What I have been up for the last couple of months

After I signed off at the end of last year, I became quite busy, unexpectedly so, every year I take part in Incognito here in Ireland which is to help fund the Jack and Jill foundation for families with sick children. For the past four years I have taken part. 

The concept of incognito is simple yet impactful: offer original postcard-sized artworks by both emerging and internationally acclaimed artists, all for a fixed price of €70.

For me, this is a wonderful opportunity to create art in miniature form. Most years it has be just three paintings per artist and you the artist decide the theme, the style but the art must fit onto the postcard that they send you. This year we had a massive storm that cut parts of the island off from the rest, some people had no electricity, heating etc. It was then offered to those who could to add a fourth painting into the mix. 

For the first year I used a combination of mediums that I enjoyed using. The frog was done with soft pastels, the holly with watercolour and the dog coloured pencils.

Since completing University, this had been my first time putting my art out there, on a personal level that was huge and gave me the boost to follow my dreams. They were all bought which you do find out about a month later. I do not know who bought them, but I do hope they bring pleasure to the owners.

The following year, I went with a theme of sorts, I drew animals and used Pen & Ink.

By using Pen & Ink, I felt that with the size of the canvas I was able to create some movement and character to my paintings. Something wonderful and unexpected happened my giraffe became part of the logo for the Jack and Jill Foundation. I was so chuffed, never expected it at all, and I think that's what makes it more special.

This year I went with a nautical theme of sorts! 

  

     

I used three mediums in this small collection, the first painting was done with watercolour, and only using one colour to achieve a tonal landscape, I only used Paynes grey which gave the effect I was going for. The second image is of a rock in the sea off the coast of France, the photo was taken as the sun was setting allowing lovely shadows to appear. 

I very rarely paint seascapes, so this one gave me confidence to tackle the fourth painting. But moving onto the third another subject that I'm not great at doing, boats, the perspective, the angles, headaches consume me, hahaha! 

But after a lot of sketching and practice in my sketchbook I found what worked and used these to go for my boat sitting in dry dock as the tide has gone out. I used soft pastels for this boat a combination of soft pastel pencils and pastel sticks for the background. My final painting was done using gouache. For me, gouache is like a combination of watercolour and acrylics but more forgiving than both. All you have to remember is to allow each layer to dry before you apply the following layer. Again, I have practiced using gouache in my sketchbook over and over to make sure I dont over water the colours. It takes practice but one you achieve that technique of using it you will be hooked.

Following on from February, I felt that I needed to expand my collection of art, painting animals is wonderful but there is so much more of the world out there that I want like many artists to capture it.  This year marked my 20 years living here in county Carlow, with the milestone I wanted to celebrate it to show my own personal gratitude to the people living here. I began a series of paintings capturing which I consider the iconic places here in our small town. I used both watercolour, pen and ink and soft pastels. These landmarks are quite old and are steeped in history, the architecture one would see in many part of ireland over the last hundred years. Interestingly enough, both of these buildings were built between 1826 the courthouse and the Station 1848. With the lack of pollution here in this country town they have both look very good and have been looked after by the community.

The Court House - painted with watercolour Pen & Ink

 

Bagenalstown Train Station - Watercolour with Pen & Ink

Rudkins Mill with the River Barrow in the foreground, painted with watercolour.

Rudkins mill was built in the 1680's, this mill began the long history of milling industry in the small country town of Bagenalstown until its decline in the mid 20th century .

Golden Hour at Mount Leinster - Soft Pastels

My final painting for my celebration of being an artist in Bagenalstown is my view of Mount Leinster from my mother's house where I spent my years of teenage life looking at. Even today, a rather cloudy day as I look out my window I can see mount Leinster. For me, the artist, child and adult this view is home. I took the photo of Mount Leinster with the evening sun sweeping across the mountain range into the fields below, The many colours in each rock and the autumnal colours of the trees beginning to turn. I used soft pastels to paint this painting.

In May, there was a call out for local artist for an Art Gallery in Carlow town for the upcoming art festival. I have loved going to this gallery and wandering around at so many great artists, crafters, potters and jewellery makers all based here in Carlow. Like many artist "You not only second guess yourself but you also don't think you are good enough"! Thankfully the owner, after seeing my portfolio of work asked if I would like to become a member, I jumped. "Yes, Yes"! I was so excited but knew I need one more piece of art to submit.

