to go is Clogher Beach (near the Louis Mulcahy pottery), between Dunquin and Ballyferriter. If there is any swirl at all in the ocean, the waves come crashing at an angle against the rocks and I could watch them for hours. I must go back to the videos I filmed and do screen shots so I can study the waves in more details! They are such a challenge to paint. I haven't found the right formula for me yet - masking, gouache, working carefully, working wet in wet? Too many choices. I want something that looks like a wave, but yet has an abstract quality!

The Field - back to the drawing board?

One more attempt, in my sketchbook. It's better than the painting!! Maybe it's the size, maybe it's the paper, maybe it's me!! All I know is that I need to move on to something else.

And yes, in Ireland the grass is that green!

Covid masks

 Some days, I am just not inspired!

Ina Ho

Sometimes, you just have time or energy for a small drawing. That's OK. Ina Ho is my favourite colour ink. The word means Rice Field in Japanese. And the ink is from the Iroshizuku range from Pilot. The ink is not waterproof, which adds to its beauty, as it glows when water is added!

Sketching while waiting

 Practising cars every chance I get!

Clogher beach

 And sometimes, things just work...

Playing with ink. Not very inspired

 That's another Inktober that I'll skip! Not enough time to do ink and watercolour.

The Field - mmm

Well, sometimes, you just overthink it and it ends up bland and lacking in spark!

I've had to crop it to get rid of the ugly squiggles on the left. Eye-catching brambles - good. Dark squiggles - not so much! So I'm going to have to put this one on the backburner for a while. I'm just not feeling it anymore!! There are some nice aspects to it - the mountains in the background, the tree, the field on the right. But what's supposed to be the highlight of the show, the field on the left with the fence, nah. All good learning.

The Field - the ugly duckling before the beautiful swan?

Hard to paint a sunny day when it's dank and grey outside! And did I listen to any of my advice? Of course not. I need to get back in the zone! And just paint!

 

The field - colours - the monster has been unleashed

Talk about getting distracted!! I blame Uma!! I felt I needed to reduce the number of pigments used in this painting. She wrote a really interesting article about that. And then I just went down the rabbit hole! But what fun it was.

So, two or three things to say, in no particular order:

• Limiting the number of colours you use in any painting is important. The fewer the pigments, the more unity and harmony.
• Sap Green is not a colour I normally use. It's very bright. It spreads into everything else if you're painting wet in wet. And it's made of three pigments ((PO48, PY150, PG7). It's really brash. But when you're painting an Irish landscape, it can be useful, mixed with a bit of blue, or a bit of yellow, and a touch of burnt sienna.
• There are a lot of resources about colour mixing in watercolours. My advice is simply to do lots of mixing charts, so you get to know your colours. If you have lots of time, just enjoy playing with colours. But be prepared to put in lots of hours to figure out what happens when you mix a+b+c+d+e!! If you don't have time, limit your palette. Good advice from Uma Kelkar here. And check out Shari Blaukopf's book too
• Triads are good. But remember to not have the same amount of a, b, and c in your painting. Think Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear, Baby Bear (I read that in a book about painting in watercolours a long time ago, "Powerful Watercolor Landscapes", by Catherine Gill)
• Colourful darks are important
• Mixing on the page is more dynamic than mixing in the palette.
• Rainbow caterpillars are always fun.
• Different people like different things. What other people like might not work for you. I still don't like Indigo, Sepia or Paynes Grey, despite the fact that I know these colours work wonders for other urban sketchers. They just don't make me happy. Caput Mortuum, on the other hand, it has something that makes me smile! And Carbazole Violet!! Talk about strong!!

The Field - Colour studies

Starting to get tight now. Two on a quarter sheet. Still learning a lot. Am I ready for the quarter sheet version?

The Field - options

This is probably now my favourite bit of the journey. Exploring shapes and values without being distracted by colours. That's hard for me to admit. I love colour so much. But these monochrome studies are just perfect as they are. And they teach me so much. I have a whole list of what I've learned from this exercise. I can't go wrong, can I?

The Field - Ballyferriter - the start of the journey

I'm always inspired by a visit to the West of Ireland, County Kerry in particular. I probably took enough photos to feed my painting habit for a lifetime! I'm not the fastest at the moment. The journey is as important to me as the end result. And I know that the more I paint a scene, the tighter I get. The first pass is often fresher and better, less laboured. For instance I'm looking at the watercolour sketch I did down below, and I'm thinking that's it, that's all I need to do! Well, not quite, but what's the bet that the final painting will not be as lively!

Repurposed kimono and obi!

A million thanks to my wonderful friend Máire who managed to make this beautiful dress out of my kimono.

Like most women who go to Japan, I bought a kimono. I was with Véronique and she knew this wonderful second-hand kimono shop in Hamamatsu. I was reluctant at first but she insisted I couldn't come to Japan and not buy a kimono. And there was this beautiful silk one with a simple modern pattern and I couldn't resist. A few days later, I bought a second-hand obi in Tokyo. But of course I never wore them, except once at home to take a few photos. And it sat in my wardrobe for all those years (2011, the year of the big Tohoku earthquake and tsunami).

