rodgeblog

Feet of Clay

2012-03-13T16:43:00.005Z

Today is my wife's birthday and in place of the usual perfume/ costume jewellery/ two week shopping trip to New York, she asked me to do something cartoony about the kids. I'd been meaning to get around to dabbling with clay, so this was the perfect opportunity. I put together the basic frames with pipe cleaners wrapped in masking tape and worked from a quick pencil sketch of the three vagabonds.
My eldest daughter likes the idea of being a skateboarder a lot - quite a bit more than the actuality of getting out on the thing and putting in some time to master it. Her sister likewise likes the idea of playing her pink guitar more than the tiresome chore of actually practising on it. Their little brother, however spends all his time working on his mastery of rail crashes and is bound to make his parents proud in his future career as a stunt train driver. The dog?. Well the dog thinks he's just perfect as he is.

I started with a quick pencil sketch and started getting the general shape of the figures together with pipe cleaners.
These I wrapped in masking tape to give something for the clay to get a grip on.
The heads were made using polystyrene or aeroboard spheres about the size of table tennis balls. These I scored with a breadknife, again to give some purchase for the clay. The clay I used was DAS air drying clay - inexpensive, fairly quick drying and crucially I don't have an oven in my studio.
The pink figures you see below are where I brushed PVA over the figures to seal them. I added a little pink so I could see what I had already covered. I finished them by painting the figures in acrylic. Guitar and skateboard were just cut from cardboard and capaboard and scraped over with wet clay.

Finally, I made the display case from some old Ikea drawers - they have grooves routed out for the hardboard base -perfect for slipping the glass and backing board into.

The Art of Urban Sketching

2012-03-01T23:16:00.003Z

Hot off the Press.

"The art of Urban Sketching" is a new book put together by Urban Sketchers founder Gabi Campanario and published through Quarry Books.

It's a sizeable volume with more than 300 pages and over 500 sketches from over 50 cities around the globe. There's a nice 2 page spread on my drawings around Dublin and a couple of other sketches of mine scattered around in the book

What's great about this book is how different artists interpret their cities, and the range of sketching styles on display

The Art of Urban Sketching is available worldwide through local bookstores and Amazon.

The two Roys

2012-02-14T18:15:00.003Z

From time to time I contribute to Leif Peng's Today's Inspiration blog.
This week I look at the the box-art of Airfix and Matchbox model planes and vehicles, comparing two of the most dramatic illustrators the industry produced- The two Roys - Cross and Huxley.

For anyone growing up in Britain or Ireland in the 70's and 80's who had half an interest in building model airplanes, the artwork of the two Roys will be immediatly familiar.

Pop over to Today's Inspiration and have a look. For anyone interested in mid-century (20th) illustration the site is a must-see. Everything from Al Dorne to Bernie Fuchs, Charlie Allen to

Walter Wyles, it's an incredible resource of illustration from post-war to the present.

Angouleme

2012-02-06T17:49:00.003Z

Spent last weekend in Angoulême, France at the the bandes dessinees or comics festival. 250,000 people descend on a town of just over 40,000. It's quite a sight. There was an incredible variety of comics on display, virtually all European and excluding the small American stand, thankfully not a superhero in sight. Some of the artwork and creativity at the event is just mindblowing and in french comics there's always a good representation of thoughtful storytelling alongside the fantastic and the humerous.
The main exhibition was of Art Spiegelman and his work - Maus of course, but also some of his less well known comics. There was also a major exhibition in the permanant museum of bandes dessinees - of work that inspired and influenced him.
I spent most of the weekend checking out stalls and catching up with friends so had few opportunities to sit down and do lengthy sketches. Below are a few that I managed to fit into the pauses between browsing and carousing.

View across the ramparts at Angoulême - click to enlarge

At Rosaline's house with Ale, Dag and Artur at breakfast

Downtown Angoulême with the tower of the Hotel de Ville in the background.

