Lough Bray Lower - sketches

So, our little trip up the Dublin mountains last Friday was really a happy sunny interlude in what was a pretty grey week. While himself was flying a drone (footage available soon!), I had plenty of time to sketch. In those situations, I like to do a few quick sketches, with the idea that I might develop those into a painting at some stage. It's also a great excuse for not being too good! I'm not very patient when it comes to drawing. Some day, I will learn to slow down. Or just accept that this is my style.

We didn't do the walk, but might do it next time.

But I think these two are not bad. Top one drawn with a Sakura Pigma Micron (03 I think) and the bottom one with my Pentel Brush Pen (lovely for quickly applying darks). And I'm also quite happy with the one  I used for my Fake Journal.

All in all, a productive long-weekend!

Dublin Sketchers - St Enda's Park, Pearse Museum

My second outing with Dublin Sketchers.

Despite a busy day, I managed to make it out to St Enda's Park for an hour on this beautiful sunny afternoon. I didn't really settle to much in terms of drawing, but I enjoyed being out in the fresh air, with families milling around, children playing amongst the trees, and fellow sketchers out and about.

This time, I did stay for the meet-up at 4pm, and I really enjoyed the chat with everybody who was there. We looked through each other's sketchbooks (heeeeee - I wasn't ready for that, and felt a bit self-conscious when someone started going through my two sketchbooks, but then everybody was so nice that I relaxed into it). And it was lovely to discuss pens and papers with fellow sketching nerds!

Pentel Brush Pen in no-brand sketchbook (lovely smooth paper)

Daffodils - yes, there are still plenty of daffodils in full bloom!
Watercolour in Fabriano sketchbook.
Lesson learned: kneeling down on the grass and watercolour sketching don't mix very well

No Fake Journal today!

Cuppa

Cup and saucer is harder to draw than mug.

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Dark Skies - another work in progress

Another watercolour from the same scene. I am very happy with the sky in this one. I might darken some of the grass, and add the path on the left. Plus the lampposts, of course. Same colours as the previous one. This one is about twice the size of the previous painting. Nearly A3, not quite. I could paint the same spot over and over and never get tired of it, I have to say. Still so much to learn. 

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Pentel Brush Pen sketch - Lough Bray Lower, near Glencree in the Dublin Mountains

The colours from Lough Bray Lower - Winsor & Newton Designer Gouaches.
Amazing the mixes you can get from the most basic set (1 red, 1 yellow, 1 blue, 1 green, white, black)

St Patrick's Day Cheers

No alcohol for me - spinach, banana, apple and lime, water, and a quick whizz in the smoothie maker

Happy Birthday Willow

Dark Skies - work in progress

I used the same colours for the grass - cobalt blue and aureolin yellow, but I changed the colour scheme for the sky quite a bit: raw sienna, ultramarine, cerulean, indigo. And for the tree line, well, a mix of everything, with some transparent orange and red madder too.

I love how this painting has worked out so far (afraid to jinx it by saying that!)

I still have to do the lampposts. I'm exploring a different technique for these. This painting is about A4 in size, but I'm planning to go big again. 

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Or if you don't want to click, here are a couple of close-ups (for the day that's in it - when did we last have a sunny St Patrick's Day, by the way?):

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Ongoing Abstract project

I've been working on this painting for months. It's really become part of the furniture in my art room. Which is not good, as I've stopped noticing it. I should really turn it against the wall for a week or two, then maybe have another look at it.

Maybe I should start something else. I'm not sure it's abstract enough for my liking.

What I have to do first is apply a layer of matte medium all over it, as some parts are shiny, some matte, which means it doesn't reflect light homogeneously. And it is difficult to photograph.

And before I do that, I'll have to do another sky glaze, as you can still see the outline of the sun. Which I hadn't noticed until now.

Here is where I am with it now (size about 60x80cm):

And in reverse order, the steps that led to it:

Movies

It's so long since I've seen some of these that I can't remember what they were about. Let's have a go!

