Idle Hands ILLUSTRATION

new drawings

2011-08-24T15:32:00.004+01:00

Forest and The Fox

2010-11-22T12:18:00.012Z

I'm doing an animation course. Here are some of the drawings I've been doing for a short animation piece. The story is about a boy called Forest who tames a fox.

Why Nature would win in a wrestling ring

2010-09-13T22:20:00.026+01:00

Arthritic hunch

I've been thinking about some of the mad-cap shamanism I came across in Norway. What with all the sublime nature around me on the farm, I picked up a thing or two about how nature could probably take on a hospital in a wrestling ring and emerge roaring and victorious, cracking Hospital's back over its knee and delivering The People's Elbow from the corner post. (Not being a boy, all the wrestling terms come care of my friend Davy.)

For instance, one day, in the throws of launching myself killer-gardener style on doc leaf plants and trying to haul them out of the ground, I realised I was surrounded by a sea of nettles. I copped all too slowly that the tingling sensation that had been running all up and down my legs had little to do with my newly toned muscles and more to do with nettles blistering my legs to bits.

Feeling arthritic?
Gobble a few nettle leaves

"Do not worry," smiled the wise old head gardener, "nettles are Nature's cure for Arthritis."

Nature had done it again and there she was, doing laps of the wrestling ring; victorious and boastful, tossing nettle leaves to hoards of her adoring crowds.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Similarly, if you ever find yourself in the forest and are struck down by a toothache, reach for the nearest slug. In the slime of slugs, Nature has gifted us with a natural anaesthetic.

Feeling a little sluggish?

Use slug slime as an anaesthetic

Native Americans knew all about Nature's prowess in the wrestling ring. They used slug slime as an anaesthetic for years before the dentist's needle came into vogue.

So try them out today! If you find the nettles too stingy on your joints, rub on some slug slime salve to numb the sting.

Norway

2010-08-23T16:20:00.024+01:00

Nothing much doing here for a while.

Apologies!

I've been away in Norway for the past month. It was a great big last minute decision to take off on an adventure there. My friend Brenda had smoked out a great place in the south-central mountains where we could volunteer on an organic farm.

The organisation we used is known as WWOOFing. A ridiculous acronym if ever there was one, and tricky too when you encounter someone who hasn't heard of it. Roaring, "I'm a wwOOfer here!", over acres of chickens sqwaking wildly behind me wasn't too easily patched up.

What WWOOF actually means is Willing Workers on Organic Farms. You can contact listed farms on the wwoofing website to offer to volunteer for a few weeks or months, in exchange for food and board. It's a wonderful idea and makes loads of sense because organic farming would break the heart of any hairy-cheeked enthusiast. Have a look at wwoofing here.

It was a proper adventure too, all tumbling mountains, pearly clouds and glassy fjords. We'd our noses pressed to the windows on the drive from Oslo, scouting for lynx and elks and bears and wolverines!

I learned how to milk a cow, polish white eggs to a startling brightness (without them exploding in my hands), how to extract honey, what to do in the event of a calf breaking loose, where to scavenge for wild blueberries, but most of all, oh God, most of all...how to weed. If only I'd had the presense of mind to smuggle a box of pesticide through Norwegian customs. There was nothing left unwed: Kolraibi, carrots, onions, lettuces, cabbages, tomatoes, courgettes, maize.

For some welcome respite I would help my friend Maja with the cows. There were 20 milking cows and 8 calves. We'd open the gate to their pasture and bellow "Kom Igjen", which in Norwegian means, "Come on ladies, let's see some of that creamy goodness".

Cow-belle

It would take a while, but then, like magic, they'd all lurch forward together, jolting their knees out from under them. They'd stumble their hind legs into half a stand and then slowly, and god love them, ungracefully they'd rise to their feet, all knuckles and hooves. Their cow bellings clanging, they'd start the long, amble down the hill like old relics from the past. Such lovely creatures. I think I loved them because they were so warm and slow and docile. Everthing you'd love in a big, wheezy dog.

The farm was host to so many great people. Wonderful storytellers and hunters who told stories about wild elk and badgers, how to gut a fish and smoke an elk's heart.

Lovely to be back to put some order on the tales. Expect more nature table updates soon.

Solstice Arts Festival

2010-06-26T09:10:00.009+01:00

A drawing from the children's book I've made for the festival

Hello all!

I'm taking part in a wonderful Arts Festival this weekend which is being curated by the great Brenda Kearney.

I've made a children's book which I'll be reading at 2pm on Sunday with accompanying music by Georgia Cusack and Patrick Groenland. I've loved their music for so long, it's an absolute pleasure to collaborate with them!

I've also submitted 5 drawings to the exhibition which will be on show (and for sale!) over the weekend.

There's heaps more happening over the weekend including jazz, short films and theatre and lots more besides! Do drop in if you're in the area.

The festival takes place in The Back Loft, just off Thomas Street and is €5 in.

In the mini-woodland...

2010-05-29T11:14:00.026+01:00

At the beginning of this week I called out to St. Brigid's Junior National School in Finglas in Dublin to begin another mural.

I was asked by Elaine, their Greens Schools Committee Member, to create a mural in the mini-woodland of the children's playground. The mini-woodland backs onto an 80 ft long wall.

I wanted to incorporate the woods into the mural. I also felt that the wall was long enough to narrate a whole story so I started sketching woodland scenes with foxes and wolves and woodcutters and finally decided on the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

I tried to sidestep the more macabre versions of the fairytale. I still remember how delighted, but horrified I was as a child when a teacher told us the ending where the wolf's belly is cut open and filled with stones! I suppose that feeling is the true point of fairytales but I felt I should keep it good and wholesome and so I broke the story up into 6 pictures to retell the story. Here are the sketches:

1. Red Riding Hood waves goodbye...

2. On the way, she meets dapper Mr. Wolf...

3. Little Red Riding Hood asks a few pointed questions in Granny's house

4. A woodcutter hears the commotion

5. And chases the wolf away

6. They celebrate Granny's magical reappearance with cake.

The End.