2011-12-22T14:57:00.002Z

A Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you all

Carnet de Voyage- Clermont Ferrand

2011-12-19T20:51:00.002Z

On left, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de l'Assomption and on right a night-time get-together in one of the city's many squares.

Just getting around to posting some sketches from The Carnet-De-Voyage in Clermont Ferrand over the weekend 18th - 21st November. What a fantastic event. There were some incredible illustrated journals from trips all over the world and many beautifully produced publications. The event was pretty intense and we didn't have a chance to get to see much of the town by daylight - I think I have more sketches of the Gare de Lyon, my departure point in Paris, than I have of Clermont Ferrand- but despite that we had a great time and it was a pleasure to meet up with some of my fellow USKer's - Nina Johansson, Ea Ejersbo, Lapin, Miguel Herranz and Gerard Michel.

Despite not getting out much, there was plenty of opportunity to sketch visitors as they browsed through the variety of stalls and sketches on display

Above in monochrome, clockwise from top left: Miguel, Nina Ea and Lapin

The Gare de Lyon - departure point for the train to Clermont Ferrand. The lower sketch is of the famous "le Train Bleu" restaurant.

Just a pigment of my imagination

2011-08-19T14:49:00.004Z

When you're using cheap materials, you're always wondering "what's the catch?".

With these acrylics from the euro store, it's that the don't completely dry lightfast and so the layers drag into each other as you wash one colour over another - oh! and the fact that the colour selection is the pigment equivalent of chocolate "flavoured" candy bars.

Anyhow. I got my €2 euro's worth. The kids will find some use for them.

Around the back of the Cathedral, Kilkenny

The view from my window

Wet Twilight Sketching

2011-08-11T16:18:00.003Z

Sometimes it's nice to get back to basics, put away all the groovy drawing materials and just sketch with what you've got.
This drawing was completed with a €2 set of acrylics from the euro discount store (including shaggy excuse for a brush), some ice pop sticks and pieces of cardboard torn from a coffee carton. The only sop to proper drawing equipment was a black felt tip pen I had on me.
It ain't sophisticated, but somehow it's exactly what sketching is supposed to be - fast, impressionistic and less than perfect.

Dublin

2011-08-01T17:25:00.003Z

Some more sketches from in and around Dublin.
Any other night in pubs around the city, traditional Irish music resounds in casual gatherings of musicians both proficient and inept. That's the beauty of it. As Forest Gump said 'You never know what you're going to get"

Down at the Financial district another musician tries his luck

The Luas tram trundles from Hueston station over Sarsfield bridge towards the ciy centre.

Dublin

2011-07-22T13:28:00.003Z

Below are a bunch of sketches from an overcast July Dublin.
The first is an early morning sketch at the Smithfield vegetable and flower markets.
The second, shoppers doing what they do best- keeping the market for non-essentials afloat
Last is a view of Rathmines church and cricket ground.

Sitges

2011-05-04T22:42:00.002Z

Some sketches from a recent visit to friends in Sitges, near Barcelona and the airport on the return flight. Departure delayed for 2 hrs due to someone in the cabin dropping a torch into the plane's wheel housing. Whaddya kno?! You see something new every day

Promenade and sandcastles

Backstreets

View of the hills

Bored in the departure lounge

Dublin

2011-01-18T00:07:00.004Z

Two recent sketches of Dublin.

This is the impressive new Grand Canal Theatre designed by Daniel Libeskind and sketched on a blustery sunny afternoon when the place was almost deserted. It's a wonderful space with the water of the docks off to right, an eclectic mix of building styles and no sense of that identikit dockland's vernacular you seem to find in areas like this the world over.

After a rain shower and the watery sun washes over some interesting apartments beside the distillery buildings in the Smithfield part of town.

Dublin

2011-01-15T00:16:00.002Z

Some sketches from Dublin before and after the snowstorms that took up most of December and left the east coast ground to a halt.

