Dublin Sketchers Group: March 2018

Sketches from Dublin Castle - 25 March 2018

At long last, it feels like spring is here in Dublin. Quite a few sketchers stayed outdoors on the grounds of Dublin Castle. A good opportunity to catch up with old friends and make new ones!
We were delighted to greet two Urban Sketchers, Judith from Houston, Texas, and Marta from Galicia in Spain, who were visiting Dublin.

Lots of tours around Dublin Castle at this time of the year. One of the tour guides I heard said that the pattern on the lawn in front of the Chester Beatty Library is a Celtic pattern that means Welcome. It doesn't quite match the information on the Dublin Castle website, which says that "At the heart of the gardens is the grassy sward of the Dubh Linn Garden, where patterns representing sea serpents are cut into the lawn. This lawn is on or near the site of the original dubh linn or ‘black pool’, where the Vikings harboured their ships and set up a trading base. It was this pool that gave its name to the city: Dublin." The tour guide did talk about the black pool and said that it was originally believed that the dark waters of this pool were the reason Guinness was black! So there you go, Dublin is the original Blackpool, and you can never be sure tour guides are telling you nothing but the truth!

Here are the sketches from the day:

Balazs

Pat

Christine

Mary O'S

Marta

Mary O'C

Marina

Ruth

Mary S

Chris

Jessica

Davey

Marie-Hélène

Judith

Ulysses Sketch Crawl Part Two - from Foot Locker to the National Library

Part Two of the Ulysses Sketch Crawl across Dublin, Dublin Sketchers started outside Foot Locker on O'Connell Street and were digested of the streets of the city, taking in the Bank of Ireland on College Green, Trinity College, the facades of Grafton Street, past fine eateries on Duke Steet, sneaking into the Masonic Lodge for a peek before exploring the National Museum and National Library. We soaked up two chapters of Ulysses - Lestrygonians and Scylla & Charybdis.

Jesse

Christine

Jesse

Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school treat. Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty the King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne sucking red jujubes white.

Aideen

His slow feet walked him riverward, reading.

Aideen

Before the huge high door of the Irish house of parliament a flock of pigeons flew. Their little frolic after meals. Who will we do it on? I pick the fellow in black. Here goes. Here’s good luck. Must be thrilling from the air.

Aodh

Composition of place.

Aodh

—And is he doing for the Freeman? Davy Byrne said.

Nosey Flynn pursed his lips.

—He doesn’t buy cream on the ads he picks up. You can make bacon of that.

—How so? Davy Byrne asked, coming from his book.

Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the air with juggling fingers. He winked.

—He’s in the craft, he said.

—Do you tell me so? Davy Byrne said.

—Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Ancient free and accepted order. He’s an excellent brother. Light, life and love, by God. They give him a leg up. I was told that by a—well, I won’t say who.

—Is that a fact?

Christine

He entered Davy Byrne’s. Moral pub. He doesn’t chat. Stands a drink now and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.

Christine

The constant readers’ room. In the readers’ book Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell parafes his polysyllables. Item: was Hamlet mad?

James

As he set foot on O’Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours it, I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see the brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats get in too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians. Imagine drinking that! Rats: vats. Well, of course, if we knew all the things.

Jesse

A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian file. Goosestep. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their truncheons. After their feed with a good load of fat soup under their belts. Policeman’s lot is oft a happy one. They split up in groups and scattered, saluting, towards their beats. Let out to graze. Best moment to attack one in pudding time. A punch in his dinner. A squad of others, marching irregularly, rounded Trinity railings making for the station. Bound for their troughs. Prepare to receive cavalry. Prepare to receive soup.

Jesse

Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.

Jessica G

John C

Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, passing away too: other coming on, passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of pavements, piledup bricks, stones. Changing hands. This owner, that. Landlord never dies they say. Other steps into his shoes when he gets his notice to quit. They buy the place up with gold and still they have all the gold. Swindle in it somewhere. Piled up in cities, worn away age after age. Pyramids in sand. Built on bread and onions. Slaves Chinese wall. Babylon. Big stones left. Round towers. Rest rubble, sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt. Kerwan’s mushroom houses built of breeze. Shelter, for the night.

No-one is anything.

This is the very worst hour of the day. Vitality. Dull, gloomy: hate this hour. Feel as if I had been eaten and spewed.

