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 finally got my hands on a copy of “Starting Your Career as an Illustrator” by Michael Fleishman. I contributed some writing and drawing to it and was delighted to get stuck in and read some good tips....

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...

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...

Join me for a sketching morning in the Botanic Gardens! If you haven’t been yet, it’s beautiful and full of lots of interesting plants to draw, you will love it. I have lots more photos of the gardens from...

The Dock in Carrick on Shannon are running a great series of workshops at the moment and I went to one last week – a drawing masterclass with Dublin based artist, Julie Merriman. We spent the day doing a variety...

I’m still loving this project! Delighted will all the positive feedback and people keep on sending me their photos! Loving all the new instagram friends I’m making, it’s such a friendly place to...

Since I started my #100daysofbicycles drawings I’ve been getting lots of emails from my friends with pictures of their much loved bikes. I wanted to show you exactly what my process is for drawing my bikes,...

I spent 3 nights with the Irish Landmark Trust in Helen’s Tower, nested among a huge forest in Clandeboyne Estate, in County Down. The woods were full of bluebells and fairies and we had the most romantic time...

Creativebug is an art and crafts tuition website and has some lovely video classes that you can work along with. I took Lisa Congdon’s Stechbook Explorations class as a little treat for myself and it was great....

Days 11-20 of my #100daysofcicycles challenge. (See days 1-10 here). Everyone is emailing me with pictures of their bike and asking me “how are them bikes going??!”! Doing this project is helping me get...

I had another brilliant day thanks to the people from Illustrators Ireland for Offsketch on National Drawing Day (May 16th). There was about 60 sketchers taking part and we started at Smock Alley Theatre drawing and...

I signed up for #The100DayProject organised by The Great Discontent (sign up here) and decided to make it #100DaysofBicycles and am making one bicycle drawing per day, taking requests from all my bicycle loving...

It’s almost summertime! Here are some lovely events and activities that have caught my eye for the coming month and I wanted to share it with you. 1. OFFSKETCH 2 – 16th May I had the best day at Offsketch...

There is a great series of free workshops organised as part of Irish Design 2015. I went to one on April 25, in the Coach House at Dublin Castle – Just My Type with Noelle Cooper from UnThink. The workshop took...

PERSEVERANCE noun: steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement. I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to persevere...