George's street and Exchequer street intersection with the ornate George's street arcade in the background. This leads towards Grafton street, the main shopping street on the city's southside

A foggy morning down on the north quays. The whole area is slowly being redeveloped in that generic "waterfront" style - a few statement buildings, acres of office blocks that wouldn't look out of place in a retail park and some carefully restored remnants of the past - but no soot or rust please! On mornings like this when the whole shebang is shrouded in fog and you can taste the seasalt on your face, it somehow seems more visceral and real.

Dame street, just across from Dublin castle with City Hall in the background.

Kilkenny

2010-09-09T16:45:00.003Z

While the streetfront of Kilkenny was mostly re-modeled in the 19th century, a walk down the backlanes where you can see the rear of the commercial buildings, often reveals the medieval character of the city. This is just off John Street in the centre of town.

2010-08-20T22:24:00.001Z

A short while ago myself and some friends spent the weekend in Istanbul.
What a beautiful city. I've always had an interest in it from a historical perspective and it didn't disappoint.
So much of the city that was extant during the siege of 1453 still stands, though some by a thread. One night about 3 am I was woken by a tremendous roar. I rushed outside to see that the adjoining building - made of wood and rubble- had collapsed into the street. Luckily no-one was hurt. Go see sometime soon.

The Galata tower. It now has a swanky restaurant on top.

View from the Galata bridge. A great place to watch the sun set over your mojito.

Between the Hagia Sophia and the walls of the Topkapi Palace

Tram across the Bosphorus.

Traffic on the Bosphorus

unfinis.....

2010-04-30T21:18:00.001Z

Traditional musicians at the Rivercourt

2010-04-30T20:57:00.002Z

Around town

2010-04-30T20:54:00.004Z

As an excuse for faffing about and skiving off work, sketching takes some beating.
It's work, but it's not work, as if you needed a reason for lounging about coffee shops on the few sunny days we get in this benighted isle of ours

The people that you meet in your neighbourhood

2010-04-30T20:51:00.003Z

Dublin

2010-02-23T17:38:00.001Z

Heuston Station is the point of arrival or departure for rail routes west or south of Ireland's capital. I did a couple of quick sketches around the concourse and beside the platforms. Unfortunately ink was running low in my brushpen by the second sketch in the station and the only replacement I could find was calligraphic ink (I usually use watered-down liquid acrylic ). The result is a watery dense blackness with little or no subtlety. I'll have to clean out the brush and get back to the original mix.

2010 Greetings Stamps

2010-02-09T18:06:00.004Z

An Post have released their 2010 greetings booklet featuring 2 stamps I designed and illustrated. For you philatelists out there, first day covers are now available from An Post’s website. I was first asked to submit some ideas exploring different directions for greetings stamps. The stamps are regarded as not being occasion-specific, but as Valentines day is the second biggest post date after Christmas, it’s bound to appear.

On the initial submission, I decided to take two approaches. The first was a sketch like direction, much like the Kilkenny 400 stamps I had produced for An Post last summer and the second was a little more whimsical (and an opportunity to get my kids featured on stamps if I worked it right!)

For the first day cover an image was also needed for the envelope to tie in with the theme. It was one of those rare occasions where the first idea I had seemed to exactly what everyone was looking for. The post floating to your door with a starry sky background and the rocket floating by. Finally I had to do some stickers and a card to be included in the pack.

A bit of tweaking, a few re-drafts and the job was done. Son and eldest daughter on the stamps, younger daughter on the accompanying card. Mission accomplished!

2010-02-08T17:20:00.003Z

Smithfield Market, Dublin
Very early on a cold misty morning, I tried to capture some of the activity around this flower and vegetable market. The freezing weather soon had me retreating to the warm fug of the local greasy spoon to defrost my fingers.

2010-01-29T17:15:00.008Z

Short Story Illustrations

Here's a couple of illustrations I did for the Irish Daily Mail. They were part of a series I did for seven short stories published over the Christmas period.

2010-01-29T16:00:00.007Z

Anyone got a date for the reckoning?

