Monday 16th March 9.10am I sit down to breakfast. Paddy (18) already has the books out on the dining table. Liv (15) is his study buddy, and she is nowhere to be seen. I phone up to her bedroom but get nothing more than a grunt. Paddy takes the phone. “It’s ten past nine, you’re…
Hello folks! I will start by saying thank you for your effort in getting here: my links to this blog on the various social media are refusing to work. I suspect I have a problem with my website because I can’t even post my link to whatsapp! But I’ll get there, and my intention is…
Thursday 12th March 1.00pm The Irish government announces that all schools are to close from the next day, Friday, and will remain closed 13th-29th March. Later, my good pal Lorraine collects the kids from school with all their books, so that they can study at home. Lorraine and I go for a wild and windy…
Today was the last day the kids I teach could submit the paintings they had done for the Texaco Art Competition. This competition has been going for decades in Ireland: many Irish adults still bear the scars. When this year’s competition was announced back in January, a few people were talking about it on Twitter.…
They say we do funerals very well in Ireland. Well, my mum says it, because she’s Canadian, and maybe they don’t do funerals as well there. As I started class today, the mum who’d just dropped a few lads off beckoned me over. “Just to let you know, Peter and James’ dog was put to…
One of the most satisfying things I do as an urban sketcher is to capture my family in sketches. While I’m not one for putting into words the love I feel for those closest to me, it’s there on the page of my sketchbooks: every line I pull, every brush stroke I make, I do…
January is awful, weather-wise, and this year is no exception. However I’m cheering myself up with a good bit of sketching. Technicolor in Neachtain’s After a long gap, Urban Sketchers Galway met in Neachtain’s on Cross Street the weekend before last. It was just Mairéad and myself, but that counts! We had a lovely afternoon…
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…
30th 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…
Christmas 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…