Cross-currents prep

I was struggling to find what to do next after my solo exhibition. It's finishing today, 26th November, by the way, so if you're reading this at 6am, it's still time to go to Walters in Dun Laoghaire and see it !

And then, I realised I have a project I need to be working on already, a collaborative exploration of the Beara peninsula through urban sketching (me), poetry (Cathy) and sound (Brendan). It's a longer-term project, but I will be working in a concertina sketchbook on location on the Beara peninsula. And I won't get that many opportunities to go there, so I want to be ready to hit the road when we're there. And I'm new to concertina sketchbooks, so I need to practise. And remember to bring clips, or the pages will unfold in the wind! I'm quite an intuitive sketcher. I don't like to plan when I sketch. But here, I will need to have an idea how I will connect the double-spreads, without applying a wash on all the pages before I start. Why don't I want to apply a wash in advance? That's too constraining for me. What if I apply a wash in the colour of the stones, but I decide I want to sketch the fields, or the sea, or the sky? It's generally one of those four things, or all of them, but the landscape can look so different depending on the light! 

So I'm going to work from Google Maps for a bit, dropping random pins and hopefully I will find what I need, connecting the views to Cathy's words, and Brendan's sounds, which are resonating in my head as I work. And I'd better start practising drawing sheep!