• The Hours: This is the one where Nicole Kidman plays Virginia Woolf. Also with Julianne Moore. OK. Quite sad and serious. All about connections.
• Chef: I have no memory whatsoever about this one. Well, now that I've read the Wikipedia summary, it's vaguely coming back to me. But no lasting impression.
• The Lunchbox: Indian movie - you've heard about tiffins, these lunchboxes that Indian housewives prepare and that are collected and delivered to their husbands in the office at lunchtime. Well in this movie, a box goes to the wrong man. A beautiful story.
• Two days, One night: Marion Cotillard plays a woman who has lost her job and is trying to convince her colleagues to take a pay cut so she can have her job back. She's a great actress, but the rest of the cast was quite amateurish, I thought. Set somewhere in Northern France near the Belgian border.
• The one I love: really clever story about love and betrayal. A couple is going through couple's therapy and the therapist sends them for a luxury retreat in a remote estate. All smoke and mirrors. Or is it? Loved Elisabeth Moss in it, who was the young copywriter in Mad men.
• Tracks: Well, I thought this movie was called Steps, but I was wrong. This is the true story of a young woman crossing the Australian desert with camels. That was quite good actually.
• Begin Again: Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo. A complicated story about the music industry. Not very good from what I remember
• Dogtooth: A weird Greek movie about a strange family - the parents keep their three young adult children ignorant of the world outside. Fascinating, but really really weird.
• A Separation: an Iranian movie about a couple. The wife wants to leave the country with their daughter, but the husband wants to stay to look after his elderly father. The wife leaves him and goes to stay with her parents. In the meantime, the husband brings in a woman to look after his father while he is at work. An interesting view into a country we know little about.
• Margin Call: Basically this is a movie telling us how greed and young mathematicians caused the financial crash. Great movie.
• Life of Crime: Jennifer Aniston is a rich wife, and is abducted by a small gang. The only problem is that her husband doesn't really care about her. Dark humour. Loved it.
• Kajaki, the true story: war movie set in Afghanistan. A true story about soldiers becoming trapped in an old minefield. I could not watch some bits, but it was really good!

Bigger dark skies

We're not at the end of the line yet. Far from it, I sense.

Some people might call it an obsession. For me, it's simply that I'm trying to paint the best sky that I can. And I cannot stop until I reach that point.

This instalment is not it. I was distracted when I started painting the sky. Actually, I was chatting to my fellow painters, Rosanna and Margaret. And my painting did not forgive me this moment of inattention. Watercolours don't forgive. They demand that you give them all your attention, all that you've learned over the years, all your patience, all your preparation (paper has to be stretched, paints need to be ready, in the right quantity, at the right consistency), all your love. If they feel neglected, it will be pay-back time.

When that happens, I like to finish the painting anyway. It has to fulfil its destiny. And I have to learn from it. Sometimes, it's even an opportunity to experiment with techniques I would not risk on a painting that's going well.

Opinions are divided on this one: Some love its bold colours, its striking movement. I don't. I love the way the ultramarine paint granulated. I love the lampposts. But that sky is not what I saw.

Lessons learned:

1. Pay attention, don't chat and paint
2. Painting big presents bigger challenges - this painting was done on my largest watercolour block, roughly A3, i.e. double the size I normally paint on
3. That transparent orange may be OK for stormy skies in exotic parts of the world. But raw sienna suits an Irish sky better
4. When a wet-in-wet sky doesn't work out, don't try to fix it. No amount of lifting paint will make it right. Although, I could have lifted the whole sky and tried again - good paper can take a lot of abuse.
5. Keep trying until it's right
6. Also an option. Don't be afraid to crop the painting. Sometimes all they need is a different point of view. Like this maybe?:

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Panorama

Panorama taken with iPhone and a moving person. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Will probably never feel the need to use this feature ever again!

Dark Skies - just one more layer

I just added an extra glaze of greens , applying the paint vertically with a big brush. And I think this one is now finished. Still working on the bigger version. Not sure how it will work out.

Manon Lescaut

Puccini's Manon Lescaut was the Met HD opera on show at the cinema last Saturday. I thought I had seen it before, but I hadn't. I think I was mixing it up with Eugene Onegin. No, the story is completely different. Maybe it was Massenet's Manon Lescaut I had seen before on Sky Arts - with Anna Netrebko I think?

Puccini's Manon was sung by Kristine Opolais, a perfect match for the role, a fantastic voice. I would certainly like to see her in more Met HD productions. Manon's love interest, des Grieux, was sung by Roberto Alagna, whom I had never seen on stage before. He brought an energy and youth to the role that belies his actual age (52). And also the fact that he had to learn the role in a matter of weeks, as he had to step in to replace Jonas Kaufmann, who pulled out at the last minute. I always thought he was Romanian. But that's his ex-wife (Angela Gheorghiu). He's actually French, of Italian origin.