Caake!

And here it is in real life! I drew the lot in one day, in dappled shade, with the smell of barkmulch and fresh green buds and rOaring children at lunchtime!

The kids in first class are going to paint the mural. I'll put up photos of the wall once they're finished.

Scissors Paper Stone!

2010-05-22T09:42:00.019+01:00

The magic of bunting!

I stuck up the sheets of mosaic onto the pillars last week using an adhesive similar to plaster. I used a builder's float to slap the adhesive onto the pillars and then scored the plaster with the grilled edge of the float to create a criss-cross surface on the pillar. Bizarrely enough, I studied Construction Studies in school so I'd a good idea of what I was doing. My arms, on the otherhand, were in shock at what I was putting them through!

Ha ha!

That 'do not touch' chalk hand was quickly abandoned!

Once the adhesive is dry you can peel away the gumpaper to reveal the mosaic underneath. The way to peel away the gumpaper is to drench it with water, allowing the water to soak in between the tile face and the glue of the gumpaper and then peel it away triumphantly in long wallpaper strips (or so the theory goes).

Half way through

I was maybe a little too excited at the imminent satisfaction of stripping away broad sheets of gumpaper. I thought it'd be fast and incredibly satisfying. What actually happened was that the paper had formed some unholy bond with the tiles and was stubbornly refusing to go anywhere. Soon it became a battle of wills between me, the adult, and the gumpaper, a precocious monster-toddler refusing to go anywhere.

The drenching begins..

I spent days rubbing the paper to within an inch of my fingers' lives. In fact, at one point I was pretty sure that I had completely rubbed my fingerprints away.

Sometimes the gumpaper barnacles would take tiles with them when removed..

Exhausted and fed up, I called over to a friend's house and conversation turned to her delight as a kid of picking at pebble dash on walls. We sat in her kitchen wondering how many Irish pebble dash walls were now bald because of children's eager little fingers when I realised I could use children's thirst to pick and peel to overcome the monstrous gumpaper!

One of my lovely helpers.

The next day, in the middle of the whole school being in a great flurry of braiding woolly headbands and dressing up bear mascots for a big match in Croke Park, I asked if I could recruit the help of some small hands to help me peel away the gumpaper.

Four amazing girls were sent my way and they squealed with delight at being asked to help with the mosaic.

It was glorious. We chatted about birthday parties and face paints, conga lines and Aztec houses. And all the while, the paper was receding, being torn down and defeated! Not only that, soon a parent was helping too and a little toddler. They did amazing work and were paid in full (in chocolate cash!) before hometime.

I still have some gumpaper to remove up high and then I'm going to start breaking up tiles to fit into any spaces where there are gaps in the mosaic. After all that is done, I'm going to grout the pillars. And after all that, the mosaic pillars will be completely finished.

Victory!

Delicious Glass

2010-05-17T19:58:00.027+01:00

Sorry for all this time that keeps shoring itself up between posts. I've been swallowed up making mosaic patterns for the last fortnight. It does something peculiar to your mind; making pictures with tiny squares of colour, like playing real-life tetris or tangrams all day long.

Measure scribbles

Maths has been playing a great trick on me lately. I'm forever trying to turn my back on it and yet all I've been thinking about recently is space and measure and colour permutations. No scrap of paper in my house was safe. I had figures and diagrams scribbled down on pages before they had a chance. And what I'm slowly coming round to realise is that I think it's time to let the maths ghost in.

Golden glass cubes

Every time I picked up a piece of golden glass I kept remembering a friend telling me that he used to love eating cubes of jelly as a kid. His Mum would scissor up a slab of Chivers jelly and give him one single cube of concentrated gelatine before the others disappeared in boiling water, shimmering at the bottom of the jelly bowl. I was always half-revolted by the idea of it but now that I've spent so much time eyeing up the golden glass pieces I'm a little curious to see what it would taste like...

Stock sheet

Before I started the mosaic I took stock of how many sheets I had of each colour. The surface area of the concrete pillars is 9 square feet and 10 sheets of tiles covers one square foot (see what I mean about Maths creeping in..)

It was pretty tricky to get started surrounded by 90 sheets of clown colours. I recruited the help of my sister Julie and we looked through the colours and made up a sheet of tile friends.

Tile friends

I planned to break up the pillar into four sections: the eggs, the caterpillar, the chrysalis and the butterfly.

This was the original plan for the eggs.

There were going to be three eggs but I wasn't positive that it would have been clear what they were.

So I changed the design to an egg on a leaf.

When I had the design laid out I broke up the panels into manageable sizes like pieces of a jigsaw and set to work on each piece on a giant board on my lap.

I drew out the caterpillar design on the gum paper.

And the yellow began to creep in...

And the caterpillar took shape! Next I lifted up the tiles and wet the gum paper to stick them down. The tiles are stuck down in reverse so that when you glue the sheet to the wall you can wet the gum paper and then peel it away

All four panels ready to go.

I'm mounting the mosaic to the pillars this week. I can't wait to see what they look like once they're up. I'll put up photos by the end of the week hopefully!

Metamorphosis

2010-05-05T00:11:00.033+01:00

I finished the entire mural on Friday, April 30th! I started with class visits to 3rd class on Monday, March 8th. The Easter Holidays fell in the middle of it so all in all it took 5 weeks to complete.

Here's a photo taken from the new school garden. You can just about see the vegetable boxes at the bottom of the picture.

There are wild flower seeds planted at the foot of the mural and I can't wait to see them dancing in great sweeps when they're in full blossom.

