The year: sometime in the late Noughties. The place: the road outside my kids’ primary school. The occasion: pick-up time. I park up and get out of my car to collect my little ones, and as soon as I step out of the car I realise I have made a terrible mistake, and the pick-up…
Details
Just in case you don’t get past this line, if you’ve pre-ordered a SketchPocket and received an email from me, it’s just an automated one for all pre-orders to tell you they’re due to arrive in Ireland today to be sent to you over the next few days. I’ve had a few quizzical messages and…
Details
As I gaze out into the winter storm from my studio here in Galway, I allow my mind to drift to scenes of sunsets and sundowners in Greece in only a few months’ time. Exactly five months from now your hostess Sue Wake and I will welcome creative souls from all over the world to…
Details
Early November sometime (dates defeat me these days) I am down at the quay in Killeenaran, the coast near my home in Galway. I have thrown Reuben the terrier into the basket in the front of my bicycle and cycled to the shore. My intention is to make a little movie about my SketchPocket for…
Details
It’s Tuesday, four days since the launch my SketchPocket bags for sketchers who like to make art anywhere. I have prepared to sell none – as the saying goes, expect nothing and you’ll never be disappointed. But four days in, I have sold nearly two thirds of the bags I will have available this side…
Details
The SketchPocket My friends and readers, you’ll know I have been obsessing over this little sketching bag for the last year and a half. My little bag, the SketchPocket, without which I never leave the house. I often return without a sketch, but I never feel I missed my chance. I never know when life…
Details
Monday 23rd September This autumn, my head is full of nature subjects for sketching. My students and I have been loving the autumnal subjects we’ve been capturing in our sketchbooks. I make two more paintings, for my brother’s birthday. They are small and square and look very nice in their mounts, I think. He seems…
Details
I am drafting my pre-order form for my beautiful new SketchPocket sketching bags, but as I start to write a description of the bag for those who haven’t seen it in the flesh, I lose the run of myself and before too long there is a chance I’ll be sending a Ted Talk to my…
Details
In my house, we eat nearly everything good and wholesome. Some members of my family – including myself – have dietary quirks of one sort or another, but they are few and far between: as a result, when I cook, I can dream up something I think will be delicious, and I am more or…
Details
Sketching Tells Me That People Are Better Than We Sometimes Think I have often told people that sketching makes you feel good about humanity. That passers-by and onlookers are invariably kind and warm to sketchers. This article raises the possibility that I haven’t taken that on board, or not fully anyway. There are a few…
Details