Look at that card!!

Alice made this card for me. Isn't she amazing?

                 

No painting or drawing for a week

Thank you Laura Trueman for taking this happy photo of me!

Sometimes it hurts to be different. In case you don't know, I'm on the autistic spectrum. And please don't patronise me by saying that you don't think I am. Because I'm a social being doesn't mean I can't be on the spectrum. And you have no idea of the torment that goes inside my head most of the time (except when I'm drawing or painting!).

Here is a little something I have written in response to how some people treat me:

Maybe others simply don't like me? But I'm so nice!
Maybe I've done or said something I shouldn't? Mmm. I'm replaying words and events in my mind non stop, but I really don't think I did or said something bad or offensive.
Maybe I don't understand their intent and misinterpret their words? Or maybe they're gaslighting me!
Maybe I'm hypersensitive? But then you'd think they would be kinder to me, wouldn't you?
Maybe they're more clever than me? Aah that might be why they use that teacher tone when they talk to me like I'm a naughty 8-year-old in class?
Or maybe it's simply that I'm kind and bright and they feel threatened by that? Well, that's their problem, not mine.
And to all the others who love me just the way I am, thank you. I love you too. And you know that I'm like a dog, not just for Christmas. A friendship with me is for life.

James Street and back to Meath Street

Our journey West is coming to an end, maybe. We're on James Street and there's not many more cafés to shelter in. But as long as it's dry, I'm happy to sketch on the street. I'm working in a Stillman and Birn hard back sketchbook. It's about A4 in size and is portrait. Definitely easier to hold without a support than my more familiar landscape sketchbooks. 

I started with a sketch inside a café, catching what I could of people at tables around me. This was a good warm-up sketch, but I often find sketching in cafés not satisfying at all, in that I can't see properly because someone is sitting across the way, and also there's always a lot of chatting. Don't get me wrong, I love the chatting. But it means that I'm not really thinking about my sketch, and it ends up being disjointed. 

So I headed out on to the street, and saw the James Street Post Office across the way, with Guinness buildings behind it. The footpaths are quite wide around there, so I just stood with my back against a wall, and I sketched in ink. My fingers were frozen, despite my warm clothes and heavy mittens. So it was time to move.

I had left a blank page in my sketchbook after sketching in Legit Coffee Co. a few weeks ago. I wanted to come back to Meath Street and explore it some more. So I stood beside a bicycle parking area and looked back towards Thomas Street and its beautiful buildings. Tea and wine merchants and surgeons! The building with the big arch in the center was a warehouse for Powers Distillers.

 

Here are the sketches at various stages of development.

On location:

Colour and text added at home later.

Laura took this picture of me.  I love it. It matches the mental image I have of myself.

Paint along

This one I painted along while Uma Kelkar was taking us through her process for the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour . So, it's not my composition, nor my colours. I followed step by step, as much as I could keep up. My painting still looks nothing like hers! Uma is a fast painter. And a great teacher. My main takeaway? It's a landscape, you can change things, make hills bigger, skies more dramatic, you can even move trees. If you like this style of painting (direct watercolour, done with no or minimal drawing), check out Uma's website to find out when and where she will be teaching. She also has good-value paintings and prints if you want beautiful art in your home, but don't want to spend too much.

That's all for today

Inspired by Uma Kelkar's workshop for the Canadian Society for Painters in Watercolour. The first page I painted along with the workshop. The second one I did later with leftover paint!

Change of mood

Time to dry different colours. A super-granulating sky. And a yellow mix I really like. But there isn't much else in the composition. Time to sketch more Notan studies.

Paper matters

Pigments are important, but so is paper. I painted these 3 pieces one after the other. It's quite cold outside so we have the heat on, and my watercolours were drying very quickly. Too quickly for what I wanted to do. I'm showing them to you in order of preference rather than chronological.

This one I painted in about 10 minutes, on Arches rough paper, with some gouache water in the sky, and phthalo turquoise and burnt umber (mostly) in the land. I haven't used rough paper in quite a while, but I love the variety of edges, soft to rough. It just fell into place.

I'm calling this one Glacial Lakes 1

 

This one is Glacial Lakes 2. I painted it on cold press paper. I had to use some scratching to stop the paint from escaping totally into the sky.

This one is East Coast 2 (and the first one I painted that day). I was interested in reproducing some of the effects I achieved in the first version, but using less gouache. It looks nice in photo. And I like the colours and values, more subtle than my usual.

