Monday 15th June It is hot today. We have been spoiled with amazing weather lately, but then some wretched wind came in from the Arctic...
It’s elderflower season in Galway. years ago I used to make elderflower cordial, but I have passed the baton on to my younger daughter Olivia...
My brother Malachy paid us a visit. He bought clams and mussels from the guys down the road. They harvest them down at the shore...
I am sewing a lot of pencil cases at the moment. They are gifts for the generous artists who contributed their work to my new...
It couldn’t last forever. The beautiful harmony we had enjoyed as a family for three whole months of being cooped up together cracked, and after...
Locked down, still? Yes. We can go no further than 5km from our homes, unless it’s for shopping or essential work. That hasn’t stopped much...
Thursday 28th May Summer seems to have arrived in Galway. Everything is green and lush and it’s much too hot for anyone in their right...
Tuesday 26th May I emerge from my studio late this afternoon into a tranquil garden scene. The sun is still warm, even though it is...
Saturday 23rd May I work on Saturdays until quite late, too late to start cooking dinner. So my husband Marcel cooks on Saturday. I thought...
Monday 18th May At long last my face masks are available for sale. Forgive me, I know masks are a symbol of this awful time,...
Saturday 16th May Today in my Zoom class I show some great students the benefits of a limited palette. I really enjoy spending time with...
I say “loosely” locked down, because we can travel 5km from our home now, and by next Monday certain shops will be open. I might...
Every week, the Urban Sketching organisation hosts an hour of talks with some favourite sketchers from around the world. This Sunday gone was the turn...
I am Lounging In Lockdown, because I handed in my latest book for publication the other day. Yes, I know I have mentioned this before...
Wednesday 6th May I give my zoom class to a group of engaged and dedicated students. It is a taster class and I have nearly...
I am exceedingly excited to tell you that my new book is available for pre-order from Amazon. It’s one of the next books in the...
Sunday 3rd May A hundred and fifteen years ago, the last person to live in Tyrone House packed up and left. Actually, that’s not quite...
Sunday 3rd May Lockdown trends I have done: sourdough (can’t open the jar anymore because the lid is now glued on with starter); baking (my...
Saturday 2nd May Plants Sketching your houseplants of not as hard as it might seem. I am going to show you how I did mine....
Saturday 25th April Paddy cooks dinner. Tonight he is doing oven fried chicken. We are experiencing a tumultuous time at home, and it is lovely...
Friday 24th April Midday, coffee break No more Living In Lockdown blogs! I will go on posting sketches, because I love to sketch and there’s...
Thursday 23rd April 4.00pm I haven’t given up on trying to capture dandelions in watercolour. The race is on, because light grey spheres of the...
Wednesday 22nd April 12.30pm We all sit outside and have elevenses (time is meaningless these days). My husband Marcel and I and our son Paddy...
Tuesday 22nd April 5.00pm This is Drumacoo Abbey, about a mile from my house. To get there you walk along a country road, past the...
Monday 20th April 8.00am I’m up earlier than everyone in my house. I am an early bird. My husband Marcel reckons when I say this...
Sunday 19th April 5.00pm I do a live talk with Urban Sketchers on Instagram Live. Rob Sketcherman is a charming and loquacious host. We talk...
Saturday 18th April 5.00pm The apple trees outside are heavy with blossom. I know how fleeting it is, so I head out with Reuben the...
Friday 17th April 4.00pm (BST) midnight (HKT), 8.00am (PDT) It’s late afternoon for me, midnight in Hong Kong and eight in the morning in Seattle....
Thursday 16th April 8.00am I am always downstairs first in the morning. It’s just me and a quiet house, and my own privately indulgent “good...
Wednesday 15th April 9.30am A scene from two angles: I am asked to send a photo of myself to the Urban Sketchers organisation to illustrate...
Tuesday 14th April 1.00pm I walk around the block: door to door, it’s a couple of miles and definitely more than two kilometres from my...
Easter Monday, 13th April 11.00am I feel obliged to paint the amaryllis blossom that has made its dramatic reappearance. That’s not the same as feeling...
Easter Sunday, 12th April 9.00am Hot cross buns out of the oven. It’s the recipe I found on Twitter and I made them last night....
Saturday 11th April 8.00am Liv (15) is up earlier than usual. “What are you doing up so early?” I ask. “You’re giving me a haircut,”...