I had to lay down planks of wood on the freshly sown soil so that I wouldn't disturb any of the seeds. Although I loved the excuse of having to walk the plank with a tin of paint in each hand and a paintbrush in my mouth!

Ghost flowers

Little red hoods!

Coat one finished

Coat two finished. The black trim begins!

Finished!

The baby

Her older sister..

Still growing...

Almost there...

Ta da!

I'm making a mosaic for two 10ft high pillars at the entrance to the school now. They're going to describe the life cycle of the butterfly. I can't stop watching this very beautiful time-lapse video of the butterfly's metamorphosis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAUSKxWMIh0

My eyes keep going out of focus with complete wonder at how they do it! When my eyes whirr back into use I'll put up photos of the mosaic!

Mural III

2010-04-24T21:53:00.018+01:00

Panel Three

Whoopee!

This is our school crest. I had the kids fairly baffled writing in Irish on top and

in Latin on the bottom.

Their sunny foreheads were so crinkled trying to figure out what it said that they only realised afterwards the crest was on their jumpers all along.

"Oh look! It's here! On my jumper!

The wall's on my jumper!"

'Scoil Mhuire Máthair ár nDóchais' translates as 'Mary Mother of Hope' (our school name) in Irish.

'Per Scientiam Ad Unitatem' translates as

'Through knowledge to unity and understanding'

The book is a symbol of knowledge and learning.

The lily is the symbol of Mary.

The circle is a symbol of unity.

Here's how the full stretch of the wall looks at the moment. The last panel will feature five stages of a bulb growing into a flower. More photos to follow!

Horsefly

2010-04-15T19:17:00.013+01:00

Hooray! Finished panel two today.

I spent the day with volcanic ash floating in from Iceland and a horsefly who kept circling back to rest on the giant flowers.

Tomorrow onwards and upwards (or more like sidewards) onto panel three! More photos to follow.

Mural II

2010-04-14T22:49:00.018+01:00

Mural take two. Panel two!

Here is the drawing for panel number two:

I'm still shaking my head in wonder at the sunny beauty of this week. I went back to muraling on Monday after the Easter break and became so entangled projecting the writing onto the wall and trying to outwit the briars of the sun that I completely failed to notice I was getting sun burnt.

One pink neck and bib later the writing on the wall was finished.

Not before the ever-talented caretaker, Seana, made an amazing fort from a rolling whiteboard and sheet of plywood.

Sun-fort

On Tuesday I drew each individual flower on the wall and gave them their first coat of paint.

This time I had the sun out-foxed. I kept watch of UV rays using the trusty wristwatch-index, a foolproof method for fools like me. Shimmy your watch down your wrist to compare milk-white skin to the hot glow of pink running down your arm. Apply more suntan lotion accordingly.

Today I painted the second coat of paint on the flowers. I also cleaned the sole of a frequent visitor whose small shoe had unfortunately stepped its way right onto the lid of a tin of paint.

Tomorrow I hope to finish this panel. I have to apply a second coat of paint to some areas and go around the black trim with black paint. I'll put up photos tomorrow...that is..if the weather doesn't break!

When I grow up I want to be a Superhero!

2010-04-02T10:18:00.053+01:00

Oh it's been a long, long time since I posted here but with good reason! I was asked by the primary school I teach in to create an outdoor mural at the entrance to the school.

I'm taking a career break at the minute so it seemed like the perfect way to go back and see all the kids I used to teach again.

The school is a brand new super-school. It's amazingly colourful and friendly and well equipped. It's called Mary Mother of Hope National School and is in Littlepace, Blanchardstown, Dublin.

The mural wall is an outside wall which is just at the entrance to the school. It's 50 feet long and is broken up by pillars into four panels.

I decided to create four different images on each panel. One would be about what the kids want to be when they grow up, another would feature the school crest and the two remaining panels are at the foot of the school garden (which is currently being sown at the moment..look out for the wheelbarrow in the photos!) so those two panels would feature illustrations to do with bulbs growing and flowers blossoming.

I made up a worksheet for the four 3rd classes, exploring the idea of what they wanted to be when they grow up and then called in to have a chat with them about it. I made a sketch of lots of different jobs (pictured above) and what the mural might look like and showed it to them on the interactive whiteboard.

They had amazing ideas for jobs! One boy wanted to be a half-video game maker and half-farmer. Another kid said he wanted to be a superhero when he grew up. His super power would be that his hands would be able to grow really big so he could "squish stofe", and his superhero name would be Black Face! Here are some of their drawings:

Black Face

Half-video game maker, half-farmer. He decided just to draw the farmer

But look at the farmer! What a brilliant drawing.

It reminds me of The Moomins.

This kid wrote that he wanted to be an airplane pilot
because he was "up for a challenge"

I read through all the worksheets and came up with this sketch.

Although, I had to reduce the number of jobs from 10 to 5 in the final image because otherwise the wall would have looked too busy.

Here's the wall beforehand, kindly painted Brilliant White by Carl. Though I'm not so convinced about the brilliance of Brilliant White...the glare of the sun felt like it was searing my eyes. For all my squinting, tears streamed endlessly down my cheeks behind my sunglasses. Apparently my eyes couldn't handle the intensity of the light.

Brilliant white.

Not so brilliant after all...

Hurray for cream paint! I went to MRCB Paints on Thomas Street and they were really helpful. I got outdoor, masonry paint and was pleasantly surprised to find that they had such vivid colours for exterior paint in stock. A lovely lady called Stella matched all the colours in my final sketch to colour swatches and gave me heaps of great advice. Turns out that she makes murals too!

I painted a navy and baby blue frame around the cream rectangles to match the colour of the school uniform.