I found the last act particularly powerful. The final songs were heart-wrenchingly beautiful. And the set was apocalyptic, very abstract. Which worked better for me than the sets for the first two acts, which I found distracting with all these steps - I know, I know, it's an image for social climbing, but I spent the whole time worrying that someone would have a fall.

And Puccini's music is beautiful of course, in an impressionistic way.

MHBD's Fake Journal

April is International Fake Journal Month. I'm not sure if I'll have the stamina for it. But I've started something that I like. Let's see where it takes us.

I've created a new blog for it - that might be confusing. Or tedious. I'm not sure. We'll see.

It's called MHBD's Fake Journal, or MHBDIFJM

http://mhbdifjm.blogspot.ie

Cathy - you might see some of your thoughts in this! I hope you don't mind!

KC Peaches Decadent Brownies

Unlike my other half, food is not that important in my life. I enjoy food when I eat it. But I don't think much about it before or after eating it.

But I have to tell you about the Decadent Brownies from KC Peaches. Absolutely the best brownies in the world. No doubt. And now that I've discovered them, my mother will not have to worry about my weight anymore!

Sorry I have no picture to show you. I ate them before even thinking of photographing them. They have no fancy topping, no nuts, just smooth, dark, rich chocolate. And whatever else goes into brownies - sugar, butter, flour? But go and try them. You won't regret it. Unless you're trying to lose weight

What I'm wearing today - 4 March 2016

Nothing for 3 March. Some days are like that. It's not that I was wearing nothing. A bit cold for that. But the pace of the day was not under my control. Things had to be rescheduled.

And I haven't drawn any outfits since then. But then, I did four sketches in the Natural history Museum on Sunday, although that doesn't mean I can stay without drawing for 4 days, does it? The thing is, I'm trying to draw every day, even if it's just a quick sketch, because the more I draw, the more confident I become (not confident in real life, but confident in my drawing).  But there are no rules as such. I haven't taken any pledge or anything - yet (there is this 75-day challenge I'm thinking of embarking on).

Plus, it's been cold, and I've been wearing the same jumpers over and over.

Dublin Sketchers - Dead Zoo

Well I'm not sure if this qualifies as urban sketching (must check the definition again), nor live sketching, but I caught up with the Dublin Sketchers Group on Sunday afternoon. They arrange outings every Sunday, with a different location around Dublin. They have great ideas for indoor locations in the winter, which is what attracted me to it in the first place.

This week was the National Natural (silly me) History Museum, also known as the Dead Zoo, as you might remember from my previous post on the subject!

A very different experience from my last time:

1. I was early, and it actually wasn't open yet when I got there. So I decided to go for a quick ramble around Merrion Square, after chatting to one of the artists, Dermot Brennan, who exhibit there every Sunday and getting tips from him on watercolour skies. He was very friendly.
2. As I sat down on a bench in the park, I was starting to draw a stand of trees, but I got interrupted by a friendly robin red-breast who came to say hello to me (he was disappointed, I'd say, as I had no crumbs to give him). He kept moving of course, so that's why he looks more like a dead pigeon in the top drawing, but he kept coming back, so I was given a few more chances to catch his likeness! The stand of trees never got finished.
3. When I got to the National Natural (silly me again) History Museum just after 2, I was at the end of a queue of families,  and the place was packed! Very different from a Saturday morning. But I did manage to find some spots where I didn't feel in the way from all the kids, toddlers, prams and double-prams. 
4. And this time, I knew about the sketching chairs, so I found them (they're in a little corner upstairs, beside the gorillas) and I was able to sit where I wanted.
5. I felt a lot more confident - maybe it's because I had done it before; or that there were other sketchers around; or simply that I'm drawing more in general.
6. You know me, I'm chatty. And I got talking to a good few children who thought my zebra was cool. Good boost to sketching confidence!
7. I didn't take out the watercolours. Just too many people around. If I wanted to do watercolours on a busy Sunday afternoon, I'd have to find a little corner where I could set up without risk of anybody bumping into me.

