More sketches from 2012

Here are lots of sketches that I did in 2012.

A COUPLE OF RANDOM ONES 

The above picture shows the madness that is the shelves in my room. They are organised although it might  not seem that way in this picture. Most of the stuff on these shelves are ornaments and jewellery boxes.

I have a thick book on art that my sister gave me. One day I was looking through it and I decided to try sketching one. The picture that I ended up sketching was "Dancing at Bougival" by Renoir. I didn't want to copy it exactly so I changed some of the colours and I used pencil for the background to make the dancers stand out more.

DUBLIN SKETCHERS EXHIBITION

I mentioned in my last post I participated in Dublin Sketchers exhibition in June. As part of the exhibition, we created a drawing wall where anyone coming to the exhibition could add their own drawing. It was in front of the window so you could see it from the street which is pretty cool.  As the wall was so large,  it was hard to photo all of the detail in one go. I made a collage on picasa from the photos, which is the first picture which gives some idea as to the amount of detail that was on the wall. I was looking at various photos of people on the wall so drew a few people from photographs.

LOOKING AT ARTWORK

The bigger galleries in Dublin are free to enter so the Dublin sketchers often visit them, especially when the weather is miserable. These are a few drawings I did in 2012 of paintings hanging in Hugh Lane Gallery and the National Gallery.

The Little Sea Maid                                                                                 The Cottage Girl

 by Henry Clarke                                                                                      by Thomas Gainsborough

Un Matin                                                                              
by William Leech                                                                        
                                                                                                           Sutton Courtenay
                                                                                                           by George William Russell

                                          

                                         Lavacairt Under Snow by Claude Monet

                                            The Winged Horse by George William Russell

LES MISÉRABLES

The last outing of the Dublin Sketchers in 2012 was to a Christmas flea market in Smithfield. I found the flea market too crowded to try drawing there so I decided to go to the nearby Lighthouse Cinema. I was going to try drawing the cafe or bar area but then I saw a big poster of Les Misérables so I decided to try to draw the actors. The drawings don't really look like the photos but I guess it is a bit of practice of drawing people.

THE PRINT MUSEUM

STREET PERFORMANCE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

The Street Performace World Championship is a popular event that takes place in Merrion Square for 3 or 4 days every summer. This year the Dublin sketchers decided to go along to it. I decided to go over to the music stage as it is an area where everyone is just chilling and having picnics so I was able to find a space to sit down where I could sketch some of the musicians.

STATUES

The statue on the left is in Hugh Lane Gallery but I don't know who made it or its title. The middle one one is Jardinére with Puttos and Sea Monster by the workshop of Andrea Brustolon. The last one is the Children of Lir statue in the Garden of Rememberance. The picture below may not look like a sculpture   but it was a wire sculpture that was in the Botanic Gardens as part of the Sculpture in Context event they have every year there. It was part of a scene that included another 2 or 3 figures. The set was called the Bathers and was by Helen Walsh.

NATIONAL HISTORY MUSEUM, KILDARE STREET

The national history museum on Kildare street has lots of nice artefacts to draw but the building itself is also very nice and parts are quite ornate. The railing on the mezzaine is quite interesting. This is my drawing of a portion of the railing.

This is an interesting table. The angel figures are what caught my eye and led me to draw it.  In its information it is described as a electrotype reproduction of a tripod cast in Italy in 1870.

FLOWERS AND A TREE

The left picture was drawn in the cafe of the National Art Gallery while the right was drawn on a rainy day in the grounds of Trinity College. You would think that since I have studied Interior Design that I would have better skills at drawing perspective but I definitely need to practice. Although I guess it is also a long time since I studied it and I never worked in that area.

SWENYS PHARMACY

Swenys is a pharmacy that was mentioned in Ulysees by James Joyce. It is really a small room that is like a miniature museum. Dublin sketchers go there once or twice a year although it does be quite packed with all of us there. I have only been there once but here are some sketches.

The bottom left sketch was copied from an illustration that was in a diary that had different images of James Joyce or inspired by him. The bottom right is from a photograph on the wall while the other pictures are of ornaments and sweets in Swenys.