Actually, in the last month I feel like my mind has swelled with D.I.Y advice, all the crafty tricks and tradesman's secrets gleamed from the mouths of handimen and craftspeople I've come in contact with. Sometimes, quite creepily, I feel like there might be a film crew behind me, that I've unwittingly landed in one of those D.I.Y programmes that my Dad loves, and that maybe I should make an aside to the camera about the amazing advice I've just been told! And people are so generous with their advice too. They really love to pass on the practical knowledge that they've learned through experience. For instance, measure twice - paint once; choose brighter coloured paints because darker colours fade faster and my personal favourite, snuggle up in the high winds with a hot-water bottle under your coat!

They're concrete bike stands in front of the wall. Useful for reaching those hard to reach places, though I keep getting my ankles stuck in between them!

I used a projector to throw the text and images onto the wall and then traced around them with a permanent marker. There was a blitz of beautiful weather for the first week and when the weather broke my heart nearly did too....turns out the permanent marker I used wasn't so permanent after all...

Black streaks of marker started running down the wall. I tried to soak up the black rivers streaming down the wall with kitchen towel and all the while it was still raining. Thank God for Séanna, the care taker, who came to the rescue with enormous sheets of plywood to rest against the wall and ward off the rain.

While I considered the merits of abandoning the whole thing and just going back to bed, I found myself in a hardware shop buying anti-graffiti spray and varnish. I came back, the weather had cleared, and so I started cleaning the streaks of black marker away with that amazing, life-saving can of anti-graffiti spray. When it dried I varnished over the permanent marker. Catastrophe avoided. I had some lunch, a heap of biscuits and was back painting after lunch.

Here's the finished mural. I finished on Friday 26th, 3 weeks after starting. This part of the country gets some intensely broody, dark clouds on really bright days.

Here are some close up photos of the wall:

School kids

A teacher. AH yes, and that's an interactive whiteboard. Bye bye blackboards!

The first Irish Astronauts on the moon...

An Artist

A Footballer

A Ringmaster

My old class said that when they grow up

they want to be an elephant!

I love doing this mural. My favourite bit is when the kids rush out from school and come over to have a look and a chat. "It's coming along real well," they say. "What's that?" What are you doing next? What are you doing now? You know what I want to be when I grow up? You're not a teacher anymore, are you?.... Brilliant!

I'm doing the school crest next and then the school garden mural. After that I'm making a mosaic for pillars at the entrance to the school. I'll put up photos of these as they develop over the next few weeks.

Pooka!

2010-03-03T23:30:00.056Z

I took part in an event called 'Breaking Bread' last December, as part of a festival called Make Belief: An evening of Winter Fictions, curated by the great Kate Strain. The festival took place in Kilkenny Castle on December 10th and featured live music, art and readings.

The Breaking Bread event was organised by Fiona Hallinan and Paddy Bresnihan. They gathered groups of people together and served them warm food at tables where two speakers would give a talk about superstition, which was the overarching theme of the festival. When Paddy asked me to give a talk about superstition in November, I froze, wondering how I would harness all my lunatic superstitions and half-cocked notions into one meaningful whole.

The Piper's Mother: Snuff connoisseur

For fear that I would have to spill my heart about the pattern-making I invent to try to understand the world, I chose instead to make an illustrated book for the event and so with a much relieved and gladdened heart, I began to research old Irish superstitions. My primary teaching head hummed happily, looking to knit together Irish heritage with storytelling. I was thrilled when I found a story about the pooka translated by Douglas Hyde from the Leabhar Sgeulaigheachta and so it took off!

Douglas Hyde

Translator of the story, Ireland's first President and moustache-grower extraordinaire!

The story is about a half-wit of a piper who is kidnapped by the Pooka and brought to the house of the Banshee (similar to a faery or witch). The pooka (or púca in Irish, meaning ghost) is a figure from Irish folklore. He is a shape-shifter who can appear as a horse, a rabbit, a dog or a goat, though he most commonly appears as a horse. The descriptions of his appearance are fairly terrifying. He is described in folktales as having a dark coat, a fiery flowing mane and glowing eyes.

Glowering Púca

The main thing to remember if you were to come upon the púca is that he goes wild when he sees a river or stream. You'd want to throw yourself off his back before he dives straight into the water or else you'd be drowned. Generally though, the pooka is a pleasant enough sort who won't do you any harm. The first of November is the Púca's day. The tradition in Ireland was for farmers to leave a corner of a field for the púca during harvesting time to try to placate him. This particular superstition continues to this day in rural Kilkenny, as an elderly man at my table told me.

I made a picture book to illustrate the story and read it to two groups at Breaking Bread. It started off lots of great conversations about old wives tales of not cutting down hawthorn trees which are known as fairy trees. There's a white hawthorn tree in Co. Offaly where the road was cut and diverges around the tree, so you come around a corner and there's an island right in the middle of the road, with rags tied onto the tree to bring good luck to the locals. Although it has the effect of looking like an upended trolley in a river bed threaded with plastic bag lacework. Gammy but still lovely.

White hawthorn

I meant to put up photos of the book a long time ago, but other projects have been nudging it out of the way, like a little runty piglet looking for milk it kept being pushed to one side. So here it is...finally! The book is enormous and is too big for the scanner so I'm afraid it's mostly photos. I've included the double page spreads first and then the story follows afterwards page by page.

The Pooka and The Piper

In the old times, there was a half fool living in Dunmore, in the county Galway, and although he was excessively fond of music, he was unable to learn more than one tune, and that was the "Black Rogue." He used to get a good deal of money from the gentlemen, for they used to get sport out of him.

One night the piper was coming home from a house where there had been a dance, and he half drunk. When he came to a little bridge that was up by his mother's house, he squeezed the pipes on, and began playing the "Black Rogue" (an rógaire dubh). The Púca came behind him, and flung him up on his own back.

There were long horns on the Púca, and the piper got a good grip of them, and then he said-- "Destruction on you, you nasty beast, let me home. I have a ten-penny piece in my pocket for my mother, and she wants snuff."