With the launch of the i-pad comes a whole new wave of predictions of the demise of the printed page. A little premature methinks. Probably by about 100 years.
It's funny how all the designers of e-readers seem determined to mimic books as much as possible. Perhaps in a few years they'll have gotten around to designing one where you can turn the pages and write notes in the margins. Somehow, I don't see myself sitting up at three in the morning staring at a screen going "I'll just read one more chapter and then go to sleep".
Magazines. Now that's a different ballgame. The e-reader (colour version!) is ideal for that. 2000 word articles, illustration and photography are the perfect content for this technology. Even ads can be retained much as they are currently, with the added appeal of interactiveness. Editors, however will have to rethink how the information is laid out and how the content is to be consumed. Endless links for instance, are likely to be counter-productive to the easy digestion of the mag despite the temptation to throw everything at the reader.
Here's an interesting clip exploring some of the ways the publications might be presented: http://vimeo.com/8217311

Still on the topic of reckonings to come:
When are investors going to ask to see some moolah back for their investments in:
Facebook
You-tube
Google
Twitter
MySpace
Flickr
Blogs!
and the countless other free services out there.
Yeah, yeah I keep hearing the old chestnut about the hard pressed advertising world paying for everything, but ad revenues are way down in the real world never mind the fairy world of internet forums. Look at any of the above and tell me how you or I are paying for them. Flickr for instance will host gigabytes of my photos, so I can show them to whoever and how much do they charge? You-tube lets me look up clips they've retained of virtually anything ...and the cost? Even the mighty Google. What's the story there? Ads? almost non-existent. The paid entries? Who looks at them when you're searching for a cheap camera? Even if we did, the revenue from those sort of ads are in the local news-rag rates category.
Someday soon shareholders are going to start asking where all their money is and the streets are going to be buzzing with buck naked emperors diving for cover.
It'll be interesting to see how a generation that has got used to all this interactivity for free will react when they're suddenly asked to stump up.

Roadworks

2009-11-11T12:15:00.003Z

Work continues apace on the new Dublin-Waterford motorway.
Down in the cutaway it must be freezing- the winter sun never seems to make it beyond the tip of the excavator's arm.

The UrbanSketchers blog had a challange for a sketch of "movement-speed".
My local Bugatti outlet was right out of Veyrons, so I sketched the dumptruck instead.

Clogherhead

2009-11-10T11:38:00.003Z

Clogherhead harbour is a small fishing port about 70km north of Dublin and a couple of km outside Clogherhead village itself. I caught it on a still day, but like all exposed coastal harbours the winds can come through it like a juggernaut.
I love the way the house is cut into the hill to reduce the effects of the bitter eastern winds that howl through the place in winter.
The crabs were rejects. Damaged shells, claws and legs mean they won't be shipped to restaurants, but probably be used for bait by the numerous sea fishermen that cast off the harbour walls.

Trinity College

2009-11-09T20:58:00.004Z

Here's a brushpen sketch of Trinity College, Dublin's first quadrant as you go through the main arch.

2009-09-09T10:27:00.006Z

The Electric Picnic

I was asked to take part in a debate about comics and cartooning at this years Electric Picnic.

Hosting, was the fab BP Fallon and on the panel with me were cartoonist Tom Mathews and New York musician and comic artist Jeff Lewis. Paddy Cahill's superb short film about Tom was screened first and then the show got going. It was a bit of fun but we were competing with Orbital on the main stage so the posse weren't needed to escort us out of the tent when it was finished.

The following day, I brought along the kids to have a look around the site. Didn't catch too much music but we got a good flavour of the event in between riding on the carousel, searching for ice-cream and going on the ferris wheel

2009-07-30T16:14:00.004Z

More Irish Pubs

Above are a few of the twenty five illustrations of Irish pubs I was commissioned to do for Guinness's 250th anniversary celebrations. They appear on beermats, presumably only available from the relevant pubs.
Having spent so many years doing storyboards which eventually end being used as coffee mats at various strategic meetings, it's endearing to have alcohol sloshed all over my illustrations for a change.

