Clogher Beach - done for now

That's it, I'm done with this scene for now. This is in quarter sheet, but I will need to come back to it some day in half sheet. Just not today! Can you spot the differences with the previous version?

Sketching Playlab

Another great adventure with Sketching Playlab. 

I always tell myself I can't draw boats. And now I've discovered that I don't need to be able to draw boats to manage a lively harbour scene! This was the last Sketching Playlab of the year - so grateful for Suhita and Paul's ongoing energy and passion! Wonderful to forget the world out there, if only for an hour!

Café sketching - Guud Day

Two sketches done in Guud Day Café on O'Connell Street a few weeks ago. I enjoyed playing with the vertical in the sketch with the 2 young women. I did add text in the top right when I got home, which balances the page better, but I haven't taken a picture of it, and now it's too dark to take a photo.

This one was more an unplanned sketch, starting with my chai latte (I had ordered a matcha latte, but it got lost in translation, or through the masks and partitions!) and moving from there.

Clogher Beach - getting there

The work on composition is definitely helping me progress with this painting. A few things to fix and then I'll be done with this version.  I might tackle the broader view on half sheet once I've worked it out in thumbnail!

composition

Applying my studies about composition to my current project 

Here is a pencil thumbnail, where I work out shapes, values, and how to lead the eye through the piece.

Watercolour thumbnails. I often like these more than the actual painting!

Procreate analysis - this is what I need to do!! Working from photos in Procreate, looking at placing my focus and leading the eye towards it. I should have been doing this a long time ago!

Back to the basics - Composition

Someone I know had this great idea to make December a month of study. 

But my focus isn't great these days.

Still, composition it will be. Even if I am jumping around for my sources, I will aim to do a little bit every day.

Ian Roberts - check out his YouTube videos.

Arthur Wesley Dow's book on composition - more about design really, not sure this is for me, but I will soldier on.

Ink or Paper?

I had trouble with Platinum Carbon ink on my last outing. It was bleeding into my watercolour like mad. I thought it was the weather conditions, but no, I tried it at home again, with the same 3 pens I had with me, and the same bleeding/smudging happened.

This is on Hahnemuhle watercolour sketchbook.

Then I tried it in a different sketchbook, and there's almost no bleeding! This is on Etchr cold press sketchbook.

 Both behave the same way when I sketch of pre-painted surface, i.e. the line is much thicker. But I don't tend to do that much, so that's not too much of a problem for me.

National Museum and National Library

I decided to pick exactly the same angle as I did the last time I sketched outside the National Museum. It wasn't a good idea. I thought I had improved in the last few years. This sketch tells me I haven't! Here is the link to the original if you don't believe me! And the ink bled with the watercolours, which didn't help my mood. This ink is supposed to be waterproof. But I suspect the paper makes a difference. And the damp late afternoon in December certainly didn't help.

After I got home, I used an app to trace from my photo. Much happier with the shape of that. Something I need to explore so I get these complex shapes better in future!

Another one done on location. Didn't boost my confidence one bit!

People at the bus stop

Plans had to change at the last minute. But I always find a spot to sketch. And I was just happy to be back in Dublin!

Little warm up sketches. I clearly needed these before I moved to my main sketch!

Sketching while waiting

 Before going to the hairdressers. Blackrock.

Stephen's Green clouds and people on benches

This is the time of the year when it becomes difficult to take photos of my sketches. There is so little light most days. So the photos of these sketches don't do them justice.

Not good for photography, but marvellous for painting. Even a cloudy afternoon has streaks of light catching the top of the trees, and the bottom of the clouds. So I had a great time sketching in St Stephen's Green, with other sketchers dotted around me. I always bring two sketchbooks, as paint can be slow to dry at this time of the year. I did go into Starbucks at the old Anglo Irish Bank building, and dried my final sketch under the hand dryer, which pushed paint around in streaks, but that's OK.

I finished with people vignettes. The light in the sky was more or less gone. And it was getting cold, but I soldiered on!