Around Thomas Street

I am near the end of Sketching Now Watercolour On Location, and I am pushing myself to fit in more sketching every time I go out. So when I would normally do 1 or 2 sketches with our gang, I'm doing 3, and hopefully will build my stamina

Laura features in a lot of my sketches. She often arrives first. I arrive second. And we sketch each other! She's the warmest, bubbliest person I know. I always feel uplifted, just by spending time with her! She's just amazing. On this occasion, she was sitting at the window, with the sun streaming behind her, with all the crazy plants on the window sill providing the perfect backdrop to her beautiful red hair! She was sketching me while I was sketching her, which is why she looks so serious here!

Before going to the café, I had gone to John's Lane Church on Thomas Street. The heating was on. And then the sun appeared and lit everything up. It was unreal! I dried my watercolour over the radiator before heading back out.

And before I went home, I felt the need to sketch one more, standing up on Thomas Street, with my back to a closed shop. I did pen only on location, and added watercolour at home. This building is known as Miller's Hall, I believe. And seems to be shared by Spar and Lidl now. It's a busy road, so almost impossible to sketch without a car in the foreground. Thankfully this one was parked right in front of me just long enough to sketch it without panicking.

The versions below are as they were done on location:

 

A few photos

At what point does it become unrecognisable?

Another semi-abstract landscape, this time with a view of the Irish sea in the greater Dublin area. Some people might recognise it. Or maybe not.

I'll call it East Coast 1

And at what point is it no longer a watercolour, but a gouache? Am I being seduced? Will I try one like this with no gouache and see what happens?

Blood Red Skies on the Wild Atlantic Way

Experimenting with some pigments I have only recently discovered, Transparent Pyrrol Orange and Quinacridone Scarlet Orange. And loving them. And then I read somewhere that they are not produced anymore!! It's like discovering that the perfect pair of shoes no longer comes in my size!!!

So what to do? Order some more of course! And paint lots. Maybe by the time I run out, I will have fallen in love with some new pigment!

I'm in a semi-abstract mode at the moment, playing with dark transparent mixes (lots of Phthalo turquoise!) and flashes of white gouache. I'm working from photos I have taken, and modified in Procreate to a point where they no longer look like a landscape. But they still evoke, for me at least, the emotion I felt when I was immersed in that moment, at that place.

Wild Atlantic Way - Blood Red Sky 1

Wild Atlantic Way - Blood Red Sky 2

Wild Atlantic Way - Blood Red Sky 3

Grafton Street

I know it's weeks since Christmas, maybe more if you're reading this on Instagram. But my atypical mind can't bear to change the order of my sketches. Yes, it's actually something I think about. I agonise about it actually. Some people might say it's too much, that's I'm not spontaneous enough. But it's the way I am. Can't help it. I need order. Oh Ok, I'm going to schedule it for just before Christmas. You have no idea how hard this is for me!

So these were sketched a few weeks before Christmas, on a Sunday with Dublin Sketchers. It was cold, but I was well wrapped up. So I sketched on the street, focusing on the flower sellers on Grafton Street, who do a roaring trade at this time of the year. And then I found somewhere warm to add extra layers of red. And then I went to the pub, where a decidedly Viking-looking Santa was watching over the crowds.

Dublin Castle - State Apartments

I feel I'm getting back into the rhythm of sketching and painting these days. It's a matter of scheduling and making time for it. Less watching tv, less Instagram, more painting. Simple as that! It certainly feels good.

The sketches below are from Dublin Castle, where I had arranged access for the group to the State Apartments. Particularly at Christmas, it's always a treat to sketch there. I enjoyed the Victorian Christmas tree and dolls. We were working in dry media only, to avoid spills and stains, so I sketched the Christmas tree with a fountain pen, and added watercolour later. I like the reflection of the chandelier in the mirror. I'm not sure I represented it very clearly in my sketch, though!

I also sketched in coloured pencil. It's a little bit unfinished, but I like the effect.

And as usual, I forgot to photograph my sketches on location, but here are a few photos I took.

Yellow and Blue

 I had a bit of catching up to do in my Yellow and Blue series.

Who am I?

In search of the authentic self. I am exploring artists I admire. It's hard to hold on to who I am. But that little bit I cut out (the 2nd image), that's who I am. Bright colours, big simple shapes. Now, can I paint that big? Or by the time I am back at the easel, I will have forgotten that's what I wanted to do?