The pubs are from top : Morrisons of Belfast, Murphy's in Galway and Derry's Peadar O'Donnells

2009-07-23T16:27:00.003Z

Waterbrush Sketches

Some sketches around Dublin And Galway done with a waterbrush loaded with diluted ink.
Left out the spire on O'Connell street - just didn't have enough paper! The others are Trinity college from Dame Street and Neactain's pub in Galway

2009-06-24T21:56:00.006Z

Lunchtime sketching
If I'm not hooking up with someone or I'm not in the middle of yet another book about the Second World War, I generally bring along my sketchbook at lunchtime and try to quickly get down an impression of fellow diners and the surroundings, between nibbles. These are from Bollard's pub, The left Bank, Esquires and some other places the names of which were as forgettable as their food.

2009-06-24T10:13:00.005Z

Kilkenny Centenary Stamp

I recently illustrated the new 55c stamp celebrating Kilkenny's 400th centenary of the granting of the city's charter.
The initial sketches explored a completely different direction, a more abstract and composite route, but eventually the Stamps Advisory committee prefered a more representative approach.

Two illustrations were completed for the final job; the illustration of Kilkenny castle for the stamp itself and a view of the tholsel or town hall for the first day cover.

2009-06-09T13:14:00.005Z

Irish Pubs (in Ireland)
As an antidote to all those sketches of double-latte arrivistas in Starbucks, here's a couple from the inside of pubs - and not a laptop in sight!. All done in Galway city - Neachtain's and Tig Coili. Slainte!

2009-04-01T16:49:00.004Z

Belfast Sketches

I was in Belfast on an illustration assignment recently and took the opportunity to do a little sketching.
Kelly's pub off Royal Avenue is the real deal. No music, one armed bandits or TV to disturb the ancient arts of conversation and reading. There's an unwritten law in Ireland that if a customer is reading the paper or a novel, they shouldn't be engaged in conversation further than the niceties of small talk .. "lovely weather today", "great result for the team at the weekend" etc. Other than that the printed word remains king and must be left undisturbed. For some reason most readers gravitate towards the counter rather than the tables.

While I was in town I took a trip on the ferris wheel outside City Hall. You get a great view over the city at the top, from Cave hill out to Belfast lough and the Harland and Woolf shipyards in the distance. The wheel stopped at the top for quite a while and gave me the opportunity to quickly sketch City Hall from a height.

2009-03-19T14:03:00.002Z

Tell me if you've seen this one before.
Here's a little trick I discovered when my daughter was impatiently pestering me to make a custom sketchbook for her drawings of fairies, castles and the like. Despite years of working in the creative business, I'de always attempted to put together bound brochures and booklets by punching holes though the spine with a needle and the inserting the staples through and then pressing them closed. Not an easy thing to do unless you have fairy fingers. And the result was always that the staple bind would be loose or off register. Shazam! Pester power and Mother, Invention and Necessity not necessarily in that order. Works a treat every time.

2009-02-27T13:18:00.003Z

Nightdrawing
I had to dash over to London recently and flew the redeye from Waterford Regional Airport to Luton with Aer Arann.
It's the way flying used to be. You park right outside the airport, wander into a concourse about the size of a convenience store, grab a coffee and board with the minimum of fuss. Total commute time from my door: 2 and a half hours to the taxi rank at Luton.
On the night-time return I did some quick sketches on the way.

2009-02-27T13:16:00.004Z

Outside Luton terminal.

2009-02-27T13:11:00.006Z

At the check-in. Mine had no queue thankfully. This was a little way up the departures floor.

2009-02-27T13:06:00.005Z

Boarding in Luton. The plane is an Aer Arann Atr 72500 twin prop. It's got about 80 seats. Maybe it's because of the props, but its landing speed is scarily fast. Nice and comfortable though... and quiet. This was sketched in a bit of a rush and finished on the plane so I'm pretty sure the wheels and arches are all wrong.