"Never mind your mother," said the Púca, "but keep your hold. If you fall, you will break your neck and your pipes." Then the Púca said to him, "Play up for me the 'Shan Van Vocht' (an t-seann-bhean bhocht)." "I don't know it," said the piper. "Never mind whether you do or you don't," said the Púca. "Play up, and I'll make you know."

The piper put wind in his bag, and he played such music as made himself wonder. "Upon my word, you're a fine music-master," says the piper then; "but tell me where you're for bringing me."

"There's a great feast in the house of the Banshee, on the top of Croagh Patric tonight," says the Púca, "and I'm for bringing you there to play music, and, take my word, you'll get the price of your trouble." "By my word, you'll save me a journey, then," says the piper, "for Father William put a journey to Croagh Patric on me, because I stole the white gander from him last Martinmas."

The Púca rushed him across hills and bogs and rough places, till he brought him to the top of Croagh Patric. Then the Púca struck three blows with his foot, and a great door opened, and they passed in together, into a fine room. The piper saw a golden table in the middle of the room, and hundreds of old women (cailleacha) sitting round about it.

The old woman rose up, and said, "A hundred thousand welcomes to you, you Púca of November. Who is this you have brought with you?" "The best piper in Ireland," says the Púca.

One of the old women struck a blow on the ground, and a door opened in the side of the wall, and what should the piper see coming out but the white gander which he had stolen from Father William. "By my conscience, then," says the piper, "myself and my mother ate every taste of that gander, only one wing, and I gave that to Moy-rua (Red Mary), and it's she told the priest I stole his gander."

The gander cleaned the table, and carried it away, and the Púca said, "Play up music for these ladies." The piper played up, and the old women began dancing, and they were dancing till they were tired. Then the Púca said to pay the piper, and every old woman drew out a gold piece, and gave it to him. "By the tooth of Patrick," said he, "I'm as rich as the son of a lord."

"Come with me," says the Púca, "and I'll bring you home." They went out then, and just as he was going to ride on the Púca, the gander came up to him, and gave him a new set of pipes. The Púca was not long until he brought him to Dunmore, and he threw the piper off at the little bridge, and then he told him to go home, and says to him, "You have two things now that you never had before--you have sense and music.

The piper went home, and he knocked at his mother's door, saying, "Let me in, I'm as rich as a lord, and I'm the best piper in Ireland."

"You're drunk," said the mother. "No, indeed," says the piper, "I haven't drunk a drop." The mother let him in, and he gave her the gold pieces, and, "Wait now," says he, "till you hear the music, I'll play."

He buckled on the pipes, but instead of music, there came a sound as if all the geese and ganders in Ireland were screeching together. He awakened the neighbours and they all were mocking him, until he put on the old pipes, and then he played melodious music for them; and after that he told them all he had gone through that night.

The next morning, when his mother went to look at the gold pieces, there was nothing there but the leaves of a plant.

The piper went to the priest, and told him his story, but the priest would not believe a word from him, until he put the pipes on him, and then the screeching of the ganders and geese began. "Leave my sight, you thief," said the priest. But nothing would do the piper till he would put the old pipes on him to show the priest that his story was true.

He buckled on the old pipes, and he played melodious music, and from that day till the ay of his death, there was never a piper in all of Ireland.

Lemon-frosted doors

2010-02-18T21:17:00.035Z

It's the most refreshing thing in the world to gallop away from the city when all you want is to run like a pack of wolves in the wilderness. My dear friends Fink and Alice and I had one such giant hooley just as January was giving up the ghost and coming to a close.

The whipping wind dance

We raced down to The Burren in County Clare for some of the most beautiful holidaying I've had in a long time. We drove like lunatics, cruising around corners to see pearly moss mountains open up before us, up so high that we landed right in the hearts of clouds, ears popping, cows lowing, gasping at trees knotted and twisted by the same cranky old prevailing wind.

Burren hound

We drove on. Lines of laundry billowing and snapping in the Atlantic winds were propped even higher with yard sticks. "Must be great drying out", we said. Daft pillar posts raced past, thrilled dogs barked at the heels of our car and then the great hillock of a lovely old badger loomed up by the side of the road, not a mark on him, soft and plump and still. Although protesting from the back seat meant we couldn't add him as a fourth passenger.

Poor badger

Maps were spreadeagled around the car and when not even they could help us we nipped into friendly looking houses and pubs to gobble up local knowledge about secret high roads and by roads. On one such occasion, we hesitated about darkening the doors of a pretty rough looking pub but the thoughts of driving around til midnight trying to hit upon the elusive Doonbeg propelled us through the lemon-frosted door.

Jig-saw-show-down

There were giants of old men inside. Huge farming men leaning at a great tilt to the counter, slouching on bar stools and generally having a cosy evening. They turned out to be very friendly and enormously helpful and while Fiona, our savvy navigator, memorised directions about roads that ran parallel to G.A.A. pitches and through fairy forts, Alice and I marvelled at an absolutely ENORMOUS jigsaw over the fireplace of a ship caught in a storm.

Lenten Jigsaw 2007

I asked one of the men at the bar about the jigsaw and he told us that during one particularly ferocious Lent, where all the men had given up drink, they would gather together in the evenings and make the jigsaw in the pub. Then when the great monstrosity was finished they got it specially framed and hung it with pride of place over the fire.

This drawing is about when Lenten jigsaw camaraderie turns stern and violent.

Each piece of the jigsaw being played out like a poker game.

skull tassles

I'll admit I went a bit bananas doing this drawing. I got stuck on patterns that day. I couldn't help myself. First the jigsaw patterns, then his daft cardigan and if you weren't feeling seasick enough...wallpaper patterns. Sorry chaps.