A PICTURE OF A BOAT

This was drawn from a photo in a leaflet for a company that does sailing lessons or something like that.

DR SKETCHYS

Dr Sketchys are a group that does life drawing in a fun and quirky way. It was dreamt up by an new york artist called Molly Crabapple. The original group is in New York but there are groups in lots of different cities around the world including Dublin. One of the ways that its different from other life drawing is that the models aren't naked. The Dublin one takes place on the last Saturday of every month except for December. Each session has a different theme. There is a variety of poses and you start off by doing a few one minute sketches then a few two minute sketches then five, ten and twenty minutes sketches. There is often a burlesque or cabaret perfomance that is 5 or 10 minutes long in between the ten minute and twenty minute sketches. As the session goes on the the models wear less so for the one and two minute sketches they might wear dresses then change into corsets for the 5 and 10 minute poses then knickers and nipple tassles for the twenty minute poses.The models pick their favorite drawings and the winners get either Tequila or a cupcake. I have been to five of the sessions although the last one was in May. I hope to attend some more in 2013. 

FUN IN THE SUN

The first Dr Sketchys that I attended was in 2011 and had a beach picnic theme. I won a cupcake for the drawing on the right. Apologies for the dust and marks on these sketches. I may come back and try and edit them at some stage so that they are clearer.

CHRISTMAS 

At the next session I was at, the theme was Black and White Christmas.

WIZARD OF OZ THEME 

DISCO THEME

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

The great expectations theme wasn't my favorite in terms of music or the clothes worn by the models but I did produce one of my favorite sketches so far which is the final one here.

Thats it for my marathon of a blog post. Thanks, if you made it through all the writing and pictures. Next time, it will most likely be a much shorter post.

Lots of sketches 2012

I did quite a few sketches this year and now I'm finally getting around to uploading some of them. I'd like to have them up on the blog before the end of the year so there may be a few big posts over the next two weeks. 

The above sketch was copied from a photograph of a tattoo that I saw it. I liked the tattoo because it was simple but individual and expressive.

VIKING FESTIVAL

The first time that I met up with the Dublin sketchers was in 2010 at the Viking Festival at Wood Quay.   The drawing of the man was drawn then but I only added colour to it earlier in the year. The lady was a sketch I drew this year but it was from a photo from the 2010 festival

RANDOM SKETCHES FROM THE YEAR

These are mostly of statues and ornaments around the house and garden. The swans were drawn from a photograph taken at St Stephens Green Park. The picture at the end is a self portrait although it doesn't really look me. 

EXHIBITION

In June, I participated in the Dublin Sketchers annual exhibition. This year the exhibition took place at the Drawing Room, Dun Laoghaire. It was a good space as there was lots of wall space and it was quite bright. The four pictures below are the sketches that I had in the exhibition.

The above sketch was drawn at Collins Barracks. They have a room full of japenese prints and the women came from 2 different images on display there. I meant to go back and put some detail into the woman on the right but it never happened. I like the contrast of black and white anyway so maybe she doesn't need the extra detail.

 War Memorial Gardens

Maritime Museum

Sandycove

CHESTER BEATTY LIBRARY

Earlier in the year, the Chester Beatty Library had a temporary exhibition which had photos of chinese people. The above sketch was of a photo of a chinese bride.

This is a little bit of detail from a robe. There was so much detail in the robe- this is just a very small part.

This is from a poster they have explaining some of the history of art deco illustrations.

The above picture is from a scroll. The scroll is several metres long and shows different scenes that tell a story. It is meant to show a poetry contest where all the contestants are depicted as different animals. I think the above is from the scene of the preparations before the contest.

For the above sketch, I was looking at a painting called the language of flowers. The painting is actually blue and black but I wanted to do something different so I used brighter colours. 

This is from a life-size buddha statue. 

Weekend Jewellery Course

A while ago I attended a weekend jewellery course. The lady that runs it has two exercises that she gets new people in her class to do. The first is piercing (sawing) 5 lines as straight as possible and then drilling 16 holes in specific points. This is so that beginners can get used to piercing and drilling and also so that she can assess the skill of people that have been to the class before.

