Royal Hospital Baggot Street

I wanted to do vignettes last week, but once I got on location, I forgot and filled my page with one sketch. So this week, I drew squares and rectangles on my page before heading out.  That was a good plan! I started with some pencil drawing, then moved to direct watercolours once I was safely inside a café away from the drizzle. It meant I couldn't see the whole building, but that didn't matter. Actually not being able to see the whole building was the perfect view for these vignettes! I do love that section of Baggot Street!

 

Big cloud hugging the mountain

I enjoyed my exploration in gouache, so I decided to take the same view and zoom in. This time working in my Seawhite of Brighton concertina sketchbook. Lots of pencil and Neocolor over gouache and Gansai Tambi, being careful not to tear the paper too much. Will I find it hard to go back to pure watercolour? Would it be like going back to driving shift after driving automatic? Does it matter if I'm having fun?

Down the rabbit hole

Down the rabbit hole I go. Yes, still exploring the landscape of the Beara Peninsula. And still discovering how to paint skies. But now with gouache. And some Gansai Tambi Japanese watercolours. I have to admit it's fun to be able to add a sliver of light onto a dark mountain! I worked quite wet on hot-press paper, and I'm not sure if this would work in my accordion sketchbook. But maybe I will try. And add some Neocolor on top of the mountain for more texture. Did I enjoy the process? Yes. Am I following a nudge? Definitely.

A distraction? Gouache swatches

Can you see me diverging from my current thread? Got a delivery of lovely gouache tubes and the cute little box from Artemiranda that I had seen on Maru Godas's Instagram. Couldn't resist it!!

As if I don't have enough colours!! But gouache is like candy. So hard to resist!! Particularly when they have Japanese names.

Love love love the green mixes! The kouji and tokiwamidori both contain the same yellow, PY83 (and Indian yellow, Google tells me). Mixing with white and with black is an extra treat with gouache, something I don't do in watercolours. Mixing with white creates all these lovely pastel colours!

 

Clouds over the peninsula 2

Another interpretation of the same scene, this time done on Seawhite of Brighton paper rather than watercolour paper. As the paper is really white, there's a better sense of light in the clouds. Also, I used Holbein Blue Compose, which is a mix of PB15 and PW6. The white in it gives a gouache effect when mixing, which reminded me of my gouache clouds in Wild Watercolour with Dolores Phelps. I will follow that thread. Amongst other threads! Lots of Neocolor added for the hills. And also, I had loosely drawn the clouds with a light-blue pencil, which helped me with the general shapes.

Pencil and Neocolr scribbles:

Clouds over the peninsula 1

I wanted to explore clouds some more, while still staying on my theme of the Beara peninsula. So this is a view looking North I think, using the same mix as previously. I added a little natural sienna to bring a sense of light. And I wanted to give the clouds more body. But they got too dark and purple really. I need to find the happy medium.

Smokin

Forgot to take my photo on location. But if I had taken it, you would see that the name of the restaurant isn't Smokin, but Smokin Bones. I just didn't have enough room for so many letters. The sign on the left is done with a white gel pen, and the one on the right by painting around. I'm not great with lettering. Just not interested in it, I think. 

Started this sketch with my Sailor Fude, then watercolour. I was very unhappy with it, until I added Neocolor in accents to create reflections and add light. Then I was happy!

Irish wall

From the previous view, I decided to take a nearby photo I had taken and zoom in on the stonewall. Stonewalls are so typical of the West of Ireland, but not so much on the Beara peninsula, which is much more wild than other parts of the country. Yet, this place had a big long stone wall with fencing on top! 

And look at the little sheep in the fields on the side of the hill! I did them with some acrylic marker (whichever wasn't bleeding), and then added a little brown grey head and a bluer grey shadow. They're perfect! I could have achieved them by lifting pigment from the green grass, but the paper I'm using isn't watercolour paper, so it was best to add rather than subtract.

Irish wall, and why I need to keep track of my pigments!

A little doodle while looking at a closer view of a stonewall on the Beara Peninsula 

My pigment notes, because where else will I keep them all together! I used a grey that was in one of my palettes that I'm trying to empty. I had no idea what it was. Until I discovered purely by accident that it was Schmincke Neutral Grey, not to be mixed with Schmincke Neutral Tint (which is not neutral at all by the way!). And also loving the quality of Aquarius watercolours. Next time I'm buying paints, I must have a look at them again!

Other doodle

Green fields on the side of a mountain

It's a long time since I have followed an idea. I am liking this exploration of the photos I took on the Beara peninsula. It's helping me reconnect with the landscape and search for what caught my eye. To use a Creative Shift term, notice what I notice. It is so important. What are the things that matter to me? The light hitting a field a certain way, a little house on a cliff, the brambles and rocks scattered on the mountain, the criss-crossing of hedges and stone walls and fences?