Louise

Art has to reveal to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. The painting of Gustave Moreau is the painting of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, the words of Hamlet bring our minds into contact with the eternal wisdom, Plato’s world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys.

Louise

Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck.

Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crushing in the winepress grapes of Burgundy. Sun’s heat it is. Seems to a secret touch telling me memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild ferns on Howth below us bay sleeping: sky. No sound. The sky. The bay purple by the Lion’s head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards Sutton. Fields of undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried cities. Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs in the heather scrub my hand under her nape, you’ll toss me all. O wonder! Coolsoft with ointments her hand touched me, caressed: her eyes upon me did not turn away. Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweetsour of her spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft warm sticky gumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles fell. She lay still. A goat. No-one. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Screened under ferns she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay on her, kissed her: eyes, her lips, her stretched neck beating, woman’s breasts full in her blouse of nun’s veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me.

Me. And me now.

Stuck, the flies buzzed.

Mandy

Mr Bloom touched her funnybone gently, warning her:

—Mind! Let this man pass.

A bony form strode along the curbstone from the river staring with a rapt gaze into the sunlight through a heavystringed glass. Tight as a skullpiece a tiny hat gripped his head. From his arm a folded dustcoat, a stick and an umbrella dangled to his stride.

—Watch him, Mr Bloom said. He always walks outside the lampposts. Watch!

Mandy

Mary 3

(work in progress)

Mateu

They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and bicycle. Young woman.

His eyes followed the high figure in homespun, beard and bicycle, a listening woman at his side. Coming from the vegetarian. Only weggebobbles and fruit. Don’t eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes of that cow will pursue you through all eternity. They say it’s healthier. Windandwatery though. Tried it. Keep you on the run all day. Bad as a bloater. Dreams all night. Why do they call that thing they gave me nutsteak? Nutarians. Fruitarians. To give you the idea you are eating rumpsteak. Absurd. Salty too. They cook in soda. Keep you sitting by the tap all night.

Her stockings are loose over her ankles. I detest that: so tasteless. Those literary etherial people they are all. Dreamy, cloudy, symbolistic. Esthetes they are.

Mauro

MHBD

Niamh

Niamh

Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses. Muslin prints, silkdames and dowagers, jingle of harnesses, hoofthuds lowringing in the baking causeway.

Roisin

Chemists rarely move.

Roisin

Sunday 25 March - "Art & the Great Hunger" Exhibition at Dublin Castle

This Sunday 25^th March we are meeting at the “Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger” exhibition in the Coach House Gallery in Dublin Castle.

This temporary exhibition is the world’s largest collection of famine related art and is well worth a visit. As well as the exhibition there is plenty more to see and sketch in Dublin Castle, both indoors and outdoors.

Our starting point will be at the Coach House Gallery at 2pm. At 4pm we will gather for refreshments and a chat at the Arlington Hotel on Dame Street

If you can’t find any sketchers at the beginning don’t worry … and if you’re late you won’t be the only one. It’s Sunday afternoon and we’re not famous for our punctuality. Just get started and keep your eyes open for other sketchers.

Hope to see you on Sunday.

Sketches from National Gallery of Ireland 18-Mar-18

We had planned to visit the St Patrick's Festival Big Day Out at Merion Square on Sunday. But a sudden blitz of snow and freezing temperatures scuppered the festival and persuaded most sketchers to stay at home. Four hardy souls made it into town and found refuge at the National Gallery. He are the results:

Alice

Jessica

Pat

Des

Jennifer

SUNDAY 18 MARCH - BIG DAY OUT AT MERION SQUARE (2PM)

This Sunday 18^th March we are meeting at Merion Square to enjoy the St Patrick’s Festival Big Day Out. This is a vibrant day-long street carnival with music, theatre, aerial performances, puppet shows and comedy.

Our starting point will be at the Oscar Wilde statue at 2pm. It may be crowded, so don’t worry if you can’t find anyone immediately. Just find something to draw and keep an eye out for other sketchers.

Our 4pm meeting point is Kennedy’s Pub on Westland Row for a warm drink and a chat.

The weather forecast for Sunday is cold but dry. If the weather doesn’t suit us, we can retire to the National Gallery for some warmth. As always, we can use WhatsApp to keep in touch with each other on the day.

(If you would like to join our WhatsApp group, just send your phone number to dublinsketchers@gmail.com or mention it to somebody on Sunday)

Hope to see you on Sunday.