Street View World Tour - Saint Louis, Sénégal

3 of my sketches from Street View Virtual Tour with Jenny Adam and Eleanor Doughty, with Julien Schleiffer as guest. This time, we were in Saint Louis, Sénégal. I had to simplify all the colours. It was challenging, but so much fun to paint the shadows, and the boats! 

Broken foot, Broken dreams?

What can I say, there will be a lot of sketches from inside the house for the next 6 weeks.  This happened last Sunday. The first few days were not too bad. Yesterday, I was pretty low. Today, I feel more energy. Fingers crossed, it's healing ok. Still very bruised and swollen. But I bruise easily. Fracture review on Wednesday, so I will have a better idea by then. The Laya clinic was so busy last week that the doctor didn't even say if I could put weight on it (I am) or if I could take the boot off at night (when I rang back, the receptionist said I could, the nurse, the following day, said I shouldn't.) After two bad nights' sleep, I decided that sleep was important for healing and decided to take it off at night!

St Catherine's

Another sketch done while I was still able to roam free around Dublin. The location chosen was St Catherine's church on Thomas street. But I'm not good at sketching other people's choices. So I went to St Catherine's on Meath Street instead. I knew there was a grotto at the back and I wanted to get off the busyness of a sunny day in Dublin. It was perfect. There was shade, a bench, peace and quiet. And a constant stream of locals who came to the grotto to pray. One lady told me that the courtyard used to be full of used needles from drug abusers. She went on to say she knew a young man, Wayne, who died at the age of 22, from drugs. She found him on the street. His aunt arrived a few minutes later, but there was nothing they could do to save him. So sad. His grandmother had lost 4 children to drugs, and now a grand-son. 

Bullock Harbour

Hi, I haven't posted in a few days, because I broke my foot last Sunday, 10th of September. Spent the last few days minding myself and feeling sorry for myself too. I'm not good with being stuck at home with my foot up! I have to wear the dreaded black boot for 6 weeks, and plans I had have had to be put on hold! I have done some drawing and painting despite all this, but my energies are quite dispersed. I will find a rhythm, but it might take a while.

In the meantime, here are my sketches from our previous sketch outing, on the 3 September, at Bullock Harbour, and the weather was glorious. As is often the case with me, I suffered from sensory overload. I could not sketch the overall scene, as my mind was constantly distracted by all the little elements that I noticed. There were people and boats, and the beautiful sea, and ropes, and conversations, and shadows, and too much brightness. So here you go. This is the way my mind works!

For this one, I added some colour with a marker when I got home.

Tools of the trade, paints

I have lots of paint tubes. Let's start with that statement! I'm a watercolour painter, so of course, I find it hard to resist interesting colours and pigments. I have a few favourite brands - Daniel Smith, Holbein, Schmincke, Sennelier. It's more to do with the fact that I know what to expect from specific colours in these brands, and I just stick to what I know. The most important thing if you want beautiful watercolours is to use professional pigments, reduce the amount of pigments you use in any one painting, and, unlike the example below, keep your palette clean!

If I had to choose just a few for a desert island retreat, it would be DS Hansa Yellow Medium, Monte Amiata Natural Sienna, Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Quinacridone Rose, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Umber, Holbein Cerulean Blue, Neutral Tint. And a Cobalt Turquoise.

And the importance of keeping your tubes organised. Recently, I wasted precious time looking for a particular colour. Can't even remember what it was. But now, I have my tubes sorted in blues, yellows, reds, greens, darks and neutrals. 

 

Tools of the trade

I do love talking about my process and art supplies. So I thought some of you may be interested in the tools I use in my paintings.

Let's start with paper and brushes. I have lots of different papers that I have accumulated over the years, but my favourite is Saunders Waterford, 300gsm, cold press. This one here is natural white, but to be honest, next time I'm buying paper, it will be bright white. Normally, I buy full sheets, which I cut myself into half and quarter. A half sheet is about 53x35cm, plus a margin of about 1cm all around.

Some of the paper I have is 640gsm (that's grams per square meter to you and me). Much less buckling, something particularly important when you use a lot of water, like I do. But I have a good bit of lighter paper I have to use up before I allow myself to buy more!!

I don't stretch my paper. I just use masking tape to fix to a Coroplast sheet. The ones I use are cut from an old electoral poster that I found on the street after a storm a few years ago, and posters for an event I took part in, maybe 5 years ago. Coroplast is sturdy, and light. And I don't see the need to buy more plastic, when I can use something that was going to go to the bin anyway!

As for brushes, I have many. But my workhorses are da Vinci Casaneo mops. The bigger, the better. They are synthetic fibres and they are so sturdy, they hold a lot of water for big washes, and they can give a fine point when you need it. I do 90% of my painting with them. I'm not a delicate painter, but I do look after them well. I have had them for years. They were recommended to me by Uma Kelkar, one of the most amazing watercolour artists I know. Some day, I will write a post about the artists that I follow. Uma will be top of the list!

