Sketch Therapist

Decades of rejections didn’t manage to put me off trying to make a living through art. I got there in the end, thanks to the support of like-minded souls who discovered me through social media

This is a very quick promo piece for my sketching course that starts on Monday 23rd May. All are welcome regardless if experience - it’s for absolute beginners! In this episode I outline what you’ll need for class.

In this episode, I take you to some of the places I’ve had the pleasure of sketching over a coffee: just as lovely sketching with friends and family or on your own - either way cool stuff happens.

In this week’s episode I escape the confines of my hospital bed and my busybody neighbour, and make my getaway to the diving tower in Blackrock at the far end of Galway City.

This is not a jolly episode about sketching but a tale of life on a trolley in a corridor in Galway Hospital. Contains lots of medical detail and descriptions of alcoholism. Sketch, appropriately, is of offal. Enjoy!

One of the nicest places to sketch is the beach. There are myriad challenges! It’s a free life drawing class; reflections are everywhere; the sky and clouds are interrupted and you get to practice rocks in sunlight without worrying too much about their shapes. But beware! I dropped a pen on the stones and its nib is banjaxed, irreparable!

In this week’s episode I take you to the Victorian seaside town of Bray, and share a few tips on drawing expressive people!

For any young ladies coming to the end of your secondary school years, who are thinking of following a creative path in life, this is for you.

I was asked to sketch Irish musicians in action during a benefit concert, for a raffle at the end. I developed a great technique that got the results I wanted…sadly I was focusing so hard I didn’t really hear any music!

Tyrone House is just a few minutes’ walk from my home in Co. Galway. I talk about a little of its history: it’s now nothing but a burnt shell, with beautiful, dramatic skies for a roof. I share my technique for capturing them in watercolour.

We’ve had two and a half days of sketching in beautiful Dublin on my first-ever urban sketching workshop in the city. We were blessed with stunning spring sunshine, not to mention a great group of students. Join in vicariously with this Sunday’s episode!

We’ve just finished the March series of classes on Buildings, and in this episode I share loads of tips that we covered in class. You can watch them in action by downloading classes from my website!

For St Patrick’s Day I thought I’d give you an episode with a very Irish flavour. I had a lot of rich experiences in the making of my book An Urban Sketcher’s Galway and I share some of them here!

I was invited to sketch the Camino in Northern Spain in August 2021. It was a magical and unforgettable week in a special place with wonderful friends, amazing food and beautiful weather. I recommend it!

En agosto 2021, tenía la gran suerte de pasar una semana inolvidable con amigos, dibujando el camino inglés para Turismo de Galicia. El proyecto era organisada por Gemma Cesar, de El Patito Editorial. Espero que os gustan mis historias de la semana.

Addressing the girls of my old school, Holy Child Killiney, on the coast of South Dublin, prompted me to feel grateful for the incredible education the school gave me. I also share my tips for sketching flowers and announce a fundraiser class for Ukraine.

Join me for a stroll on a sunny day in spring through Dublin City as I sketch the Grand Canal, the Jameson whiskey distillery in Smithfield and a man who should not have been sitting in the sun. Lots of shadows, shiny metal and shafts of sunlight - and some tips on painting glass.

The docks in Galway City hosted SeaFest a couple of ago, and I was asked to sketch it for Ireland’s Marine Institute. The sun split the stones and I became a grumpy wagon very quickly…but it ended well.

Guinness features largely in the life of Dublin: the smell of roasting hops is one of my favourite things about the Liberties area of Dublin. Turns out sketching there is not half as edgy as I had feared and I had a lovely tourist experience, enjoying the beautiful streets and gentle colours, and I even saw a (non-threatening) arrest, from a safe distance.

This is where I sketch the statue of Charles Stewart Parnell I meant to say “handmade” not “waterproof” at the start when I’m describing the ink - sorry about that! Hope you enjoy hearing from the Dubliners I met as I sketched too.

In this episode, I visit the Hindu temple in the vibrant, lively town of Triolet in the north of the island. The air is heavy with incense and flowers, there are colourful models of gods dressed in saris everywhere and it’s all rather foreign to an Irish woman who isn’t hugely well travelled. If that weren’t exotic enough, I swing by a Tamil temple and sketch there, too. My mind is, as they say, b...

This is where it all began! Back in 2012 my family and I moved to Mauritius for six months. I had no idea what I was going to do out there, but I didn’t know my life was about to change…

My brand new podcast! The first Sketch Therapist episode takes you along a winding country road to a little promontory jutting out into Galway Bay where a tiny castle has stood solid and proud for six hundred years and more. In this episode I give you my own guided tour, and capture stone and sky in ink and watercolour - solving a sketching issue I’ve been faced with countless times before.

Getting out to sketch with pens and watercolour changed my life. It wouldn’t be right not to share the skills (and the stories) I’ve picked up along the way with you, in an attempt to evangelise everyone, including you, into the joy that is sketching your very own world.