My Highland Cow, painted with soft pastels was my last painting. I wanted to draw him with wild shaggy unruly hair, giving the impression of the wind moving his thick hair as he seems unbothered by the breeze.

Just after finishing the highland cow I was asked for a commission for a wedding gift, as the happy couple had just brought a lovely little Jack Russell into their fold, I was delighted to paint this commission.

This is Milo he looks so cute and in real life he struts while out for a walk with his human Mum & Dad, he looks to be a real character!

Although this painting brought me up to the end of June, you may wonder what else I've been up too, well, my mind needed a little break, and what I do for this is to sew, do something completely different. 

For the month of July, I came up with a design for a quilt. Not just a plain quilt, it's me, I do nothing by halves, I wanted to have raised elements (Appliques) in my quilt and appliques some flat. The raised appliques are stuffed with wadding. For two and half months I have been sewing, stuffing and  learning new techniques. I use a sewing machine for all the sewing.

 Now that I am nearing the ending of my quilt, I am eager to get painting again. I feel that taking a short breaking is great for the soul and creativity.

When the quilt is completed I will post a picture here, possibly a week of so!

Until next time, stay safe, be creative!

Inktober 2024

Inktober 2024:  Why I Decided To Take Part

For many years I have looked at so many artists online and never really had the confidence to put my quick sketches out there online.

For the majority of artists that I have spoken to online, in person we are all a little self conscious of what people think of our art. This is normal. Since the beginning of 2024 I have made a serious effort to "put myself out there". 

This October I have finally taken part in Inktober. So you might wonder what is Inktober, how and what does one take part. 

To join Inktober, simply commit to drawing with ink everyday for the month. You can use any type of ink from traditional fountain pen ink, markers and ink to paint.

There is no specific themes or rules, @Inktober the official sight on Instagram will give daily prompts and you use your creativity and go for it.

Inktober 2024

This is the official list of prompts, now this normally lands a week or so before October, which was kind of good for me as I am a bit of an over thinker. This gave me time to research what I wanted to sketch, and if I wanted to use any inks for colour or just sketch in line work. 

The surface that I used was rag cotton landscape sketchbooks, I finished one sketchbook and began a second, in hindsight I wish I had done the whole month in one sketchbook, but it's alright just a bit disjointed for me (a little OCD here!)

Indigo Rag Cotton Sketchbook

In case you are not aware of what rag cotton paper is, here is a quick info on it. Rag cotton is made from the cotton used for cloth that is shredded down and added to water to make a pulp. 

A screen is made to with a fine net like base so the water can be squeezed out, a cloth is placed over the screen  to separate each new layer. 

When the layers are made the excess water is squeezed out and the clothes are removed from each layer and the paper is hung to dry outside. Once dry the paper is rolled through a press to a smooth out any buckling from the drying process.  

The paper is environmentally friendly and also vegan as so many artists are leaning towards this these days.

I enjoy using rag cotton but one thing that you can not do easily as you can with other 100% cotton paper is to erase a pencil mark as although the paper is quite thick it is very soft to touch. 

It also does not bleed, this can happen with thinner watercolour paper weights and for me this can destroy sketches on the reverse pages and make a sketch book not very economically in its use. 

The inks that I used were Winsor and Newton Inks they come is small jars and there are a wide range of colours. While I was in my last year of University I managed to collect the full collection that I used in one of my project's and I hadn't used them since then so they were just sitting in box gathering dust. this is why I decided to use them in some of the prompts.

                               

    

                                      

 To use these little pots of colour  you can use them straight from the jars or if you would like you can add some water and create more of watercolour effect with them. For the beginning of Inktober I used these to create colour in the sketches. 

To out line the sketches and to do the line work I use micron fine liners from .005 to the brush sizes as these are also waterproof.  Getting in as much details as possible and making the sketches somewhat realistic was my goal as this is my style.

Fine Liners

For my sketches I put a time limit on myself of a max of 3 hours, in that time I needed to have a good sketch but also with my style. Looking back now some worked and some didn't but for me that's okay.  Possibly I took too long deciding or the idea and reference was too complicated for the 3 hours.

So lets start,

Day 1 was Backpack

Backpack

The inspiration for this was my grandson Ben who loves anything dinosaur related and green for a time was a colour that was predominated with the many things he had.