It's hard to photograph your work in winter - the light can be very dull, and sometimes too harsh. This photo below probably captures the soft colours better.

And here is a picture of me taken by Irish Times photographer, Tom Honan. I was clearly absorbed in my work. And cosy with my many warm layers!

Rocks of Clogher - need to start thinking

 OK, after this, I have started writing down notes again. Because I'm going nowhere!

Jagged? Torn?

So how come when I'm working in my sketchbook without thinking about the overall picture, I can achieve something that makes me happy?

But as soon as I try to "paint a painting, it's going Pete Tong? Or more Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat! Composition , shapes, colours, values, I hate it all. There are bits that I love in it, but overall, it just doesn't work! You know what, I need to start painting more again! Sustained, dedicated practise. No panic. We'll get back into it!

And now I think I actually prefer the earlier version of this although the rocks in the distance looked like icebergs!!

The last of the foliage

These leaves are long gone. I am way behind with my blog. I will survive.

I'm trying different materials these days. Some more successful than others. On the left was done with the Derwent Line and Wash set. I have used it a few times. And yes, I did buy it. I didn't receive it as a gift, although I was involved in a promotion a short while back. And to be honest, it's just as well. Because I don't like it very much. The colours are too flat for me. Compare it to the vibrancy of what I did on the right-hand page with my usual watercolours! It probably works great for people who go for a lighter wash over a drawing, but I'm more of a watercolour woman (doesn't rhyme with Kentucky Woman)! Each to their own!

 

I tried something else here. I don't like the bit at the top where I tried to paint the shape of the leaves, but I'm delighted with how the little tree at the bottom worked out. Semi-abstract, but I think the work I put in on the edges paid off. I must remember to try that again!

These pumpkins are lasting well!

More experiments in sketchbooks. Good way to keep practising even though I don't have much time, or if I feel the muse is eluding  me.

St Stephen's Green

After the noise and activity of the trucker protest, I just went to St Stephen's Green, found shelter by the pond, and enjoyed a meditative moment in direct watercolour. Some trees are completely bare, some are still in their golden glory. It's nearly the end of November and we haven't had storms yet. That's soon to change. (I'm posting this a few weeks later, obviously, all the trees are bare.)

Trucker protest in Dublin

Well, a week before there was a farmer protest (against climate action, because they want a future for their grand-children - you couldn't make it up!!). But I was sitting in the car too far back to sketch. Plus I was too busy beeping my own horn in protest at the protest.

This time, it was a trucker protest against the cost of diesel! Go figure!! When we should be transporting goods by train instead. Plus we shouldn't be buying so much stuff! But this time I was travelling by public transport and this long queue of lorries blocking traffic turned into a wonderful sketch opportunity for me. They had flashing red lights at the back of the cabins, and they were beeping their horns aplenty! Just on the corner of Stephen's Green, at the Leeson Street end, where I was under the shelter of an awning at the old Canada House (whatever it is now, I have no idea, just another bland office block)

This is the finished sketch

And this is how far I got on location, standing and sketching frantically before they were gone! There was a lot of them, so when one was gone, there was always another one to take its place. They kind of got stuck at the end, causing mayhem in the city centre!

At last - the construction site

I've done it! I've sat in the middle of the lawn in the middle of our housing estate, and I sketched the construction site behind our neighbours' houses. I know I'm not the only urban sketcher who is fearless anywhere in the world, but is reluctant to sketch closer to home. Well my house was literally across the road to my left as I sketched this! Of course, the moment I started, I completely forgot any concern about neighbours or twitching curtains! And the following day, a lady said "was that you sitting there in the middle of the green?". Typical! Well, I didn't pick a discreet corner. I wanted the best view to show how big this block of apartments is going to be behind the existing houses! 

And I was lucky that the crane was actually moving these tubes from A to B while I was sketching, so I managed to capture it in action!

This is the finished sketch: watercolour pencil and darker marker added at home, along with a few windows.

This is how far I got before the cold got to me, despite wearing my heaviest coat!