So I decided something needed to be done. My friend Máire did fashion in NCAD and she is involved in theatre in Sligo, often making the costumes for the plays she's working on. I knew she would be the best person to take on this project. I found a dress I liked on a Japanese website and she adapted a pre-existing pattern to create this beautiful dress.

Now I just need restaurants to re-open so I can parade it somewhere outside of our backyard! 

I did manage to find a few pictures of me wearing the kimono. I know there's a video somewhere of the shop assistant showing us how to put on the obi. I will find it some day!

Sketching while waiting

There's nothing like a visit to a hospital to bring out the urban sketcher in me! Well, it's a good way to calm the nerves anyway.

So, the last time I had a surgery, I was three, and I was getting my tonsils out. I remember the mask coming over my face while I cried out for my mummy, and the icecream my granny made for us to eat afterwards. I'm not good with syringes and things like that, so I wasn't looking forward to it. But having my sketchbook with me helped to steady my nerves. The surgeon wasn't too impressed when he took a look at what I was drawing when he came to the room to get me to sign the consent form. He thought I should be drawing my feelings before surgery, rather than my toes on the bed. But what would he know? Maybe he's a very talented surgeon, even an artist, but he's not an urban sketcher. And he spoke French to me the first time he met me. What is it about Irish medical consultants and the need to show off their language skills when they find out I'm a French speaker. I bet himself and the anaesthetist spoke French through the whole surgery! But hey, I wasn't going to give out to them at that point!!

This one was done a few days before my operation. I had to go in to get a Covid swab test and an ECG. I had a bit of time between the two appointments and I didn't want to stay inside the hospital, so I just went out. The people who live on that street must be so fed up with cars driving up and down and double-parking while waiting to pick up someone from the hospital

I didn't have very long to wait at registration. Enough time to get lost in the ceiling lines. 

I had a nice view. There's a very posh golf course at the back of the hospital. 

Was taken to a waiting area for a scan to be done before the operation. These things always take longer than you think, but then, that wheelchair was whisked away before I had a chance to finish sketching it. Typical! And yes, I am long enough in the tooth to know I should have started with the wheelchair!!

Waiting, waiting, waiting. Not much to look outside the window as the sun is shining right at me. But my toes are always available! And that jug of water I'm not allowed to drink from!

Same view. Different light. The passing of time.

What I would really have loved to sketch was the operating theatre, but I was asleep before the anaesthetist bored me to tears with his fluent French. That said, he's the first person who's ever managed to insert a cannula in my hand without causing any bruising, so he gets douze points for that!

I rarely think of taking the urban sketcher photos, but I managed to capture two this time!

Gently Gently

Easing myself from one project to the next. And using up left-over paint from my palette.

 Phthalo turquoise, neutral tint (not neutral at all - it's really a dark blue), grey of grey. Some yellow.

Just playing.

Just another stone in the wall

As I said already, Dublin is in Level 3 of Covid restrictions, so we're not meeting as a group for sketching until we go back to Level 2 (although there's now talk of the whole country going to Level 5 - that's not good!). The theme for the day was stone walls, in celebration of Feile na gCloch, which was online this year of course. Feile na gCloch is a dry stone wall festival that takes place on Inis Óirr every year. I've never been to the festival itself but my weekend on Inis Óirr a few years ago is unforgettable - what a wonderful place!

I can't leave County Dublin for the next few weeks, so I just drove down to Blackrock (Black Rock, get it?), parked the car and drew without leaving the car. This is not a dry stone wall of course, but these yellow stone walls are very common in Dublin, and I thought this was an interesting extension to a suburban house. I have to admit I didn't even notice the house itself. There are some beautiful homes around that area. I must go back and sketch some more.

So I sketched in pen and ink first, and added watercolour, while still sitting in the car, and chatting to a friend on the phone at the same time. Multi-tasking. I'm a woman. That's never a problem!

My Covid sketchbooks

Engineers without Borders Ireland have launched an interesting competition for artists. It's called Change: Creating a New Reality. Basically they want people to share a representation of their experience of Covid19. The idea is to start a conversation amongst artists, and that further will lead to a discussion about the climate crisis. And if you think your world has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, just wait until the oceans rise, the forests burn everywhere (not just faraway places like the Amazon or Siberia), and the crops fail. 

So, here is my entry - my Covid sketchbooks. Make a cup of tea. Sit back. And enjoy. And remember, if I talk too much, you can turn the sound off!! And if you've been following this blog for a while, you have seen all of these sketches. But it's nice to see them all together. One of the things I miss the most about the pandemic is not being able to flick through someone else's sketchbook, and taking my time to look at every sketch and every story.

11 videos in this playlist. I kept finding more sketchbooks. I am a prolific urban sketcher. Don't feel you have to watch them all!! But some are really short, so why not!

PS: and just to be clear, I haven't caught Covid.

Dingle Peninsula - photos

A few photos that will be inspiring my painting adventures over the next few months, no doubt. All between Coumeenoole and Ballyferriter on the Slea Head Drive. To me, this is the best place on earth. I've got dozens more photos, but I'd be glad if I managed to paint even half of these over the winter.