The second exercise is a brass butterfly.

The steps taken to create this butterfly were

1. Clean metal by using a bit of emery paper, then putting in pickle and water.

2. Superglue drawing of butterfly to metal.

3. Pierce out the outline of the butterfly.-A piercing saw is a saw that about a milimetre thick and 10mm long that is used to cut shapes out of metal. The handle of the saw can be wood or metal.

4. Use a centre punch to mark where you want drill holes for each of the inner bits of the butterfly.

5. Drill the holes

6. Pierce out each of the inner shapes. 

7. File the edges of the butterfly. The outer edges can be done with files while in some of the smaller or harder to reach space, use the side of a piercing saw as a file. You start  with coarser files and then use finer files. The reason for this is that the coarser the file, the more metal is filed off so as you get nearer the shape you want, you want the finer files so that you don't file too much metal away.

8. Use emery paper to get the sides and edges as smooth and clean as possible. Again, use coarser paper first then move to finer paper.

9. Polish the buterfly. 

After making the butterfly, it was up to me what I wanted to make. I decided to make a ring. This ring is not my design.  I made the ring out of brass. I decided to make this as the teacher had similar rings that previous students had made out of silver and I like the shape. It may not be clear from the photos above but the dome part is actually soldered at an angle which makes it slightly unusual.

The reason that I did this course is because I would actually like to work in the crafts area. I have a jewellery  qualification but I haven't made anything since finishing the course. I am thinking of applying to the jewellery course in Kilkenny. They only take people every second year but I think if I get accepted next year onto the course, then when I'm finished, I will feel that I have the right level of skill and knowledge to work in the industry. The lady that I did the weekend course with isn't planning on doing on any more weekend courses although she does week long courses and evening and morning classes but with the hours that I work, I don't know if I will get to learn from her again. This is a pity because her workshop is near where I live but also because she has different ways of doing things then my previous teachers so I think I could learn a lot from her. However there are a couple of other places that run weekend courses so I am hoping to get to a few of these so that I have a few new things to show if I get picked for an interview next year in Kilkenny. 

  

     

I did a 2 day print making workshop in February. it was enjoyable and I would like to try it again. You don't need that much equipment so maybe I'll try it at home sometime, although not for a while.

This print is my best attempt from day 1. I don't know if  it was my posture or just getting use to the squidgee but I found it hard to get the paint to go on evenly-which is why there is lots of streaks on the green part. However I do like the pattern that has appeared even if it was an accident.

This is my best attempt from day 2. The paint went on a bit more evenly. They might not be the most sophisticated prints in the world but I enjoyed the process of making them and trying out something new.

Its been a long time since I posted anything so I am going to post some of the pictures that I've drawn in the last year. Hopefully this will be the start of me putting up artwork on a more regular basis-that's the plan anyway.Here is some of the drawings that I have done over the last year.

view from near Dublin flea market,Dublin 8

The two above are from photos taken at Experience Farmleigh in Phoenix Park in 2011.

This is a statue in the gardens of the Imma.

This is a statue in the Iveagh Gardens.

This was a robot at Kings of concrete which does be at wood Quay a few times a year.

This is a sand sculpture by a group of  irish sculptors. They sometimes do sand sculptures in the ground of Dublin Castle in August. Duthain Dealbh is the irish phrase meaning fleeting sculptures. I really like some of the things they've made in the past. If you want to see more of their work, i think that their website is www.duthaindealbh.com.

The above picture was done in the cafe of Hugh Lane Gallery.

The above two pictures are both of statues. The first statue was in the gardens of the IMMA, the second is from the National Art Gallery.

Dun Laoghaire

I was out with the Dublin sketchers for the first time in ages on Sunday. The destination was Dun Laoghaire. It did rain for a little while but not so long that I wanted to head indoors.

There was a regatta on over the weekend almost it was more or less over by the time we got there. However I did manage to get a sketch done of a few of the boats before they returned to the harbour. There is also a lifeboat and a jet skier in this picture.

I drew this boat because the colours caught my eye.

This is the top of the bandstand. A few people drew the bandstand although I didn't see them there when I was there. I think that it is a nice, quaint structure.