Lent 2005

Lent 2008

Lent 2003

Flourish

2010-02-03T23:58:00.014Z

I want to tell you about a remarkable act of kindness. My friends and family have hot ears from hearing the tale told with my cheeks peach and flushed, my midlands throat trying its best to rise to a pitch that would convey the wonder of the story. To them, I send an apology and an appeal to let me tell it again. (Though let's be honest, not for the last time. Give me half a pint and any chat about cards and you'll hear it again.)

The story came up again after a visit to my aunt's house yesterday. My cousin Elaine spotted my "I love Bridge" sticker on the dash of my car (yes, on the inside. I love the sticker so much that for fear it would be stolen, I stuck it on the inside.) And so we got talking about my foray into the world of bridge.

Stumbled upon in Copenhagen by the good soul Fiona Hallinan

in a shop purely devoted to all things bridge!

In the dying days of last summer I met with my friend Michelle in a beautiful old park in Dublin to learn how to play bridge. Michelle went to an all girls school where they were taught how to play bridge in first year and then played it throughout their time at school. On Valentine's Day the boys from the boys school would come over for a bridge tournament and before the big bridge rumble the girls would go around and offer them heart shaped chocolates on little plates! Anyway, I digress. Michelle taught me the bare bones of bridge on that gloriously sunny day in the park and so we became bridge partners.

If only we could all find the time to lay aside

our guns and play cards

On my way home on the very busy train I found myself sitting beside an elderly gentleman. I'd just got off the phone to my sister, wheezing laughing at the lovely old etiquette and archaic rules of bridge, when I happened to glance at the notes he was reading. Written at the top was 'Introduction to Bridge' followed by a hundred and one different bits of Morse code to let your partner know you've got a terrible hand, are panicking and need help.

I struck up conversation and we talked bridge the whole train journey home! We poured through his notes and talked about how he would catch up on his wife, an avid bridge player, in no time at all. I told him all about my day. And when I complimented his notes, he hesitated out of politeness, and then offered to post them to me. I wrote out my address, we shook hands and exchanged names. He folded that piece of paper into the most sublime set of rectangles and then carefully put it in his pocket. We shook hands again and I stood for a brief moment waving on the platform.

Every morning I expected to see a letter but nothing came. I'd resigned myself to my address having been lost, the rectangles too small, the wind too strong or the will too faltering. Until....about a month later a package arrived in the post! I'd long forgotten the promise of post from the man on the train. Puzzled, I opened the package and out tumbled a beginner's bridge book and inside, the most beautifully written letter!

It was coming up to Christmas time so I made him this Christmas jumper card and sent it back to him. No word since. For a little while I thought we were going to be pen pals. Eventually sending each other bridge conundrums, musings on the weather and funny articles cut out from the newspaper. That would have been lovely...though with the way the price of stamps are soaring, it would have worked out to be quite a pricey friendship. I joke. I joke. The exchange was lovely. Unexpected flourishes of kindness. There's no beating them!

What's left behind

2010-01-28T14:07:00.036Z

Christian Boltanski's installation in The Grand Palais, Paris

I read a really great article last Sunday about an artist called Christian Boltanski. This is a photo of his installation which is running in Paris. Yes, that is a mountain of clothes. He has made up 69 quadrants of clothes as well as the gluttonous jumble of clothes at the top of the room. As well as it being every hoarder's dream, the article gave me pause for thought about the house I'm living in at the moment. Have a look at the article here if you have the time.

Two Summers ago my two sisters and I moved into a house that belonged to our grand aunts. Our grand aunts were also three sisters who had lived together all their lives. So there was an element of a Grimm fairytale about the three of us moving in. Like a sickening game of Here We Go 'Round The Mulberry Bush. But we were immeasurably grateful, all being broke to the ropes and giddy to have the chance to live with each other again.

We swept out the cobwebs, cut the grass, put a new lick of paint on the face of the house and a fresh load of washing out on the line.

And then..we had to address the remnants left behind. The ladies' clothes and hairbrushes, perfume bottles and letters, diaries and photographs and all the in between treasured items which were held on to preciously, wrapped up in layers and layers of old newspapers, made into wallpaper parcels.

Stacks of their silent treasure made into mountains over so many years.

It was so like our Granny's house, their sister. Their crockery, the formica table, the layout of the house, even the back garden and the carpet protector in the corridor. But particularly, the same impulse to hoard everything, even the elastic band from around a chicken's waist.

A dusty cardboard box, softened with age, would let out a sigh and an all too memorable smell when opened. Letters inside from their brother on the Missions or beautiful John Hinde postcards sent to their mother (our Great grandmother), who had also lived in the house with them.

Laura Cumming, who wrote the article about Boltanski, writes beautifully about the effect such objects can have:

...these objects and images, no matter their provenance, were inevitably powerful for the sympathetic mind can hardly help but reconstruct a life from the smallest and most trivial of relics. Pawned brooches, lost umbrellas, dogeared telephone books with their intensely intimate yet resolutely impersonal listings: your mind would rush in, imagining all these other people in other places. It did not matter that the evidence was meagre, partial, perhaps entirely specious, because the objects themselves were real, had once belonged to real livings beings. That their owners were unknown equated very precisely with the universality of the evidence – a watch, a coat – and the poignant truth that one could only mourn the unknown through an act of the imagination.

Cher Ami

2010-01-24T22:33:00.003Z

During a bout of recent fevery illness, my addled mind fixed itself on carrier pigeons; their tattered wings and messages buttoned onto their ankles flapping around my head.

I found myself, hunched back, propped up by a rake of hot water bottles and pillows, trawling the internet looking for story after story of carrier pigeons. I thought my intrigue couldn't be sated until I found this daft story about a pigeon called Cher Ami.

Cher Ami was a pigeon used in World War I. He's got his own Wikipedia page and seems to be quite the hero in American primary schools. I made this drawing of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Whittlesey and Cher Ami.

