Guinness

Some days, I just feel in the zone, I find the right spot and all the stars align.

This was a couple of weeks ago, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. The chosen location was around the Guiness tourist centre, but also near the old brewery itself. Guinness used to be such an olfactory presence in Dublin. The roasting of the hops (I think!) could be smelled all around the city. Now they have all sorts of filters and scrubbers, and that olfactory sensation is just a memory for me. But sketching close to the brewery, I came across that smell again, and I felt 35 years younger, full of energy and passion for the city I call home. Yes, home is in Dublin. I knew it instantly. And it is still true today.

And guinness was my drink of choice for a very long time. Still is really. At home, I'm more of a prosecco girl. But if I'm out and they don't have Seedlip alcohol-free gin, a glass of guinness will make me happy. I'm not much of a drinker. My body could never take alcohol, no matter how much I tried!

Coming back to the sketches, I found a perfect little corner at the entrance of a construction site, with the perfect view of all the vats and pipes, and the sun on my back, important on a cold January day. I don't know the technical terms for all these big cylinders, or even what they do, but I sure loved sketching them.

You could call this one my warm-up sketch. I was walking around, trying to find my spot, and as I passed beside Saint James's Church, I noticed how the cylinder with all the pipes looked so interesting behind one of the church buttresses. So I stood at the gate, peering between the railings, and drew this one in a smaller sketchbook (Portrait A5).