I attended a five week online course at the Royal Drawing School London, from my home in Donegal. Portraits and Self Portraits, Expression and colour, taught by artists Sophie Charalambous and Sharon Brindle, with...

Final week of Observation and Imagination course with the Royal Drawing School, London. We started with drawing from the film Vivian’s Garden, using watercolours and markers (see video above). This way of...

Week three started with quick ink sketches based on the film Shadow of Forgotten Ancestors. We had prepared concertina books with a light ink wash as background. (Concertina books are just made with nice sketch paper...

Constanza Dessain led us for week 2. The idea of this course is to get you loosened up about drawing from the imagination. It’s also to build up a bank of drawings to work from in future. I love this idea as I...

I did a four week (one whole day each week) course online with the Royal Drawing School, London. My tutors were Perienne Christian and Constanza Dessain. Warm up drawing – sketch of my tutor Perienne Warm up...

Delighted to share the news that I’ve been awarded an artist bursary from Westmeath County Council to help me develop my new short animation, Keep Going, Little Snail. This vote of confidence means a lot to me,...

I spent 10 days in South Korea between Bucheon and Seoul for BIAF2019. Here’s a few pics: Hanbok traditional costume and visiting the palaces with my friend Aoife The beautiful Leeum Samsung Museum in Seoul...

This is just a tiny sample of my favourites from Bucheon International Animation Festival 2019… in no particular order except that Melting Heart Cake (Coeur Fondant) by Benoît Chieux is my favourite animation of...

A Quack Too Far was selected to be part of the Bucheon International Animation Festival in 2019 and I was delighted to be able to accept the invitation to attend in person. I was a very inspirational week – so...

I had a great night in The Dock in Leitrim for Culture Night (September 20th). I had two screenings of A Quack Too Far, followed by a presentation about how I made it and an audience Q and A. I also got interview for...

This year I was delighted to have my debut animation short A Quack Too Far premiered at Galway Film Fleadh in the New Irish Talent program along with my classmates from Coláiste Dhúlaigh, Janet Grainer (Outside The...

Trinity College Dublin run an extramural botanical art course twice a year (info here) with the renowned botanical artist Yanny Petters. She also does regular workshops in the Schoolhouse for Art, Enniskerry, info...

Update: Please see photos of how it went on my kids workshop page here. I’m on the artist panel to deliver a variety of art workshops for 2018 in The Dock arts centre in Leitrim. My next one will be all about...

  I had a brainwave to draw everyone who came into visit me at FROST Fumbally. A thought ran through my head to say that I really wasn’t good enough at portraits to do it so I agreed with that but did it...

I was delighted to be part of a beautiful Christmas pop up shop at Fumbally Exchange (5 Dame Lane, Dublin 2). A group of about 20 fellow fumballiers got together and ran the shop for a month before the Christmas and...

The Copper House Gallery ran a group exhibition called “No Fixed Abode” for two months at the end of 2017, and raised over €15,000 for the homeless charity, The Peter McVerry Trust. I donated my...

I contributed some essays and drawings to “Starting Your Career as an Illustrator” edited by Michael Fleishman, The book has lots of practical advice about how to get started and build a career, with...

I love Leitrim! I’m from Leitrim and hope to live there again some day so I love to see cool events popping up so I can convince myself that I won’t miss Dublin all the time! I studied architecture for...

  Culture Night is one of my favourite nights of the year and this year I was so happy to be invited to join with my friends at Bí Urban to make beautiful nature prints with whoever was interested. I went to...

I was commissioned to make an art activity page for an education package with the Public Broadcasting Service in America. They have a teachers blog (PBS Learning Media) for the public schools to encourage engagment...

Carlow Garden Festival has been running for about 15 years now and each year it’s getting bigger and better! The headliner this year was Monty Don, who gave a sold out talk on the same evening I had my workshops. I...

I had a wonderful week this July at the Connemara Summer School on Inisbofin island, off the coast of County Galway in the west of Ireland. The week was spent mostly outdoors, with guided walks by experts in botany,...

I first met Kaethe Burt O’Dea from Bí Urban (pronounced “Bee” Urban) the night of my Synesthesia talk in May and in June I had my Naturama exhibition up in her workshop/studio/shop space. She is one...

This year I went to Body & Soul for art, not music! I gave a talk on the Sunday about my work and how it’s inspired by nature in the Bord Na Móna OurLand area in the forest. All around the festival are cool...

Rathmines is a village close to Dublin city centre, and anyone over 40 who went to college in Dublin tells me that they used live there. I lived nearby for many years and still have my library membership...

