Daily Life

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. ...

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 ...

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 ...

Nimmo’s. the River Corrib and Spanish Arch 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 had in the last couple ...

You know how it is – you put a proposal in for something, it gets accepted, you’re all “Hurray!” – and then you have to fulfill what you said you’d ...

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 sketching together. Today Hélio Boto ...

Clapping in the Connemara Coast Hotel 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 there. I can go to ...

My dobok 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 doing a flying high ...

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. “Are you bringing that?” asked my ...

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 that went wrong). Sometimes you ...

It couldn’t last. Five classes in to my new favourite sport, Taekwon-Do, and I’m injured. What did I expect? I’m 51 years old and I’ve joined a martial arts class. ...

The journey to the top of the hill was wonderful. At Taekwon-Do last night, the instructor took us though kicking moves. He explained the stance we should be taking and ...

Last week I realised I only had ONE tricolour in my collection of sketches for my upcoming book. One! I am a passionate patriot and I love my country. It ...

I sketched the River Corrib the other day. I didn’t get cold, I didn’t get wet…and in the two hours I sat there I was in bliss. “Follow your bliss.If ...

I’m working intensely to finish a book for the end of February, and so I find myself in Galway City a lot these days. “An Urban Sketcher’s Galway” will be ...

(Never) Always Work With Animals And Children Yesterday I saw some beautiful beech leaves that I wanted to paint. There was something so magical about them. The colours, the hues…I don’t ...