Back 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…
I have wonderful friends who live nearby. We get together a lot – walking our dogs, swimming in the sea – and we eat together a lot too. Life is too short, as we all know, so my good friends and I make the most of the beautiful countryside where we live, and when there’s…
I think of people driving through my village Ballinderreen on their way somewhere. Ballinderreen is not usually the destination, being a “blink and you’ll miss it” village, with little more than a crossroads, a pub, a fuel station and a small shop…on the outside. But take a left at the crossroads and you will come…
I was telling my girl Liv about my book sales. “Is it a bestseller?” she asked. She knows it is, but she also knows I like to say it over and over again. She’s kind. “Why yes,” I said in an animated, interview voice. “”Now that you happen to ask, it is.” The little terrier,…
Back from Amsterdam last Sunday. Dublin Airport and a Citylink bus at 9.15pm. A Dublin cocky lad gets on the bus and asks the bus driver his name. Says he likes to know the name of his driver. Driver says his name is Butter And Cream. Cocky lad doesn’t miss a beat, says “thanks Butter-and-Cream”…
The 10th International USk Symposium has just wrapped up. It took place in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. The 9th USk Symposium was held in Porto, Portugal, in July 2018. One of the organisers, Nelson Paciencia, stood up to say a few words about the experience during the introduction one morning. “The Symposium is not about…
This year, I brought my family with me to the Urban Sketching Symposium. It provided a nice balance between work and relaxing. My family is unusual in that we occasionally have rows over stupid things, and the searing hot weather meant rows over stupid things were a little closer to the surface than normal, a…
I was in Porto, Portugal, last year when this year’s Urban Sketching Symposium location was announced. It would take place in Amsterdam. “You should consider staying in Haarlem,” said Anne Rose Oosterbaan, one of the many Dutch sketchers in Porto. “It’s very pretty, cheaper than Amsterdam – and only twenty minutes away by train.” That…
I’ve had quite the week. They come along like that every once in a while. Last Saturday week I met with members of Urban Sketchers Galway for a really lovely afternoon of sketching. We met on the steps of Galway City Museum on a beautiful sunny afternoon, and to our delight there was a Traveller…
I was to draw a card for a relative. We have a beautiful orchid that lurks greenly in a corner, and then pounces into a dazzling white perfection once every couple of years. How to capture such a pure, such a white, such a delicate thing? With my clumsy hand? Nonetheless, it became my subject……