Urban Sketchers Week - Dublin Sketchers' special sketchwalk

Loved our sketchwalk with Dublin Sketchers on Sunday 3rd May, in celebration of International Urban Sketchers Week. We had a map of locations, starting at 11 am and finishing at 4pm (in the pub), with about 45 minutes at each location. It can be challenging, but also exhilarating, to sketch quickly and then move and settle and start all over again! All while chatting to sketchers from Dublin, and also Galway, Gorey, Northern Ireland and other parts. You could say it was our first National event for Ireland! 

As the International logo for this year was green, I tried to incorporated green in all my sketches. Worked mostly with pen, inktense and ecoline. Some watercolour when I had more time. I enjoyed the fast pace, and the chats along the way. Text added at home, everything else done on location. Was completely exhausted the next day! And Brendan took some photos and put a video together.  A great memory of the day.

 

Up on the roof

We were supposed to be sketching the GPO on O'Connell Street, but it was too busy for me. Too many people, too much noise. Plus I wanted a different view. So I went up to the top of Arnott's car park and was rewarded by the wonderful Dublin skyline. And lots of seagulls. It felt so good. I added grey shadows and a blue sky (acrylic markers) when I got home. Dublin is finally getting a few skyscrapers (well, not quite, but buildings that are a bit taller than the usual) and I enjoyed playing with that sense of scale. Plus the chimney pots, which are so gorgeous.

 

Sunday at Grattan Bridge

A gorgeous sunny afternoon on Grattan Bridge with Dublin Sketchers. Fun with tempera sticks, colour pencils and sailor fude.

Stand with Ukraine

As soon as I got back from Cill Rialaig - at a rally to support Ukraine. Then sketching people while having a hot chocolate to warm up.

Dublin Castle - State Apartments

It was a good day to be in a warm indoors location to sketch. And the State Apartments in Dublin Castle are always such a treat! Not too many tourists on this mid-January day, so I really relaxed into sketching. I had decided to work in continuous line drawing. Well, more or less continuous. And it really helped me to not be overwhelmed by all the detail in front of me. I just kept following the line.  

I'm looking at Liz Steel's Foundations online course again and it's helping me reconnect with sketching in a way that I find satisfying. And Liz is such a generous teacher. If you do her online courses, you get to do them again for free every time she runs a live runthrough. I don't always get to do them, but there is always something new to learn or something old to relearn, so even if I only have the time for a couple of weeks, it's always worth it!

And here are my photos taken on location. I often forget to take these.

Colour pencil party

Great fun sketching sketchers and playing with colour pencils and Neocolor. Love my tribe!

 

Sketches from my trip to Belgium

As my mother is sleeping more and more, I stayed with her from 10 in the morning until about 3 in the afternoon. There was no point in staying until 5. Which gave me a bit of time to enjoy the lovely weather in Brussels, mostly from my hotel window. I did also walk down to the Grand Sablon near the city centre and stood between a tree and a bin to draw these gorgeous Belgian houses, including one built in 1567!

I had brought my mini Art Toolkit watercolour palette with me and I did a wash on a page in my sketchbook, and sketched the view from the hotel window. It's strange. I didn't feel like going around the streets of Brussels at all. Maybe it was too hot? Or just too busy. I never feel like I belong in Brussels. It's over a year since I was in my hometown (Dessiner Namur, organised by the wonderful people of Urban Sketchers Belgium). I actually miss Namur. Brussels just isn't home.

Looking at clouds from the window and swatching the colours. Of course I didn't keep track of the mixes, but it's a small palette, so I should be able to reproduce some of the grey mixes. As I want to explore warm greys in my clouds!

Also, I did draw my mother while she was sleeping. I'll just share her hands.

Travelling sketches

I was in Belgium around the 20th of July, and I did a good few sketches in the airports. Shown here in reverse order. The Magritte hat is the clue that I was in Brussels airport.  These were all done in a tiny (A6?) Stillman&Birn sketchbook (Epsilon series), which I'm getting to like. The difference is that I brought my Sailor Fude pen with me this time, rather than drawing tools I wasn't so familiar with. And I also had a few pencils with me, so I could do clouds. Plus my tiny Arttoolkit palette.