So, all in all, an exciting outing. Thank you Dublin Sketchers!

What I'm wearing today - 2 March 2016

It's been cold. Chunky jumpers is what I've been wearing.

Framed

I got a few Gelli prints framed recently, and I'm really pleased how they turned out. But I must learn how to photograph art behind glass. They look a lot better in reality than in photo. The circles are about 20 centimetres in diameter. They were printed on card, and the card has been floated within the square frame, which gives it a three-dimensional feel. We need more walls!

Fitting drawing into life

Not bad for a drawing that was done while chatting on the phone. Love these Pigma Micron pens I got in Blick!

What I'm wearing today - 1 March 2016

Better

What I'm wearing today - 29 February 2016

Not my best look

Dark Skies

You know the way you sometimes feel "if I was in this warm/exotic place, I would have no problem sketching and painting, but instead I'm in cold/wet Dublin and there's nothing interesting to draw" 

Nooooooo.

When that happens to me (quite often, I admit), I remind myself that I chose to live here (nearly 30 years since I got here - ooooh - that does not make me feel young). And I go looking for beauty in the everyday.  

For instance, Belfield is not my favourite place for doggie walks - it's a contrived environment, you can't see the mountains, you can't see the sea ("the sea", says she longingly). It is good for walking the dog, though. It's convenient, not too far to drive. It's got good paths away from the road where he can have a rummage. There are squirrels and rats. And other dogs. Or at least the smell of. A lot of sniffing goes on.

One morning, as is often the case at this time of the year, the light was beautiful. So I took a few photos.

And here is my interpretation in watercolour. I really like how the sky turned out. And the trees. And the lampposts. The grass may need extra work. This watercolour is roughly A4 in size. Nice and manageable. My next challenge is to re-interpret this scene in a larger format. 

Dublin Castle on a rainy day

My last assignment on SBS Seeing was to go out into the world and draw a local building. All very well when you live in Australia or sunny California. Although one of the artists I follow, Shari Blaukopf, lives in Montreal, and draws and paints right through the winter. But I am not driving at the moment, so even getting to certain locations, let alone spending time in the wind and rain, can be tricky at this time of the year in Dublin.

But I did go to the Chester Beatty Library a short while back and I did take the opportunity to do a quick sketch on the grounds of Dublin Castle while I was there. I stood under an awning just outside the building where they held all these Bertie corruption tribunals a few years ago, and drew the basic proportions of the building across the yard. It was a rough sketch. And I took a photograph. And then I rushed on. I really need to join an urban sketching group.

So I drew this from the photograph. Which is probably why it looks so stiff. But I think I captured the arches quite well. And the greyness of the day.

And while writing this, I decided to see if I could find any urban sketching group in Dublin and I've discovered Dublin Sketchers. So it will be onwards to new adventures!

What I'm wearing today - 27 February 2016

I'm currently experimenting with different ways of telling a story (Storytelling, Sketchbook Skool). 

One of the suggestions in this week's class is to illustrate recipes - So not me!

Another was to draw your breakfast - I eat porridge every morning. And I really don't think porridge looks good, even in watercolours. Plus I don't want it to be completely cold by the time I get to actually eat it. By which time we have a big boy here who is pining for his walkies.

Instead, as I mentioned the other day, I decided to pick up the thread on What I'M Wearing Today - WIMWT. I will be exploring different ways of telling that story. Well, not much of a story, but that's really the only thing I can think of for now. I'm not very good at drawing from imagination, as you can see from the skirt, top and cardigan below. But I'm rather pleased with how the handbag came out (I did place it on the desk in front of me while drawing - that always helps. I was wearing the clothes already at that point, so I decided to simplify them). Maybe I should try to draw in the style of fashion designers?

Will definitely have to do something about the handwriting. My real handwriting (cursive, I mean) is hard to read, so over the years, I've got into the habit of block lettering. But it's too anonymous, isn't it? And not very pretty.

So, let's summarise:

Things I like about this drawing:

1. The handbag and the shoes, drawn from life (is that even the right term for inanimate objects?)
2. The border. Framing the drawings brings the whole thing together
3. The text giving context
4. The vertical format for the date
5. My signature in a little box

Things I will explore further:

1. Using my cursive handwriting to tell the story
2. Drawing in fashion designer style - not sure how to do that yet!