Next week we Dublin Sketchers celebrate our national holiday: St. Patrick's Day. This is our chance to celebrate our rich cultural heritage, and for artists it's an opportunity to be inspired by the art form most associated with Ireland throughout the world: Celtic design!
This Sunday, 14 March, in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day on the 17th, we'll study some of the imagery from the Book of Kells and incorporate it into a composition with our first initial! All the images from the book are available online from TCD (click here).
Here's the challenge: draw your initial using the old Gaelic script form, and decorate it however you wish - if not with those crazy knots, try abstract shamrocks or whatever strikes your fancy! If you are happy with the result, you can use it as your online profile picture for St. Patrick's Day.
If this theme is too "literal" for you ;-) check out the sneaky little animals that adorn the illuminated pages, and try drawing your pet or favourite animal in contortions that fill a square or rectangle, and colouring it with the dusky primary colours from the manuscript. If you're game for the more complex knots and triskelions, have a look on YouTube for some tutorials. And while you're at it, check out the beautiful work of Rachel Arbuckle or Jim Fitzpatrick to see how they have incorporated our Celtic heritage into modern designs. Have fun! If you would like your sketch to be added to dublinsketchers.com please either post it to the WhatsApp Social Dublin Sketchers group or email it to dublinsketchers@gmail.com (jpeg format). Please make it low-res and properly orientated for posting to the website. If you're on Instagram, please include #dublinsketchers in your post or tag us @dublin_sketchers !
Looking forward to seeing everyone's work!
If you are new to Dublin Sketchers - we normally get together on a Sunday afternoon somewhere around Dublin to sketch from 2-4pm, and meet at 4pm for a drink and to check out each other's work. We’re doing things a bit differently at the moment...
On Sunday 14 March at 4pm we'll meet on Zoom to show each other our work over a drink. You'll need the meeting ID and password to join. If you are on the Dublin Sketchers What'sApp group, you'll find the info there. If not, email dublinsketchers@gmail.com before noon on Sunday to ask for the details. There'll be a waiting room to join the Zoom, so wait a few minutes to join.
Keep sketching!
(Above image credit: Eadfrith of Lindisfarne (presumed), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