Day 2

Discover

Discover

The magnifying glass was my late mum and dads both used it differently my dad for photo negatives and my mum when looking up words in the dictionary. A fond memory.

Day 3

Boots

Boots

Again my grandson came to mind as he is 16 months and loves like any little boy to splash in puddles. I used pictures that his mom sent me and although he did not at the time have wellies I improvised and added them to the sketch.

Day 4

Exotic

Exotic

The inspiration for this day was from birds that I have not yet painted but I wanted to see if I could sketch it out with the fine liners and see if I could bring the bird to life by adding subtle tones of coloured inks to it. I think it sort of worked but I know I rushed it a bit as some of the ink bled into each other.

Day 5 

Binoculars

Binoculars

This was my take on binoculars as many other artist went for the norm of binoculars that we all know I went for memories of a child, and how we used to beg our dad to use these public binoculars while on holidays around Ireland.

Day 6

Trek

Trek

On this day, I wanted to try and create movement in my sketch and thinking of someone trekking up a hill or mountain came to mind and By using the coloured inks this also allowed me to bring textures into the sketch.

Day 7

Passport

Passport

Rather that going with the norm or a country's passports, I decided to look at what a passport was to many people, in my opinion it is a freedom to explore the world and different cultures.

Day 8

Hike

Hike

On day 8, I played around with shadows against a snowy backdrop. I used a more painterly effect with just black ink as I felt it gave a more dramatic effect to the sketch.

Day 9

Sun

Sun

The inspiration for this painterly effect of the sun was from driving with the low October sun, and how not only can it be blinding but it can create some beautiful shadows.

Day 10

Nomadic

Nomadic

This was such a quick sketch as I first though of a camel in the desert and then the handler. From the many pictures that I saw online the camel was what popped up but I felt I needed to add the human side.

Day 11

Snacks

Snacks

This day I did struggle, although we all like sweets and treats with so much in the shops this month I wanted to think outside the box. If I eat an apple a large one I'm kind of satisfied, so this half eaten apple was my thoughts. Many of the colours bled into each other and it looks more rotten than appetizing!

 

Day12

Remote

Remote

Long winding tumbleweed roads of Arizona came to my mind of remote. 

Day 13

Horizon

Horizon

My though process of this sketch was that the tree was in the horizon line but I feel that what I missed was possibly to make the foreground taller and it may have worked better.

Day 14

Roam

Roam

I actually enjoyed trying to give the impression of a person roaming the shore alone, but as I look back now at the sketch the placement of the rock behind the figure looks like a surf board! that was not my intention.

Day 15

Guidebook

Guidebook

On day 15, I went for a bit of fun, and used a picture of somewhere in Italy and used that for my inspiration of a typical landscape, with far in the distance  terracotta  buildings and popular trees. The play of sunlight was a happy accident. Adding typography was probably the most difficult part having it all even.

Day 16

Grungy

Grungy

By day 16, the majority of the coloured inks were dwindling. I felt for grungy I would use just the micron pens, different sizes, strokes such as stippling, cross hatching and the few squiggles to give and effect of a very old car that has a feel of being grungy. This sketch from start to finish took about 3 hours.

Day 17

Journal

Journal

Journals for me are my sketchbooks and any artist I know always has a few that are well battered and worn. To have a pristine journal is kind of rare. I stacked up some of my journal (sketchbooks) and sketched them out adding a little bit of shadow here and there.

Day 18

Drive

Drive

As I had already sketched a car I felt that when I think of drive I need my keys and I laid my car keys down on my table shown a lamp in their direction to create a shadow as it was a very wet and grey day. This was such a simple still life but effective. 

Day 19

Ridge

Ridge

I am drawn to ridges of snow capped mountains. They are not only beautiful to look at but also give climbers space to view their surrounding and resting spaces.

Day 20

Uncharted

Uncharted

When I saw this prompt, Space came to mind, but I sat and thought for a bit "How do we as humans search the uncharted space?" I thought of radar's, I had a look up on line for some pictures as I had never drawn anything like this before but wanted to try.

By using the fine liners I found it easy enough by just looking at the shape an eclipse, four poles and shadows...

This after I posted it online I was quite proud of it as I don't actually every sketch metal objects.

Day 21

Rhinoceros

Rhinoceros

For quite sometime I have wanted to draw a Rhino but I was not too sure what medium I wanted to use. I was so happy when I saw this prompt, and I knew that using the fine liners I would be able to create a realistic, textured rhino skin. I feel for my style of art it worked but I think later this year I might combine fine liners with watercolours or just acrylics to redo this picture. 

