A Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you all

Carnet de Voyage- Clermont Ferrand

On left, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de l'Assomption and on right a night-time get-together in one of the city's many squares.

Just getting around to posting some sketches from The Carnet-De-Voyage in Clermont Ferrand over the weekend 18th - 21st November. What a fantastic event. There were some incredible illustrated journals from trips all over the world and many beautifully produced publications. The event was pretty intense and we didn't have a chance to get to see much of the town by daylight - I think I have more sketches of the Gare de Lyon, my departure point in Paris, than I have of Clermont Ferrand- but despite that we had a great time and it was a pleasure to meet up with some of my fellow USKer's - Nina Johansson, Ea Ejersbo, Lapin, Miguel Herranz and Gerard Michel.

Despite not getting out much, there was plenty of opportunity to sketch visitors as they browsed through the variety of stalls and sketches on display

Above in monochrome, clockwise from top left: Miguel, Nina Ea and Lapin

The Gare de Lyon - departure point for the train to Clermont Ferrand. The lower sketch is of the famous "le Train Bleu" restaurant.

Just a pigment of my imagination

When you're using cheap materials, you're always wondering "what's the catch?".

With these acrylics from the euro store, it's that the don't completely dry lightfast and so the layers drag into each other as you wash one colour over another - oh! and the fact that the colour selection is the pigment equivalent of chocolate "flavoured" candy bars.

Anyhow. I got my €2 euro's worth. The kids will find some use for them.

Around the back of the Cathedral, Kilkenny

The view from my window

Wet Twilight Sketching

Sometimes it's nice to get back to basics, put away all the groovy drawing materials and just sketch with what you've got.
This drawing was completed with a €2 set of acrylics from the euro discount store (including shaggy excuse for a brush), some ice pop sticks and pieces of cardboard torn from a coffee carton. The only sop to proper drawing equipment was a black felt tip pen I had on me.
It ain't sophisticated, but somehow it's exactly what sketching is supposed to be - fast, impressionistic and less than perfect.

Dublin

Some more sketches from in and around Dublin.
Any other night in pubs around the city, traditional Irish music resounds in casual gatherings of musicians both proficient and inept. That's the beauty of it. As Forest Gump said 'You never know what you're going to get"


Down at the Financial district another musician tries his luck


The Luas tram trundles from Hueston station over Sarsfield bridge towards the ciy centre.

Dublin

Below are a bunch of sketches from an overcast July Dublin.
The first is an early morning sketch at the Smithfield vegetable and flower markets.
The second, shoppers doing what they do best- keeping the market for non-essentials afloat
Last is a view of Rathmines church and cricket ground.

Sitges

Some sketches from a recent visit to friends in Sitges, near Barcelona and the airport on the return flight. Departure delayed for 2 hrs due to someone in the cabin dropping a torch into the plane's wheel housing. Whaddya kno?! You see something new every day

Promenade and sandcastles



Backstreets



View of the hills



Bored in the departure lounge

Dublin

Two recent sketches of Dublin.


This is the impressive new Grand Canal Theatre designed by Daniel Libeskind and sketched on a blustery sunny afternoon when the place was almost deserted. It's a wonderful space with the water of the docks off to right, an eclectic mix of building styles and no sense of that identikit dockland's vernacular you seem to find in areas like this the world over.




After a rain shower and the watery sun washes over some interesting apartments beside the distillery buildings in the Smithfield part of town.

Dublin

Some sketches from Dublin before and after the snowstorms that took up most of December and left the east coast ground to a halt.


George's street and Exchequer street intersection with the ornate George's street arcade in the background. This leads towards Grafton street, the main shopping street on the city's southside



A foggy morning down on the north quays. The whole area is slowly being redeveloped in that generic "waterfront" style - a few statement buildings, acres of office blocks that wouldn't look out of place in a retail park and some carefully restored remnants of the past - but no soot or rust please! On mornings like this when the whole shebang is shrouded in fog and you can taste the seasalt on your face, it somehow seems more visceral and real.


Dame street, just across from Dublin castle with City Hall in the background.

Kilkenny

While the streetfront of Kilkenny was mostly re-modeled in the 19th century, a walk down the backlanes where you can see the rear of the commercial buildings, often reveals the medieval character of the city. This is just off John Street in the centre of town.

A short while ago myself and some friends spent the weekend in Istanbul.
What a beautiful city. I've always had an interest in it from a historical perspective and it didn't disappoint.
So much of the city that was extant during the siege of 1453 still stands, though some by a thread. One night about 3 am I was woken by a tremendous roar. I rushed outside to see that the adjoining building - made of wood and rubble- had collapsed into the street. Luckily no-one was hurt. Go see sometime soon.


The Galata tower. It now has a swanky restaurant on top.



View from the Galata bridge. A great place to watch the sun set over your mojito.



Between the Hagia Sophia and the walls of the Topkapi Palace



Tram across the Bosphorus.



Traffic on the Bosphorus

unfinis.....

Traditional musicians at the Rivercourt

Around town

As an excuse for faffing about and skiving off work, sketching takes some beating.
It's work, but it's not work, as if you needed a reason for lounging about coffee shops on the few sunny days we get in this benighted isle of ours

The people that you meet in your neighbourhood

Dublin

Heuston Station is the point of arrival or departure for rail routes west or south of Ireland's capital. I did a couple of quick sketches around the concourse and beside the platforms. Unfortunately ink was running low in my brushpen by the second sketch in the station and the only replacement I could find was calligraphic ink (I usually use watered-down liquid acrylic ). The result is a watery dense blackness with little or no subtlety. I'll have to clean out the brush and get back to the original mix.

2010 Greetings Stamps

An Post have released their 2010 greetings booklet featuring 2 stamps I designed and illustrated. For you philatelists out there, first day covers are now available from An Post’s website. I was first asked to submit some ideas exploring different directions for greetings stamps. The stamps are regarded as not being occasion-specific, but as Valentines day is the second biggest post date after Christmas, it’s bound to appear.

On the initial submission, I decided to take two approaches. The first was a sketch like direction, much like the Kilkenny 400 stamps I had produced for An Post last summer and the second was a little more whimsical (and an opportunity to get my kids featured on stamps if I worked it right!)

For the first day cover an image was also needed for the envelope to tie in with the theme. It was one of those rare occasions where the first idea I had seemed to exactly what everyone was looking for. The post floating to your door with a starry sky background and the rocket floating by. Finally I had to do some stickers and a card to be included in the pack.

A bit of tweaking, a few re-drafts and the job was done. Son and eldest daughter on the stamps, younger daughter on the accompanying card. Mission accomplished!

Smithfield Market, Dublin
Very early on a cold misty morning, I tried to capture some of the activity around this flower and vegetable market. The freezing weather soon had me retreating to the warm fug of the local greasy spoon to defrost my fingers.

Short Story Illustrations

Here's a couple of illustrations I did for the Irish Daily Mail. They were part of a series I did for seven short stories published over the Christmas period.