2009-02-27T12:50:00.006Z

Back in Waterford

Madrid

2008-12-08T17:53:00.004Z

I was in Madrid with some friends recently to play and watch some football. Hanging around with a bunch of na'er do wells intent on having a good time is not conducive to filling in a sketchbook and it wasn't until the fug of the weekend began to clear on the Monday morning that I got a chance to exit the bars and wander about the city and do some doodling.

Madrid

2008-12-08T17:42:00.003Z

We were staying just off the Grand Via and between match fixtures and post match celebrations, I got little chance to wander off the beaten track, which always supplies the most interesting subject matter for sketchbooks. Despite that, the centre of the city is pretty interesting architecturally and with just a brief few hours on Monday morning, I at least got a few sketches down.
The ones in the bars were quickly jotted down on whatever paper was available and worked up later. There are a couple that I haven't worked up and remain scraps on the back of an envelope with scribbles indicating colours and features. I might get around to doing something with them at some later date.

The Industrial Environment

2008-10-31T09:34:00.005Z

The Industrial Environment

Here's a bunch of sketches I did around some local Industrial estates.

They're a pretty unloved environment, understandably so, since it seems to me that care of property is very much aligned to exposure to the general public. If it's a tile distributor or mail depot, they're generally scrubbed up, new and gleaming, but if it's a steel fabricator or obscure machinery parts outlet catering only to specialists, then you're lucky if the crumbling fascia has been painted in the last 20 years.

Perversely, the latter are usually the more attractive, avoiding the bland warehouse architecture taking over the perimeter of our cities

Industrial Estates, Kilkenny

2008-10-31T09:30:00.005Z

Industrial Estates, Kilkenny

2008-10-31T09:29:00.006Z

Happy Halloween

2008-10-30T13:31:00.003Z

Have a great spooky night!

2008-10-06T14:03:00.002Z

National Ploughing Championships
This year's National Ploughing Championships took place at Cuffesgrange, Co Kilkenny.
I grabbed my wellies and a sketchbook and headed out to try and capture some of the spectacle

National Ploughing Championships

2008-10-06T14:02:00.004Z

National Ploughing Championships

2008-10-06T14:00:00.003Z

National Ploughing Championships

2008-10-06T13:53:00.003Z

2008-09-12T16:40:00.003Z

Roadway Construction Sketches
The new Waterford-Dublin motorway continues apace. Here's a couple of sketches I did where the northern Kilkenny spur road is under construction.

2008-08-20T13:44:00.007Z

Hook Head lighthouse on the Wexford Coast
Blindingly white on a summers day with all the whitewash around.
There are a bunch of cottages (second pic) just away from the lighthouse which now house a cafe/shop and admissions desk.
It's thought to be one of the oldest operational lighthouses in the world. It dates from the early 13th century and is a unique example of an almost intact medieval lighthouse though it doesn't look it a first sight.
The tower was constructed of local limestone and the original building survives almost intact at just under 37m high. It consists of two tiers linked by a mural stairway of 115 steps. The upper tier, originally supported the coal beacon, which in modern times was replaced by a lantern.

2008-07-30T16:13:00.009Z

Never mind the Bollards.
Bollard's pub on the corner of Kieran Street, Kilkenny

2008-07-29T10:11:00.005Z

Thursday Farmers Market, Kilkenny

2008-07-28T15:04:00.003Z

Customs House, Dublin

2008-07-28T14:50:00.003Z

O'Connell Street, Dublin
Acrylic sketch of O'Connell St

Hair Piece

2008-07-25T14:16:00.005Z

2008-07-25T13:21:00.003Z

messing about with photoshop

Ink n nibs

2008-07-25T13:19:00.004Z

Some inky bits n pieces

Ah Paris... I remember it well ...

