I saw this TED Talk the other night, and I had a few thoughts that I’d like to share with you. Joseph G-L seems like a very nice person, and showing the vulnerability in the talk that he did was admirable, but while on the whole I agree with his fundamental point, we disagree in…
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When it comes to urban sketching, there is a world of tips and techniques to make your experience easier and better. From choosing handy tools to clever ways to paint: from sneaky ways to master perspective to knowing when to use the right ink for the right pen, there are myriad things an experienced instructor…
Details30th December 2019 My students are so full of enthusiasm for sketching in 2020 that it has inspired me in turn, so I am making sure my sketching kit is never far away. Here is my 15-year-old, Liv, playing a game to which she appears to be rather attached. I could have sworn I heard…
DetailsChristmas Eve It’s Christmas in Kilcolgan, in our little corner of windswept west of Ireland. On Christmas Eve my daughter Liv and I went up the road to the ruins of Tyrone House to stretch our legs; Reuben the terrier has only got little ones, but stretching they need nonetheless. It’s only five minutes’ walk…
DetailsA Christmas Shopping Safari One crisp, cold winter’s night a few weeks ago, in Dublin on a sketching trip, I came to the end of South Anne Street, entered Grafton Street and was confronted by a vision of festive loveliness that made me catch my breath. The Christmas lights had arrived, and the street looked…
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Beautifully presented giclée prints for sale this Christmas
Details“There are 35,000 people coming in and out of University College Dublin every day,” my colleague Michael Brennan told me the other evening. Michael is a book salesman, and is in charge of selling my book, An Urban Sketcher’s Galway. He came to Galway last week and after we visited a few bookshops to do…
DetailsI have just returned from the beautiful medieval city of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain, where I attended the fabulous Compostela Ilustrada sketching event. (Warning: this may be an envy-inducing post, unless you cannot abide rain, in which case you will be very glad indeed that you did not attend.) The old part of…
DetailsBack to the barbershop to sketch. One of the reasons I love to sketch there is that because I have done it so often I can try out new things. We all tend to revert to our natural way of making art, whether that’s recording every detail or just firing down one squiggly line, and…
DetailsI am on holiday, after an extremely busy year. Indulge me while I recap. I wrote and illustrated a book, taught ten workshops at home and abroad, ran classes for kids…and did all the usual stuff a mother has to do to keep the show on the road. Last week I decided to have a…
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