Doodles while I catch up with my life

It's a strange feeling. Since the spring, I have been painting non-stop (apart from a few sketching trips!). Now that I am done, I feel like I don't know what to do next. Well, first I have to catch up with my life, see friends, tidy up my boxroom/studio and my office. And I'm exploring mark-making and muted colour palettes. But I already feel the need to paint again. I have so many ideas I want to explore.

But for now, just doodles, inspired by Laura Horn.

New Website

That's it. I have finished painting everything I needed to paint for my upcoming exhibition. Next step is getting everything framed. My framer is going to be very busy!

The next thing on my list was to set up a proper website, dedicated to my watercolours. Emma Montonen had mentioned Portfoliobox a good while ago. I parked that information at the back of my mind, and on a todo list somewhere. It was so easy to use that it only took me half a day to get it done. Now in fairness, I am no stranger to website design and editing for customers. This was a peace of cake by comparison.

So, there you go: you will find me at www.mariehelenebrohandelhaye.com. Click on the link and bookmark it, so you never have to type my full name!

Powerscourt Townhouse

When I arrived at Powerscourt Townhouse to sketch, I just noticed the side of the building, as if for the first time! I found a quiet corner out of the way and I sketched it all, including the street furniture, passersby, deliverymen and delivery vans. But I wasn't interested in the facade, so I didn't sketch it! These are the choices I can make!

Cuppa

I'm not a teacup collector, but there is so much interesting stuff going on when you're trying to sketch a teacup, that I'm tempted to buy a few vintage ones from charity shops. I sketched this one at the Pepperpot café in Powerscourt Townhouse. The teapot was gorgeous as well, but I made a complete mess of sketching it, so I cropped my photo. If you're interested in sketching teacup, Liz Steel has a fantastic online course dedicated to just that! PS: I know my cup is not centered on the saucer - I blame the page fold in my sketchbook!

Self-portrait

Why is it that I always draw myself with a long face? Still, that is something I enjoy.

Just mark making and playing

I think I have come to the conclusion that I need more structure to be able to enjoy play with mark-making! I thought I would enjoy having no deadline and no theme, but it wasn't that much fun. I might do mark-making one day a week, and then the rest of the time, explore soft abstract watercolour landscapes.

Watercolour and ink

And then added too much ink!

 

Castletown House

We left the city for our outing last Sunday. We went to Castletown House, near Celbridge. Beautiful place. Impressive house. But all I wanted to sketch was the river, the Liffey, where it's still a narrow river, but after all the rain we've had this summer, it was more like an angry torrent. You could hear it from quite a distance. I found a safe spot near it and got absorbed in the gestures and patterns.

I did a second one, using some Neocolor, and framing the river with the trees. Not so sure about it.

Then I went to one of the courtyards and did a quick sketch of some of the outbuildings. I really didn't want to draw people that day. And now I'm sorry I didn't. But it was a case of overwhelm and too many voices and too much noise.

Papers and washes

I have all the paintings for my exhibition ready now (going to the framers soon), so now I have given myself permission to play and explore different ways of painting for the next few months. So don't expect any finished pieces, just watercolour doing its thing on paper, with colours that are not usually in my palette!

For this one, the watercolour refused to diffuse evenly into the clear water, creating these tree shapes instead. The sun was shining and it was quite warm in my little room, so the paper was drying quickly. Plus I was trying paper from a block that I hadn't used in a while. I think it's the Winsor and Newton. I need to experiment more with it to see how far the fibers will carry the paint. I quite like it.

No idea what paper I used for this one. I think I picked up paper from the shelf behind me, which would be some Jackson's own brand that I bought before Brexit. This is how we will date things in future. Before Brexit, Before Covid, Before the war in Ukraine. Anyways, I really like the effect. But I have too many variable. Next time, I will be more methodical about what paper I use. And also what pigments. I was just picking up pigments from my dirty palette. But, hey, I'm playing!

This one was on Arches rough paper. I kept trying to pull the paint down with water to give the effect of rain, but the whole wash kept coming down. I do like the light at the top right of the mountain, though. 

This one also on Arches rough paper, a small square block. I clearly hadn't read the measurements right when I ordered it. The blue is a mix of all sorts of leftovers that I have put in a jar, rather than throwing the paint down the sink.

Travel doodles

This is all I got to do on my short visit to Belgium! People walking past in Dublin airport. and a view outside the window. I didn't have the energy or the focus to draw a plane. But I got quite obsessed about people's foreheads! 

Trinity College

Great afternoon with Dublin Sketchers around the grounds of Trinity College Dublin. What others capture in one sketch, it takes me 4 sketches to do, the architecture, the tourists, even the lovely old tree! All wonky but fun.

We had lots of new people, so I spent a good bit of my time in the pub afterwards chatting with them. It was lovely, but exhausting, I was a bit drained afterwards!