2008-07-23T14:26:00.004Z

Went over to meet my friend Vincent a couple of years back and it was great to get a tour of out of the way places from a someone who knew the city intimately. He always seemed to know some local coffee shop around the corner from the main drag, so we never spent more than a euro on the stuff compared to 2.50 plus on the main streets.
The new Bibliotech is astonishing, with a veritable forest within the enclosed courtyard. Not on the usual sightseeing route, but well worth a detour to see. Didn't get to sketch it though.
The sketches are of the Trocedaro from the Eiffel tower side, rooftops in the Opera quarter, the canal St Martin- take a trip. The tunnel from Rue du Faubourg du Temple to the Place de la Bastille is like something from a Caro and Jeunet film. The canal featured in Hotel du Nord by Marcel Carné. The last drawings are from around the rue St Germain.

Berlin

2008-07-23T14:19:00.003Z

A page from my sketchbook done one balmy afternoon in Berlin
Had only a day and an half in the city, so I didn't get to see half of what I wanted too.
Good enough reason to go back soon.

Watercolours

2008-07-14T14:01:00.004Z

Some watercolour sketches from hols in Kerry

2008-06-25T16:56:00.003Z

Here are some rough sketches from a story called Littlebird and the Starfish

2008-06-19T13:38:00.002Z

Treehouse chez Rodge. I'll post some of the construction sketches when I get photoshop working again.

2008-06-04T15:02:00.000Z

Pen and ink portraits

2008-05-27T11:36:00.003Z

Enniscorthy, Co Wexford
From a tattered sketchbook

2008-05-08T13:43:00.000Z

2008-04-18T12:18:00.003Z

2008-04-17T14:36:00.002Z

2008-04-17T14:31:00.003Z

Some paintings from a recent exhibition "Estuary"

2008-04-02T18:47:00.003Z

Some sketches from a skiing trip to Valle D'Isere last year
With two infants in tow I didn't get much time to do any drawing.
These were done up the slopes in a tiny cheap writing pad while it started to snow heavily, hence the staining on the drawings.

2008-04-01T16:12:00.011Z

HOW TO MAKE A LIGHTWEIGHT DRAWING BOARD
Here's a useful guide to making a lightweight drawing board to support large sketchbooks when you're out and about sketching.

You'll need a piece of Capa board (or foam core board as it's also known) at just over twice the size of your finished board.
Cut some strips from the long side of the board at half an inch (12,5mm) thick. Score them front and back as shown to make a zigzag shape. Tape them loosely into place.

Measure and make some compartments at the upper edge of the board (this will be useful for storing pencils, erasers, brushes etc when you're sketching). Dollop plenty of PVA/ Unibond/ woodglue on both edges of the half inch strips. Place the top board into position, put some books on top, sprinkle with oregano and seasalt and leave overnight. The following morning, Presto! You have a freshly baked lightweight drawing board.

Next. How to build a medium sized space station from aluminium foil and plumber's tape. Whoops, the Russians have beaten me to it!

2008-03-27T17:12:00.001Z

More sketches from Kilkenny

2008-03-27T17:11:00.000Z

The ebb and flow of human traffic, Liffey Street, Dublin

2008-03-27T17:07:00.004Z

drawings from around Kilkenny and London

2008-03-14T18:20:00.004Z

My contribution for the Illustrators Guild "The Body" Sketchbook.
Haven't a clue what it means.

2008-03-14T18:19:00.001Z

2008-03-14T18:17:00.002Z

Sketch of a house for a sci-fi comic

2008-03-14T17:55:00.003Z

friday afternoon doodles

2008-03-07T11:19:00.003Z

An old sketch of NY from a height. Can't remember where it was done from, but it was pre 9/11.

2008-03-07T10:48:00.002Z

Motorbike couriers across from the Bank of Ireland HQ on Baggot Street.
They always congregate around the newsagents just right of shot though the owner has attempted to move them on with no success. Maybe email will do the job for him.

2008-03-07T10:42:00.003Z

Smithfield flower and vegetable market early one winter morning. Jeez it was freezing.
Couldn't be bothered trying to get in any of the background detail, in fact I finished shading in most of the people in the muggy comfort of a nearby greasy spoon.