Bloom Fringe is a festival run in parallel with Bloom In The Park and encourages biodiversity and sustainability in Dublin City. They have loads of talks, walks, workshops and installations that brighten up the city...

Naturama exhibition at Íontas Arts Centre, Castleblayney, Monaghan, March 31st – May 25th 2017 I had a solo exhibition at Íontas Arts Centre Castleblayney, Monaghan, from March 31st to May 25th 2017. The...

I was delighted to be asked to speak at the Synesthesia talk series in the Liquor Rooms in Dublin along with Susan Coughlan from Purposeful Play, Simon Dennehy from Perch, and Stephen Dignam.  I spoke about my recent...

I had My Naturama Naturama Journal book launch in the Botanic Gardens  on May 14th 2017, so, now it is officially out there in the world!! The Botanic Garden’s mean so much to me – they are one of my...

Sometimes we all need a giggle, so I had a joke competition to get some new jokes! Originally I was going to give away one print but the final decision was so tough I had to give away two! These are the prize prints:...

One of my favourite instagrammers is contemporary embroidery artist Sarah K Benning and I was delighted to see she was going to host an embroidery workshop in Rathmines! We had a lovely evening making a start with...

Offsketch was back this February as part of the amazing free Offsite workshops organised in the week before this years Offset. The weather was desperate so luckily most of the drawing took place indoor, starting with...

If you take a walk down Benson Street in Dublin 2 you will see a very colourful little area amongst all the dust of the nearby building sites!  I was commissioned by Dublin City Council to design a  55 metre long...

Fumbally Exchange went to Ravenna in Italy to our sister exchange, Meme Exchange, with an exhibition of our work. I sent my print “Bottomless Lake”. Thanks to Olivia Golden for the photos.

Creative Live set up a free series; one month of creative challenges called #28tomake. Each week they had a different teacher setting exercises and you get one short fun exercise a day. The idea was to encourage...

Skillshare is an online community of video classes. You can get a free month’s access by clicking here. I love it – you can get a class from some of your favourite designers and get an insight into their...

  One of the best things about working in Fumbally Exchange is that there’s always a little ready made gang who are up for day out. We went to Damn Fine Print for a morning of screen printing and had so...

Kieran Rose was honoured last night at a special ceremony to say thank you from Fumbally Exchange to all the people who have been a big help to our organisation over the past year. Special thanks went to Kieran who...

Great news, I’m in the shortlist for the Irish blog awards in the Personal Arts and Culture blog category! Very exciting. If you like, you can vote for me here :) Exciting Update! Guess what I made it to the...

Fumbally Exchange is five years old and as part of the birthday celebrations we are having an exhibition named Transformation. It runs from 7th til the 18th of September in Fumbally Exchange, 5 Dame Lane, Dublin 2 and...

Here are some photos from another lovely morning at the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin. I am organising a sketch trip every month on the first Friday so if you want to come next month, sign up here. This time...

Drawing at Botanics – September 4th The Botanic gardens in Dublin are so special – so I am going on the first Friday of every month and inviting you to come too! It will be two hours of drawing plants and...

Dublin in the sunshine is so beautiful!I started a monthly meet up for a small group to sketch the plants at the National Botanic Gardens and it has quickly become one of the highlights of each month. You might spot a...

The 100 Day Project are organising meet ups across the world to celebrate the 100 day project (it started at the end of April so loads of people are already finished). I volunteered to host the Dublin one. So if you...

I’ve done a blog already about combining line drawings with digital illustration ( see:  How I make my bicycle drawings  and : How to use the live trace tool in Illustrator CS6 to digitise your line drawing) but...

Finally reached the halfway mark and keeping going! Love how excited the bike lovers get when I draw their bike. I’ve some plans afoot for an exhibition in September – Fumbally Exchange is having their 5th...

We had a wonderful sketch trip to the Botanic Gardens earlier this month. We are going again the first Friday of next month – sign up here and join us.     Related Reading: Join me for a sketching...

Almost at the half way mark now :) Love meeting all the bike lovers online. Instagram is a really friendly place! When you see my hand with a pen in the pictures below, please press play to watch the videos – I...

Yes I know you are going to spending every day this month at the seaside, eating ice-cream, but if you need a little break and want to do some city things, here are some fun events coming up for July… 1....

It’s such a buzz to draw something for someone! I decided early on just to draw the bikes belonging to people I know so each drawing is a gift for that person, and the whole project has a million times more...