Tuesday 24th March All day I’m sewing in my studio. I cut and iron and pleat. I’m stitching away when Paddy (18) comes down to my studio for help with his Spanish oral exam. He has the Leaving Cert coming up soon, or did have, anyway. “Mum, do you mind?” he says, when I whirr…
Monday 23rd March 9.00am I’m supposed to be on my way into the Natural History Museum on Merrion Square in Dublin to sketch with a bunch of lovely women. It would have been the last day of my workshop in Dublin. Never mind. It’s only postponed, and others are very sick. Still others have died…
Friday 20th March 9.00am Liv (15) is up and ready. “I can’t wait to get out and do some gardening!” she says. I follow her out half an hour later. She is on a deck chair outside my studio window, shrouded in a blanket. The sun is shining but it only March and it’s “fresh”.…
Thursday 19th March 10.30am I host a Zoom session with my husband Marcel, Paddy (18) and Liv (15). The idea is to find a way to continue teaching online. It is moderately successful: the video quality is excellent and I figure out how to switch between overhead camera to draw and paint for the participants,…
Wednesday 18th March 10.00am The government is showing great leadership. Yes, the “lockdown”, such as it is, could have come a bit more quickly, but a good balance was struck between doing too little and doing too much. We have nearly 300 cases, and rising, of the Covid in Ireland. The pubs and most restaurants…
Tuesday 17th March 1.00pm It’s St. Patrick’s Day. It’s raining. With the best will in the world I just can’t muster enthusiasm to go out for a walk. I decide to do a fun drawing for kids to put up on my Instagram live broadcast. I draw a St. Patrick. My daughter Honor (20) appears…
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.…