Looking over Dublin
Watercolour and pen
Parking in Dublin City is something that strikes fear into most. Next time you park in a multi-storey in Dublin, go to the top past floors of empty spaces. Look out and you are in for a treat. When drawing scenes like this is it important to know what to include and what to leave out. Keeping in a building in proportion can create mayhem. It took many years experience to know what to leave out.
This is one of the many views from the top of the Stephens Green car park
Looking over Dublin
Watercolour and pen
The National History Museum in Dublin is one place where you get to meet people hunched over sketchpads amidst the array of strange stuffed beasts. Blocky colours were used so I could move quickly when drawing this. The wee man was needed to show the scale of this majestic beast.
Looking over Dublin
Pen
Adrian Dunbar read Assumption by Beckett in the summer of 2019. His performance in the Portora chapel was mesmerising. On arriving in I was struck at all of the people in the audience and the ways they were sitting. The low roof and little wooden chapel chairs helped me step back in time. I took a quick pic before the performance started and drew the rest from memory. I'm glad it captured the spirit I felt there.
Clonskeagh. My first job, my first desk in Dublin.
Pen
Capturing a moment is important to me. Drawing slows down time and changes how I experience a place or event. Mark Stuart RIP sat in the desk beside me. He was an amazing artist and a great friend.
Brendan Grace Dublin
Pen
Capturing memories and events comes to the fore in this sketch. I worked near this church on Francis Street and headed out at lunchtime to see the funeral. It was a bit overwhelming to hear the crowds just burst into song, the love for Brendan created a presence in itself. I didn't initially intend drawing but was moved to do so. Only afterwards did I even notice the two characters consoling each other at the front of the scene.
Lunchtime Clontarf
Pen
Going back in time with this one. Sometimes it's not the exciting or grand things that resonate when looking at past sketches. The teapot and salt celler sat in front of many lunches I had in Clontarf back then. The glass topped table is evident in the reflections as is the window in the teapot. The room builds itself around these simple things.
