Call: +353 (0)86 247 0737. The Studio 17 Aideen Avenue. Terenure Dublin. D6WY635
I escaped from my studio last afternoon in order to buy some materials -and to spend time staring into space in a café. I had my sketchbook with me and doodled away a couple of hours over a pot of tea.
I did my usual stint in the Alliance Française, waiting for my children to finish their Saturday morning classes. It’s my one chance in the week to sit down, sip a decent coffee and let my mind wander freely. Sometimes I make an effort to draw a particular composition and other times, like last Saturday, I just doodle whatever takes my fancy.
Another doodle, for want of something better to post up.
A page from the sketchbook
All this bad news about the economy and the reckless stupidity of the banks brought to mind the short but succinct poem by the late Ivor Cutler, Scotland’s improbable bard.
I’ve got no common sense,
And neither has nobody else,
I spread my brains out on the table
And push them about with a fork
All bank chief executives should be made to recite it ten times a day.
I was in a position, yesterday morning, to just sit down and spend my time doodling. Fortunately, I had all the material with me [which doesn’t happen often, believe me] including a 4B pencil which makes it a pleasure to build up dark areas. The first drawing shown here started out as a preparatory sketch for an editorial job but developed into something else entirely. It might form an element of an artwork further down the line, who knows?
The second doodle is another working of a recurring theme. I have a small stove in my studio, that belches black smoke and smuts all over my studio during the winter -mmmm, nice. Winter means about half the year, here in cold, dank Ireland by the way. This particular match of furnace rugby [Dublin 1934] was called off before half-time after rain soused play.
I bought a couple of new 4B pencils in Kennedy’s the other day. Beautifully soft smooth leads and a pleasure to doodle with. Hence the above sketch; done while on the phone. That’s a real space-filler of a blog post, if ever there was one!
Here are a couple of sketches from my sketchbook. The guy on the right of the top page is the look you should aim for if you aspire to being an illustrator.