2008-03-07T10:38:00.004Z

The Four Courts. Dunno how long the average kiss lasts. Luckily these were school kids. They tend to stick at it longer then most, though I'de still say it was 10 secs at most. Just enough to get down a rough sketch.

2008-03-07T10:32:00.002Z

Sketching around the city. This one is around the back of Busarus looking towards the Financial Services area

2008-02-25T16:09:00.003Z

Here's one that got away
It's important that that you're confident that your client can visualise how the finished piece will look.
In this case I kept sending pencil scribbles, presuming they understood that the finished article would be carried out in this style of brush and ink. They didn't. Numerous sketches later we settled on a layout neither of us were crazy about and dictated more by exhaustion than preference.
Another one notched up to experience

2008-02-08T10:05:00.000Z

Here's a simple still life set-up I came across years ago from a book by Arthur Stern called " How to see colour and paint it" for doing still life experiments.(dunno if you can still get the book).
It's a three sided box made of plywood or better again foam core board.
Make it whatever size you wish but preferably a size where you can easily get various coloured papers to clip onto all three sides (including white where you need it).
What you get are great cast colours. Careful observation of for instance an orange or coloured bottle will reveal subtle changes in cast colours as you move around the colour backing and the light. The anglepoise gives you a consistant light source. Just move it around to suit. Use a second one if you want.

2008-02-07T11:47:00.000Z

Here's a tone palette I use for Photoshop painting
Feel free to use it.
Anyone have anything better?

2008-02-07T11:39:00.001Z

2008-02-07T11:36:00.000Z

The old Cattle Market in Kilkenny closed down late last year and moved to a swanky new premises on the Dublin Road
I popped up for the last few auctions and sketched a few of the farmers hanging around to see if they'de made a fortune

2008-02-07T11:34:00.000Z

Heads. Everyone must have heads on their blog.

2008-02-07T11:30:00.000Z

These are some doodles I did during one of those " Why don't I do some generic images, scoot them off to a photostock library and make a fortune" moments. Me and twenty million others.

2008-02-07T11:27:00.000Z

an old sketch of Prague Cathedral
Done with shoe polish and a screwdriver by the look of it.

2008-02-07T11:24:00.000Z

messin' about with acrylics trying to work up some studies of light and shade

2007-11-05T12:03:00.000Z

Disaffected youf just seem to get younger and younger

2007-10-22T16:04:00.001Z

Logo for Kilkenny Culture Night

I have a dream ...

2007-10-03T09:10:00.000Z

Here's an Illustration I did for the "Spoken Word" exhibition at this years Electric Picnic event in Stradbally.
The idea was to illustrate from a famous speech. I chose Martin Luther King's "I have a dream..."
Seems as relevant -and falling on as many deaf ears- today, as it was during the sixties.
Wish I'de photographed it before I varnished it.

2007-09-21T13:47:00.000Z

A tree. Somewhere. In the west.

2007-09-21T13:26:00.000Z

Here's one I started some time back of Birchall's pub in Ranelagh, just before Jack sold the place.
I have a habit of getting lazy about going out to lunch and for a time I always used to wander down to Birchalls and order the same thing - cheese salad sandwich and soup.
Then you find yourself getting particular about the way it's cut - straight across, not diagonal, thanks.
It's just a short step to complaining about bloody teenagers.
Birchalls was a nice place but since Jack and family moved out it seems to have gone downhill. At least it looked that way last time I was there.
The drawing was of a bunch of ne're do wells that gathered about noon and filled in the Irish Times crossword (the cryptic one of course).
They did it on their own seperate papers and would have animated arguments about the final few clues. Crossword was an apt description, because a more irritable bunch of grumps I have never come across. It usually ended with insults fired across the floor, a couple of carefully chosen put-downs and an unresolved puzzle. Of course they'de be there again at noon the next day.

2007-07-31T13:56:00.000Z

2007-07-31T10:03:00.000Z

kilkenny Town Hall