Irish Story Telling

Spent an evening listening to a storyteller talk about the Irish History (especially the common folk), eating home style Irish food, hearing Irish folk tunes and speaking kindly of fairies. The link below gives detail on the evening's offering at Brazen Head Pub.

http://www.brazenhead.com/story-telling/index.php

This is Christ Church Cathedral. Our dinner mates tried to attend mass there on Sunday and were turned away because the church is anglican and they were catholic. This is evidence that the rules are still restrictive here on certain issues.

This is the River Liffey that divides the city into the north side and south side. It rises and falls with the tides from the Ireland sea on the east side of the island.

I composited four photos together to assemble a view of The National Museum of Ireland. The Museum building was originally Collins Barracks. The interior is a large square with buildings on all four sides. Unless my info is wrong it housed the British army while they occupied Ireland.
Below is a link for more information on the clothing collection. It was closed on Monday and I was unable to see the exhibit. My bad luck. I will have to try on the next trip to Dublin.

http://www.museum.ie/en/exhibition/the-way-we-wore.aspx

This is lentil and nut loaf. It was savory and warm and served with a shredded carrot salad. I have no idea if it is Irish, but I want to find a recipe and try this dish at home. It was served at the National Museum of Ireland. We have had some great food at the museums we have visited.

Dublin Countrysi

We took a bus out of town to visit Enniskerry, an estate with beautiful grounds, a Japanese garden and a golf course out front. The link will lead you to a brief history of the estate.

 http://enniskerry.ie/about/history

A view from the estate building looking toward the lake

Neptune fountain in the middle of the lake

Me in the Japanese Garden at Enniskerry

Looking back at the estate building from the garden

Picture of the golf course at Enniskerry for Craig

Dublin City Tour

Dublin Castle with the original Normandy tower to the right.

View of the original tower

Spent the day touring the city of Dublin looking at historical sites. Pictures come from the Dublin Castle and the Chapel Royal located there. Chapel Royal used while filming The Tutors. I will have to go back and watch for the scenes showing the interior of this place.

St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, St. John pictured in the stained glass window.

Sculpted head above the doorway with a key.

This sculpture is placed over the doorway as you enter the  Chapel  with the key in hand.



 

St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin built by Guinness family. 

Benjamin Lee Guinness at St. Patrick's

Add captionBottles at the Guinness Factory Tour

This is a detail from the stain glass window in Chapel Royal with the four apostles.

Don and Erin talking to Gerry at dinner at the Porter House Pub

Day spent traveling

We finally hit our hotel after about 16 hours of travel. Feel like I have been up forever. The weather is what we were told and the cool air feels great. No rain yet. Looking forward to the tour of Dublin. Love to here the Irish brogue!

Flying to Dublin

Today we fly to Dublin hoping that the newest eruption of volcanic ash from Iceland will not delay our flight. Looking forward to discovering more about British painters, Irish artists and a culture that has a rich appreciation for figurative art.

As President Obama and his wife Michelle leave Dublin, we hope to take advantage to the good will of the folks in Dublin as we invade their city for fun and education.

Last check this morning assures us that Iceland's erupting volcano will not affect our travel!

Topanga

Topanga is a sweet dog cared for by Gene and Vickie. This charcoal portrait was done from photo reference using a mid-tone paper. I rendered with black and white charcoal using the paper as a middle value. Great fun and good practice for rendering hair and fur for illustration.
As Don said, "Draw, floss and exercise everyday!"

Model Sheets

Board demo featuring the mouth and ear.

Male features drawn with angular lines.

Female features are softer.

Practice your pull across model sheets from photos or from conceptual faces. It is a great skill building exercise that helps you understand how to draw features and forms from different points of view. Once you master this exercise you can change the point of view below eye level and above eye level. Practice with both genders and increase your understanding of the differences between the skeletal and muscular structures of the face.

Ethnic Faces

Drawing different ethnic faces is a good exercise for learning to draw outside your standard model.  The newspaper is a great source of photos of people from many places on the globe. It is also great for collecting different candid expressions. Keep a file collection of different types to draw from on a daily basis.

A quick sketch from a newspaper ad of a young man's face. Drawing was done as part of a daily exercise in drawing faces to keep my skills up.

Pet Portraits

To raise funds for a group to which I belong, I agreed to offer graphite pet portraits as an auction item. We sold three and I finished the first of the trilogy. It is a fun project and great practice handling animal fur which will help to inform my students when we do fur coats in Fashion Sketching class. I anxiously await my next furry friend.
Manny is a long-hair almost perfectly 50% grey creature which limited the range of greys with which to portray is fur. The challenge was to to offer enough contrast to describe his fur and maintain the feeling he is a grey cat and not black or white. Fun to do and Manny's protector was happy with the results.