The following is the story of Cher Ami. I loved the register used in the website so much I'm just going to quote it here verbatim if you don't mind.

Good man Cher Ami
Stuffed and preserved for posterity

On October 3, 1918, Charles Whittlesey and more than 500 men were trapped in a small depression on the side of the hill behind enemy lines without food or ammunition. They were also beginning to be bombed by their own troops who did not know their location.

Surrounded by the Germans, many were killed and wounded in the first day and by the second day, only a little more than 200 men were still alive. Whittlesey dispatched messages by pigeon. The pigeon carrying the first message "Many wounded. We cannot evacuate." was shot down. A second bird was sent with the message, "Men are suffering. Can support be sent?" That pigeon also was shot down. Only one homing pigeon was left: 'Cher Ami'. He was dispatched with a note in a canister on his left leg,

We are along the road parallel to 276.4.
Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us.

For heaven's sake, stop it!

As Cher Ami tried to fly back home, the Germans saw him rising out of the brush and opened fire and for several minutes, bullets zipped through the air all around him. The men of the Lost Battalion saw Cher Ami tragically shot down, but miraculously, he was airborne again soon. He managed to arrive back at his loft at division headquarters 25 miles to the rear in just 25 minutes, helping to save the lives of the 194 survivors. In this last mission, Cher Ami had delivered the message despite having been shot through the breast, blinded in one eye, covered in blood, and with a leg hanging only by a tendon.

Cher Ami had become the hero of the 77th Infantry Division, so army medics worked long and hard to save his life. They were unable to save his leg, so they carved a small wooden one for him. When he recovered enough to travel, the little one-legged hero was put on a boat to the United States, with General John J. Pershing personally seeing Cher Ami off as he departed France.

Cher Ami died of his multiple war wounds on June 13, 1919--less than a year after he had completed his service to the United States Army Signal Corps. Upon his death a taxidermist preserved the small pigeon for future generations, a bird with a story that became an inspiration to millions over the years.

And there you were thinking this post was going to be all about writing cringey letters to French penpals.

Culchie Bogman

2010-01-18T22:13:00.011Z

I recently went to visit my friends Michelle and Richie in their lovely home. (I'll point out here that Michelle is also my bridge partner!... Yes it's finally happened, I spun a full oscillation of the wheel of fortune and landed on You've become an old lady!)

The icing on the culchie cake. Wheat malt in the mouth

Richie brews his own beer in their garden shed. During the course of the (largely ale-y) evening we hatched a plan to pair up his beer enterprising with my drawing enterprising. And so a label for his next beer was born! It would be named Culchie Bogman. A clever pun if ever there was one. Go and learn of its beery wit at Richie's wonderful blog here.

The final beer label

Above is what the final beer label actually looked like. I spent some time pouring over other beer labels to see what the best ratio of name to image should be. I'm sure I looked like a complete boozer. My poor neighbours. Stacks of empty beer bottles built like a toppling fortress around my sketch book. Ah look, the wheel of fortune has made an unexpected settling click to You've become a boozy old lady!

farmyard unity

Here's the original drawing. I like this farmer. He's got his sheepdog, his aran jumper, his billowing fields of wheat and a pot bellied, three-footed stool. What more does he need? Nothing. Precisely. What would he need with the city?

Culchie sheepdog..looking alarmingly like our old dog Scamp

Richie's beer will be ready in 3 - 4 weeks. I'm very excited to see what 'pale, dry and hoppy' tastes like. The question is will my Guinness and toastie taste buds be ready by then? Let's hope so!

Smithfield Horse Market

2010-01-14T14:38:00.014Z

One man with his mut and mare

Now here's a time when I wish I was a morning person. The Smithfield Horse Market is on at the crack of dawn the first Sunday of every month. I managed to horse myself out of bed one such Sunday and went down with my sister Julie to take some photos.

sultry

My God, there's nowhere else you'd find such a proliferation of patterny jumpers and wild children on miniature ponies. We had to mind out for galloping young bucks with their shell tracksuits caught taut in the wind like the sail of a boat.

geansaí nollag den scoth

We had great chats with some of the people there. One Roscommon farmer was selling a miniature pony called Paddy. Most of the roll of film went on Paddy's dusty blond forelocks and pink bridle. We were told that the farmer's grandson once managed to fit Paddy into his wardrobe!

This is not Paddy. Paddy's about 15 hands smaller than this beast

Turns out though that when I went to get the photos developed, the wind on in the camera hadn't worked at all. So all I got back was smooth brown negatives and a dejected feeling in the pit of my stomach. I made this drawing from the pithy pits of disappointment. There's nothing else more satisfying that that.

Slobber

Xiǎo xióng māo (apparently meaning Red Panda in Chinese)

2010-01-11T00:58:00.011Z

This is a small post for my very good friend Brendan.

He's just back from Hong Kong and while he

was there he went to the

GIANT PANDA ADVENTURE PARK!

I can't tell you enough how much I'd love to go there.

xiǎo xióng māo

These are a little something to remind him of the best panda of all: the red panda.

It's frightening what I wouldn't do for one of my own.

Soapy city

2010-01-02T19:47:00.000Z

ice flakes

On the very first day of this brand new year, in the very early morning,

I discovered how quickly rain can change to friendly snow....

can change to a heart-racing snowball war...

can change to frozen mounds of ice..

can change to compressed ice

can change to slippery death-paths!

treacherous tumbles

An elderly gentleman, armed with a crutch, stopped to give us tactical advice about how to get across Grattan bridge (the best of Dublin's bridges...a horse-mermaid at every lamppost!)

the sickening slip

I hope he got home safely. I assume he did. Although, the above is what flashed through my mind as he skated away.

useless crutch

the texture of the paths

Slippery as dancing on bars of soap, we slid separate ways back to warmth, clutching at pillars of snow, elbows and railings that stick to exposed, pink hands.

