Parliament street was busy with a "Wellness" festival - which actually was just the usual activities for children, including loud yoga. So I escaped to the relative quiet of Dame Street on Barnardo Square. Had a lovely view of that corner building with all the beautiful brick work around the windows, so that's what I focused on. Then we had lots of great chats in the pub. Perfect afternoon.
The more you draw, the more you see. I could keep on sketching Capel Street over and over, but we're going to move to another theme, so, it's goodbye for now.
Still lots to sketch on Capel street. This time we were looking at some old shops that are just a façade at this stage, probably awaiting demolition. You'd think we would try to preserve some of our heritage! I had brought a tiny tin with 6 half pans of watercolour and it was lovely to play with this reduced set. Then I returned to my inktense pencils and Ecoline markers. I wanted to capture the people on the street. That's a whole other journey! But removing cars and adding benches has certainly brought people back on the streets, including urban sketchers of course!
We were sketching in Irishtown. So much to sketch there. But I wanted to draw the pub, the Merry Cobbler, and the alleyway to the side of it. I could sit within that 100m radius and find dozens of interesting things to sketch! The weather wasn't quite as warm as forecast. Maybe 16 degrees, but with a sea breeze, I was glad of my woolly hat (26 April).
Liz Steel had set Frames as the theme for April in her Patreon, and I was really inspired after watching her video to wrap up the month. I'm particularly happy with my sketch of the alleyway, where a nothing-special view becomes interesting when framed! Also, I'm applying the theme from a previous month on Liz's Patreon, using neglected art supplies, in this case Inktense pencils and Ecoline markers. Though I have to admit I bought a few more Inktense pencils in new colours. I'm very fond of that Iris Blue that I used for the pub!
I love the area around Meath Street. It's still the real Dublin, it's not full of tourists. It still smells of the Guinness Brewery down the road. It's got some peaceful hidden corners, like the grotto at St Catherine's church, where you can sit in quiet contemplation, and then you can get back onto the busy street and go for a nice coffee or tea at Legit Coffee, and if you're lucky you will get the window seat and have a great view of the street. I spent a wonderful hour or so there with Nathalie from Belgium. We chatted and sketched and it felt good. And I love it that the graffiti on the Vets shutter reads SPUD. I love Dublin.
There is so much to discover on Capel Street. We are progressing with our slow journey. I could take twice as long and still find lots to sketch. It's an area that was neglected for many years, but now that it's partly pedestrianised (watch out for high-speed scooters though!), there is more space to notice the old buildings hidden behind ugly shopfronts. In a few years' time, it probably will be prettified and won't be half as interesting. And yes, the lunch sketch was a very basic drawing to start with!
1st April in Dublin. Still cold enough to wear a woolly hat. But I didn't need to wear my mittens. Yay! The focus for the group was to sketch McNeill's pub. But the Good Vibrations adult shop next door is what caught my eye. Particularly when the sun came out and there was great shadows from the neon sign, which reads ROCK. The gentleman in the shop behind us told me it used to be a jeweller's and the sign was the first neon sign in Dublin. I don't know what the "The Irish Firm" sign painted on the wall means.
Maybe I should have tried to sketch a little bit more of McNeills's, but I was meeting a friend and ran out of time.
After sketching in Mumbai, I have to say that sketching in Dublin in January/February is challenging. It actually didn't rain too much on this day, but there was a constant drizzle. I drew with a pink pencil, because I knew that my ink would go all over the place with every drop of rain that fell on the page. And I was holding an umbrella at the same time. And I was too warm, because temperatures went from 7 to 11 over the morning. So, I was glad, I had been practising vignettes.
It was getting cold. A jumble of images that presented themselves to me as I was sketching Grogan's pub in Dublin. I have merged foreground and background. I am conscious that makes it hard for a viewer to understand what they're looking at, but it's how I see the world, and that's what I want to show. Welcome to my world.
We were sketching on Talbot street, all sketching the same shop, Gerry Keane's wallpaper shop. The last independent wallpaper shop in Dublin, and it's closing its doors at the end of the year. It felt nice to pay tribute to it. And it reminded me of the wallpaper that's still in my childhood bedroom, back in Belgium, a big floral pattern in shades of brown. It was modern at the time. And of course as I became a teenager, it was covered in posters - wise words from Snoopy, sunsets, posters from Dublin, and a poster of Neil Diamond when he was young and good-looking! We have no wallpaper at all in our house now, just white walls (just the right shade of white, though, with a slight orange tint to it). But wallpaper does bring back memories more than white walls. Feeling nostalgic!
I felt my previous skech with Dublin Sketchers was a bit tame. So I prepainted pages with random colours and brought red, green and orange tempera sticks with me. And yes, the car parked in front of the old Ballsbridge Post Office happened to be red. The post office is closed now. There is a planning permission sign, it's not clear to me if it's for a wine bar or an art gallery. Added gouache swatches on the second spread, just because I wanted to keep track of the mixes. Then I added a grey gouache sky and shadows under the cars. Maybe I could do that with the first sketch?
More sketches from around the St Andrews Resource Centre, Pearse Park and Grand Canal Dock. We had a full day of sketching and a lovely evening with our sketches on display as part of the South Docks Festival. Thank you to the amazing organisers and our very own Amélie who coordinated everything!
The first photo is the sketch I forgot to photograph on Sunday. Everything else is from our second outing. So much to sketch in this area. I love exploring an area of the city like this. And also, looking at everyone else's sketches, all capturing different aspects.
Great views from the Aloft Hotel rooftop bar. The area has changed so much since I last was there.
It was an afternoon of sunshine and downpours. I was stubborn. I should have packed up earlier and retreated to a pub. The bones of my sketch got washed out. But 3 of us moved to a secret location where we had a great view. And my jeans were almost dry by the time I got to the pub.