Bare trees and water reflections, Kenmare

Some day, maybe, some of these will become paintings. For now, I don't have the energy to work on composition, values etc. I just want to quickly capture what it was that attracted me to take a photo of this particular place and particular time. It's just a feeling I have, this idea to continue sketching the Beara peninsula, from the comfort of my own home this time! It's simply what I need to do at this time. I'm following a nudge, in the terminology of Creative Shift. I'm actually so busy fitting in time to sketch and paint that I don't have any time for documenting any of it in my studio book (that's an Art Tribe term). No doubt there will be times again when I don't feel the compulsion to create so much, and then will be a good time to go back over everything I'm exploring at the moment and think about where it's leading me! Including pencil scribbles that I really like!

Evening light, winter tree, Kenmare

I've now moved to an A4 Seawhite of Brighton accordion sketchbook which I started while on the Beara Peninsula, and I'm continuing my exploration, using photos I took when I was last there. It's a very different feeling from sketching on location. I can reach to all the colour pencils and wax pencils that are lying around my desk, so you never quite know what you're gonna get. But I do generally reduce the colours for each piece, choosing maybe 6 pencils and 6 Neocolors (watersoluble wax crayons), so I'm not going too crazy. For this one, I did lots of scribbly notes first, so I had a better feel for that wonderful tree that glows in the late afternoon.

St Audoen's church

It's funny that I keep thinking I'm not very creative these days, that my mind is on other things than my art. And yet, every day, I find the time to do something to keep my connected to my creative journey! And with each day, I explore who I am as an artist. No, I do not paint postcard pictures. Sometimes what I sketch or paint can hardly be identified. But for me, each of these represents a moment of my life, when I'm feeling 100% alive and excited to be in the world!

These are from an outing with Dublin Sketchers at St Audoen's church, an ancient Anglo-Norman church sitting high above the old city wall. We were invited to sketch there by the kind people at the OPW and we had a wonderful time! I was really only interested in the colour and texture of the stones in these ancient walls. So that's what I painted. Plus a sketcher or two!

Clouds

It's June, Direct Watercolor month. I'm feeling very rusty, so I'm easing myself in very gently. 

Experimenting - need to push more?

I am continuing my exploration of the Beara landscape through accordion sketchbooks in watercolour, colour pencil and Neocolors. Working from photos I took the last time I was on the peninsula. I'm thinking I need to push the mixed media element more. But at the same time, these make me happy. Maybe I don't need to add layers and layers of ink and gouache?

Here are some more of the colour swatches I did before painting. (See earlier post for more)

And a few shots of how they look as an accordion sketchbook. (I can never take a good photo or video of these, as skill I need to work on!)

Dorset Street

More sketching. Just my favourite Sailor Fude pen and Platinum Carbon ink in a Stillman&Birn sketchbook. The theme for this location was the bridal shop across the way. It seems I was more interested in sketching the sketchers, and the window, and the tree and the traffic lights. Yes, I did sketch the shop too. In my own way. Bit by bit, I am accepting my way of sketching, my way of seeing the world, my way of being. I really want to go back to that Insomnia café on the corner of Dorset Street. Great big windows with multiple views, nice service too.

Beara from photos

Using the colours from my swatches to sketch the view of the bay as you come towards Allihies. First pass, using watercolour.

Nuanciers du jour

Figuring out my colour mixes for some sketching from photos I took in Beara.  Inspired by Marion Rivolier's habit of colour swatching while looking out the window.

Sketching in the Olivier Cornet Gallery

Back in Dublin on the Friday evening. Back sketching with the tribe on the Sunday. I seem to be able to settle quicker than I used to after travel. Or maybe I'm less demanding of myself! Or I'm travelling so much that I keep my basic travel supplies always at the ready?

Olivier from the Olivier Cornet Gallery kindly invited us to sketch at the gallery. It was very interesting to look at the pieces on display at the current exhibition, but also in other parts of the building. I sketched in the entrance hall, with its intriguing straw hat on a cement mold! And then I went to the kitchen, where it looks like every tennant has their own washing-up liquid! And yes, I forgot to draw the sink. Well, actually, I didn't notice the sink at all. I was just interested in the juxtaposition of elements inside and outside the window.

Sketching in Brussels

I was in Brussels for two nights after my trip to Nanges, visiting my Mum who was in hospital after one of many falls. She's back in the nursing home now, but it's a slow painful decline. Alzheimer's is no joke. She was in good form when I spent time with her though, which was lovely. But I had no energy for anything else. No wonder I can't tackle "proper" painting at the moment. So, I just have to manage my own energy and keep connected to my art in any way I can find, without putting pressure on myself. In order to do that, I didn't meet with family and friends on this trip. I just stayed in my hotel room, ate healthy foods from nearby shops, drank a vitamin drink and painted the view from my window. All direct watercolour. No pencil drawing. And the only brush I had with me was a little square brush I got in Pigment Tokyo. So, not ideal for painting detail, but I had fun with it. And on the last morning before going to the airport, I just had time for a colour study (nuancier du jour, in Marion Rivolier terminology).