More Irish Pubs

Above are a few of the twenty five illustrations of Irish pubs I was commissioned to do for Guinness's 250th anniversary celebrations. They appear on beermats, presumably only available from the relevant pubs.
Having spent so many years doing storyboards which eventually end being used as coffee mats at various strategic meetings, it's endearing to have alcohol sloshed all over my illustrations for a change.

The pubs are from top : Morrisons of Belfast, Murphy's in Galway and Derry's Peadar O'Donnells

Waterbrush Sketches

Some sketches around Dublin And Galway done with a waterbrush loaded with diluted ink.
Left out the spire on O'Connell street - just didn't have enough paper! The others are Trinity college from Dame Street and Neactain's pub in Galway

Lunchtime sketching
If I'm not hooking up with someone or I'm not in the middle of yet another book about the Second World War, I generally bring along my sketchbook at lunchtime and try to quickly get down an impression of fellow diners and the surroundings, between nibbles. These are from Bollard's pub, The left Bank, Esquires and some other places the names of which were as forgettable as their food.

Kilkenny Centenary Stamp


I recently illustrated the new 55c stamp celebrating Kilkenny's 400th centenary of the granting of the city's charter.
The initial sketches explored a completely different direction, a more abstract and composite route, but eventually the Stamps Advisory committee prefered a more representative approach.


Two illustrations were completed for the final job; the illustration of Kilkenny castle for the stamp itself and a view of the tholsel or town hall for the first day cover.

Irish Pubs (in Ireland)
As an antidote to all those sketches of double-latte arrivistas in Starbucks, here's a couple from the inside of pubs - and not a laptop in sight!. All done in Galway city - Neachtain's and Tig Coili. Slainte!

Belfast Sketches

I was in Belfast on an illustration assignment recently and took the opportunity to do a little sketching.
Kelly's pub off Royal Avenue is the real deal. No music, one armed bandits or TV to disturb the ancient arts of conversation and reading. There's an unwritten law in Ireland that if a customer is reading the paper or a novel, they shouldn't be engaged in conversation further than the niceties of small talk .. "lovely weather today", "great result for the team at the weekend" etc. Other than that the printed word remains king and must be left undisturbed. For some reason most readers gravitate towards the counter rather than the tables.


While I was in town I took a trip on the ferris wheel outside City Hall. You get a great view over the city at the top, from Cave hill out to Belfast lough and the Harland and Woolf shipyards in the distance. The wheel stopped at the top for quite a while and gave me the opportunity to quickly sketch City Hall from a height.

Tell me if you've seen this one before.
Here's a little trick I discovered when my daughter was impatiently pestering me to make a custom sketchbook for her drawings of fairies, castles and the like. Despite years of working in the creative business, I'de always attempted to put together bound brochures and booklets by punching holes though the spine with a needle and the inserting the staples through and then pressing them closed. Not an easy thing to do unless you have fairy fingers. And the result was always that the staple bind would be loose or off register. Shazam! Pester power and Mother, Invention and Necessity not necessarily in that order. Works a treat every time.

Nightdrawing
I had to dash over to London recently and flew the redeye from Waterford Regional Airport to Luton with Aer Arann.
It's the way flying used to be. You park right outside the airport, wander into a concourse about the size of a convenience store, grab a coffee and board with the minimum of fuss. Total commute time from my door: 2 and a half hours to the taxi rank at Luton.
On the night-time return I did some quick sketches on the way.

Outside Luton terminal.

At the check-in. Mine had no queue thankfully. This was a little way up the departures floor.

Boarding in Luton. The plane is an Aer Arann Atr 72500 twin prop. It's got about 80 seats. Maybe it's because of the props, but its landing speed is scarily fast. Nice and comfortable though... and quiet. This was sketched in a bit of a rush and finished on the plane so I'm pretty sure the wheels and arches are all wrong.

Back in Waterford

Madrid

I was in Madrid with some friends recently to play and watch some football. Hanging around with a bunch of na'er do wells intent on having a good time is not conducive to filling in a sketchbook and it wasn't until the fug of the weekend began to clear on the Monday morning that I got a chance to exit the bars and wander about the city and do some doodling.

Madrid

We were staying just off the Grand Via and between match fixtures and post match celebrations, I got little chance to wander off the beaten track, which always supplies the most interesting subject matter for sketchbooks. Despite that, the centre of the city is pretty interesting architecturally and with just a brief few hours on Monday morning, I at least got a few sketches down.
The ones in the bars were quickly jotted down on whatever paper was available and worked up later. There are a couple that I haven't worked up and remain scraps on the back of an envelope with scribbles indicating colours and features. I might get around to doing something with them at some later date.

The Industrial Environment

The Industrial Environment

Here's a bunch of sketches I did around some local Industrial estates.

They're a pretty unloved environment, understandably so, since it seems to me that care of property is very much aligned to exposure to the general public. If it's a tile distributor or mail depot, they're generally scrubbed up, new and gleaming, but if it's a steel fabricator or obscure machinery parts outlet catering only to specialists, then you're lucky if the crumbling fascia has been painted in the last 20 years.

Perversely, the latter are usually the more attractive, avoiding the bland warehouse architecture taking over the perimeter of our cities

Industrial Estates, Kilkenny

Industrial Estates, Kilkenny

Happy Halloween

Have a great spooky night!

National Ploughing Championships
This year's National Ploughing Championships took place at Cuffesgrange, Co Kilkenny.
I grabbed my wellies and a sketchbook and headed out to try and capture some of the spectacle

National Ploughing Championships