Day 22

Camp

Camp

There are so many images that came to mind for this one prompt, but I thought of a campfire. 

Day 23

Rust

Rust

Drawing an object that has a texture or a reflection is something that I am drawn too. The rusty links in a chain evoke many childhood memories holidaying by the sea. By using only the fine liners and different sketching effects I feel that I brought the image to life.

Day 24

Expedition

Expedition

Kayaking on a river with a weir is always a bit of an expedition as the waters are moving with quite a rush and for many weirs there is not always a lot of water flowing down. Personally I feel that the expedition doesn't have be moving on unknown waters. It can be where you live but noticing the environment around you more closely.

Day 25

Scarecrow

Scarecrow

As inktober was drawing to a close I went off the beaten track and sketched a whimsically version of a scarecrow. I like gardening and looking around all the empty pots I thought of how I could sketch a scarecrow by using them as the inspiration. The chair is a sketch of some in my kitchen, so I combined the idea of using both to come up with my own scarecrow.

Day 26

Camera

Camera

As an avid photographer I wanted to rather than draw a camera I want to show how camera's film has developed over time.  

The first roll the 120mm  (the large tube) which is similar to the old box camera, then 35 mm film although it was very popular from the 1930 for colour right up to the early 2000's before digital photography was available to everyone. 

The 110 mm was introduced in the 1970's, it was made for people who would shoot and snap a memory. The quality was not great. I do remember that my first camera was a 110 mm within a few years I had my first 35mm film camera a Praktica  it was so heavy to hold but the lens could be changed which began my love of photography.

The SD card that we all know today actually came about in 1989 but production did not happen commercially until the early 2000's.

Day 27

Road

Road

This drawing was inspired by the main road between my house and New Ross in county Wexford. The road is flanked by trees on both sides and towards the end of the road they create a natural arc. I tried to redraw this showing shadows of the trees across the road. It was such a simple and quick sketch that I actually enjoyed doing.

Day 28

Jumbo

Jumbo

Rather than drawing an elephant to depict the prompt for the day "Jumbo" I thought of jumbo prawns. One food that I really love. It also reminds me of Christmas...(oops I said that word!).

Within the drawing I used many different techniques to bring the texture of the prawn to life.  It is only when you look at the drawing closely that you can see all the details. The drawing took about 2 hrs to complete.

Day 29

Navigator

Navigator

I do remember that this drawing prompt I was stumped for a bit. Looking online the meaning of the word helped me come up with dial. From looking online at different images which were mainly watch faces, I did a few sketches in a sketchbook and came up with this as I like drawing stones and pavements. 

Day 30

Violin

Violin

For violin I just took a section of one of the violins in our house and using it as reference to draw the details of the wood pattern. The violin has many bumps and scratches on the surface which I felt that I captured with this sketch. Having it near allowed me to see how shadows fell in different areas.

Day 31

Landmark

Landmark

For the final prompt of Inktober I chose to draw the sculpture Sphere within Sphere  which is found in Trinity College Dublin.

As a child I grew up in Dublin and I remember when walking through Trinity College this landmark sculpture I remember fondly. It was sculpted by Arnaldo Pomodoro he donated it to Trinity College in the 1980's. The official name is "Sfera con Sfera".

Along with doing daily sketches of the different prompts, when I uploaded these to Instagram, I added music that would refer back to the prompt. Now, I did not do this every day but for the majority of the month each sketch has music attached. 

What have I learnt from this?

I now know that my style of art is very different to so many other artists and I can stand proud. Many other artists have started to follow me but that's not why I did this, it is a bonus.

My drawing skills and sketching is much faster and there are only a handful of daily prompts that took my time limit. Using just the fine liners I feel that these pieces stand better than those that I added colour. I can now distinguish which sketch will look better with colour and with out. That for me is an achievement as I would have floundered before the month. I honed in on my skill. It has been time consuming but an experience. I can not wait till next year. 

I think over the coming months I will practice more with ink and fine liners and see what else I will sketch.

On a side note, this year has been a year of firsts for me as an artist. I am planning to keep going with doing things that are completely new to me. Next month I will share with you what is in store for 2025 ...

Take care everyone and do leave a comment.