This has nothing to do with the topic really....I just love these hats.

Mink!

2009-12-27T23:42:00.000Z

How do girls get minks?

The same way minks get minks

When I was a kid my parents’ friend, the Reverend’s wife, gave a keyring that was to inspire much consternation and confusion among my sisters and me. Here it is, shining in all its brassy glory:

Well, I whiled away many summers picking at moss on the garage step trying to answer the riddle. How DO girls get minks? HOW do minks get minks? How?

Mink mother

In many ways, I blame the keyring for the wrinkle that is seared between my eyebrows, frowning my way towards a pet mink... A-PET-MINK!

Button up them babies

I was rooting around for a pencil (who am I kidding? I was looking for more sweets) this Christmas and I came upon the keyring in a drawer. I recognised the dull glimmer and pulled it out. The answer was so startlingly obvious! I'm an idiot.

The Elephant and His Balloon

2009-12-21T20:50:00.000Z

My coach and all round great pal Carol Mulligan and I recently hatched a plan to make a kid's book for our friend's birthday.

Our friend Aoife is a H-U-G-E Dylan Moran fan and so we decided to make a book based on the story of The Elephant and His Balloon which appears in the television series Black Books. (I have yet to see this episode. An evening with a telly, minibars and the dvd series is on the cards). Here are the illustrations I did for the book.

There's the elephant.

He's happy with his balloon.

Oh no! It's gone!

Where IS it?

It's not behind the rhino.

Look in the alligator's mouth. It's not there either!

Oh! The monkey's got it in the tree!

He brings it back.

Then they all drink lemonade.

The end.

Carol read the story in the most soothing tones while I turned the pages on a very windy day. Then Carol uploaded the video onto youtube and hey presto! Aoife was given the tag as a talisman and she found her birthday present online. She's living in Edinburgh so I sent her the book by postman. Happy birthday Aoife! Well done everyone!

See for yourself here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbWmj5Zhrm8

Done and dusted!

2009-12-14T13:59:00.000Z

Gramophone magic

Hooray for Kate Strain and her wonderful gramophone! It made for brilliant encounters with people at the market. A little white haired boy cranked it, a lovely dad crooned 'hello' into it and musicians bent their ears to pour the sounds of a very crackly bing crosby into them.

typewriter and tea

Now it's time to get back to mountains of tea and the typewriter with a new story about The Bray Head hotel. (I sound like the interfering know-it-all from Murder She Wrote!). A little groundwork has already been done with a celebratory visit there yesterday evening. I'll keep you posted..

Christmas Crafting

2009-12-11T18:27:00.000Z

a little hommage to the unbeautiful christmas jumper

Tomorrow and on Sunday, my friends and I will be hawking our crafty wares at a Christmas market in the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray. Come! Come along!

My good buddy, Fiona Hallinan and I have been having a whale of a time these past few months. We've squirrelled ourselves away drawing in her kitchen, comparing pencil cases with a delighted gasp, swimming in the brimful sea and dancing like dervishes after all the work is done. We emerged blinking in the light with a children's book for adults. We called it Things We Have Learned From Thinking About Animals. Here are some of the illustrations which I made for it. You can see more of Fiona's beautiful work here.

There will also be handmade christmas cards, baubley brooches, oragami christmas decorations, homemade fudge, beautiful necklaces, felt earrings...you get the idea. It's going to be a treasure trove!

Hope to see you there!

Iora rua

2009-12-07T23:16:00.000Z

Here is my idea of an immaculately-matched partnership. One needs a perch, the other a toupé! It's perfect! On an aside, I know a lady who'd love a stuffed squirrel hat. It's not me, if that's what you're thinking..Oh no, somebody else entirely. She's the most avid taxidermy collector around. Not quite the colonel in Jumangi..but very close. Who could it be?

Hot Cross Buns

2009-12-06T13:55:00.000Z

My next-door-neighbour is amazing. In many ways, I find her a little terrifying. The kind of lady you can't say no to.

She called around to our house recently with hot cross buns and tested the buns for firmness throughout the whole conversation, which consisted of me trying to tell her obliquely that we've never liked them and her insisting on me taking them anyway. Lately, I also found myself roped into painting her wall. I've no idea how she managed it. I did, in turn, get a pot of begonias. I feel I'm doing well out of this. May the games continue!

bad hands

2009-12-05T00:25:00.000Z

Furtively stolen polar bear cub

These are my idle hands

2009-12-04T23:11:00.000Z

I think it might be a good thing to keep the devil from the door by lashing up some drawings here. Providing a drizzle of purpose to many's the wandering drawing. Here's a drawing of the man in question. It's based on this story my dad told me once called Séanna and the devil.

Séanna, god love him, is having a difficult time. He decides to go to the market to try and sell his last remaining cow but comes home again empty-pocketed and crestfallen. Later that evening as he's sitting in front of the fire, cursing his hard life and wishing that things could be easy just for once, he hears three sharp, rasping knocks on the door. He opens the door and a dark, black stranger is standing on the threshold. He offers Séanna a single wish on condition that Séanna promises to do anything he asks in 13 years time. Séanna lets out a cry of joy and asks, at once, to be as rich as a lord. The stranger grants him his wish and Séanna spends the next 13 years living in tremendous splendour in his house.

Thirteen years roll effortlessly by and on the anniversary of the night that fortune fell on Séanna, he hears again, three sharp, rasping knocks on the door. Séanna throws open the door and low and behold, who should be standing there but the same stranger! But Séanna sees at once that this time a ferocious looking tail is whipping around the stranger's back and sparks are flying on the flagstone as the stranger's cloven hooves snap sharply on the doorstep. Séanna lets out a cry of horror as he realises it's the diabhail himself!

At this point, my dad turned to me and said, "That, love, is as much as I can remember. Sorry. He gets out of it somehow."

Brilliant!