Good Friday 10th April 10.00am I receive a call from my sister-in-law in the UK, Monique. Our mutual sister-in-law has lost her brother to covid....
Thursday 9th April 3.00pm I head into the shed to look for petrol so I can mow the lawn. There’s a little bird flitting about...
Wednesday 8th April 8.00am There’s a plum tree in our garden. It has little white blossoms on it. In a few months it will be...
Tuesday 7th April 8.00am I bring Paddy (18) a cup of tea in bed. This has happened every morning since the lockdown began, as he...
Monday 6th April 10.00am I am rather overcome by the beech tree buds of yesterday’s sketch, and I feel the need to sketch some more....
Sunday 5th April 3.00pm I spend a blissful hour in the garden sketching a beech tree. It is strong, with a powerful trunk and wood...
Saturday 4th April 1.00pm The new Lockdown Blog is here! New name, new theme! I overhear my husband Marcel telling his mum Erika (91) that...
Friday 3rd April 4pm Liv (15) comes to me in my studio with her embroidered piece of denim. We have a pact, that if she...
Thursday 2nd April 5.49am Birdsong fills the air outside my window. It is passionate and comes right from little feathery hearts, and it is a...
Wednesday 1st April The days run into each other. They are full of online news, sewing, cooking, baking, writing, walking, sketching…and, luckily, picking up a...
Tuesday 31st March 8.00am I start the day the usual way: getting bread together so that by the time everyone is hungry it might actually...
Monday 30th March 3.00pm I have put together a Lockdown Art Kit for my brother Mal. He is a very able sketcher (most people are...
Sunday 30th March 2.00pm My daughter Liv (15) looks rather 19th-century and somewhat wan sitting in my rocking chair, and I sketch her as fast...
Saturday 28th March Most of the Day I am organising, editing and sending images for my new book on drawing people to my publisher. My...
Friday 27th March 10.00am Paddy (18) hangs the washing on the line. It’s whites, and consists of sheets, towels and a few socks and pants....
Thursday 26th March 3.00pm I am upstairs in my home, about to get ready to go out for a walk. Liv (15) and I coo...
Wednesday 25th March 7.00am I’ve had a disturbing dream. I am looking out of the window into the back garden. It’s dark out. Before my...
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...
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...
Sunday 22nd March 8.30am It’s Mother’s Day in Ireland and I’m in bed, but I have to get up soon because I’m meeting my friend...
Saturday 21st March 10.00am I’m up at nine, ready to broadcast the Instagram Live video that I promised to the kids I teach, and anyone...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
A 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...
“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...
I have just returned from the beautiful medieval city of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain, where I attended the fabulous Compostela Ilustrada sketching event....
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...
I have wonderful friends who live nearby. We get together a lot – walking our dogs, swimming in the sea – and we eat together...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
It’s cold these days. Cold for June. For the first time in a long while, Irish people keep expecting a heatwave to arrive, like we’ve...
You know how it is – you put a proposal in for something, it gets accepted, you’re all “Hurray!” – and then you have to...
Sometimes sketchers visit other towns and look up the local sketchers. We meet for a drink or something to eat and do a bit of...
Last night I made a trip to Connemara in the company of Breandán and Colm from my Ciorcal Cómhra (Irish language conversation circle) in our...
Every Tuesday and Thursday I go to a small country town in Galway where my daughter does Taekwon-Do. There’s not a huge amount to do...
or, Great Things Urban Sketching Kits Come in Small Packages All urban sketchers love mini sketching kits. We crowd around the person with something ingenious...
It’s May and it’s paradise here in Galway. It’s hard to find a place that is so totally unspoiled this close to action, but we...
Last week I went to the south of Portugal. I was teaching a six-day watercolour sketching workshop: the idea was to share techniques that would...
Last night was Taekwon-Do night in Gort for my youngest. I usually spend the evening in a combination of aimless driving and aimless wandering the...
Until yesterday, I couldn’t have sketched my dobok, the white uniform you wear when kicking around in a taekwon-do session. But I hurt my hamstring...
Before we left the house to go to town this morning, I picked up my orange bag that I carry all my sketching stuff in....
I was stuck indoors today: I have a chest infection and a broken, well, bum (see yesterday’s post about a flying high kick in Taekwon-Do...