Ringsend

Really liking this whole area - this time, I stayed near the library in Ringsend. It was a sunny day, but cold in the shade, and with a wind! The forecast was for rain all day, but Met Eireann clearly got it wrong. I had packed my bag with rain in mind, though, and didn't bring my watercolours, just markers and pencils. It was a good opportunity to try something different!

Sketches in the order I did them.

For this first one, what attracted me was the row of cottages with all these pointy porches and big chimneys, but I was actually seeing very little of each house, because of cars parked in front of them, so I had to face my fear of cars and incorporate them in the drawing. I'm finding these days that I tend to do my general drawing standing up so I can see perspective and relative sizes better, and once I have sufficient information, I sit down. Sketching while standing is tough on my arm, so it's great motivation to sketch quickly!! I actually started with the house on the right, as it was giving me a straight-on frame of reference that I could measure everything against.

I love this neighbourhood, a feel of the old Dublin, where everyone knows each other, and people say hello on the street. But I guess that like everywhere else in the city, it's rapidly changing, with prices going up and a more transient population moving in. It's not far from all the Google and Facebook offices after all, so I imagine that these houses are being snapped up by high-earners, who will probably be moving somewhere else within a few years. 

At this stage, I got cold. It was a gloriously sunny day, but with a cold breeze. So once I was finished my first sketch, I moved to a sunny and sheltered spot, just beside that pink hanging basket above!

I didn't give me the same kind of view down the street, but I got really interested in all the shapes connected across my page.

I'm not one to spend 2 hours on one sketch. So I moved again, this time behind the library where I found another sunny sheltered spot looking towards the new Dublin! The highest apartment block in the city I think. 22 stories high. Capital Dock. But the old Dublin is what interests me of course, so the modern highrise is only an outline in my sketch!

And here are my urban-sketcher-style photos. I'm useless at taking those!

And the sketches as they were when I left the location. Mostly, I just added text, except for the one with pencil colouring, for which I added more colour at home.