passing the time in a Dublin A+E

 A twelve hour stint waiting in accident and emergency was not what I had in mind for the weekend. When I arrived at reception I was told that it was very busy and there were 17 ahead of me in the queue.

 As the evening wore on the guy seen sitting in the wheel chair here who had registered at reception at around 10pm was informed there were 36 people ahead of him. He was helping a nephew by refereeing a saturday morning match when his back went. He couldn't walk with the pain, he called an ambulance which he reckons may cost him €700.

Having arrived at 7.30pm Saturday evening and seeing the nurse at 8.15 I was admitted to see the Doctor at 3.00am. I got results of blood tests and an x-ray at 7am Sunday morning. Mean while beside me Jennifer and Gary were on concussion watch and oliver was being resuscitated next door after burning his face and throat with poppers. There but for the grace of god, a debt of gratitude and admiration for all staff of Dublin's A+E services   

Reading on the train, Cafe Leon and Schmittz sports bar

The reader on the train, on the way to cafe Leon taking the  S3 using a .8 fineliner  

Outside Cafe Leon Georgenstraße 202 Berlin with a Pentel indelible ink brush 

Table tennis, darts and foosball in Schmittz Bar Gormannstrasse 19 Berlin. Using the same point 8 fineliner with water colour.

Tier Park East Berlin

 Potenially creating mayhem during any school collection 

So why the phrase taking a cat nap?

Clärchens Ballhaus

Many many people cutting a very fast rug. The Everst of quick drawing...Salsa night at Clärchens Ballhaus, August Str Berlin. this is good practice stuff where the unforgiving tightness of the fineliner had to be foregone for something looser and sloppier. In this case a water soluble school issue Jumbo Grip. hopefully the result caught the atmosphere in there....

Tribute to a 'sound and vision' man

Shortly after I had finished college I was looking for any opportunity to get some art work on walls anywhere. At the time I made the acquaintance of the Manager of a restaurant on Dame st in Dublin. He was an all round decent guy and appreciated art. He gave me permission to hang work for sale in the establishment, which i could change from time to time. He personally bought a few pieces of my work. 

 Signs on as time waits for no man and the restaurant changed hands a new manager was brought in with whom I also negotiated wall space. The relationship was a courteous functional one with no love lost on either side she didn't really know why i wanted to hang pictures in the place at all. 

 Around this time it came to my knowledge that Bowie was due to play in Dublin and was staying in the U2 owned Clarence Hotel. During a conversation with two friends and beer, an Idea struck me. The most recent painting I had hung on the walls of the restaurant was a portrait of the thin white duke himself. In all bravado and naivety I determined to inform Bowie of the paintings whereabouts and existence (the impudence!). Setting pen to paper I wrote a note addressed to Mr Bowie, got on the next bus into town and beat a purposeful path to the Clarence Hotel. the concierge was naturally polite but icy and would neither confirm nor deny if a Mr B was currently shacked up in the Hotel. I politely requested that if a certain Mr B happened to be staying there, could this note make its way to him? the concierge politely accepted the note and grinned. 

 I heard nothing of it and tried my damnedest to think nothing of it for the next few days but secretly hoped against hope that something might come of it. At the end of two weeks of hearing nothing, dejected, I felt it was time to take the painting down and possibly replace it with something, or possibly not. I entered the restaurant, approached sour puss and told her I was taking back the painting. She proceeded to tell me very animatedly " aw jaysus you will never guess who we had in here the other day, only David Bowie's wife Iman we were all soooooo excited it was mad altogether!!!,....oh yea I forgot ...you have a painting here of David Bowie...." 

 from one of a billion Bowie fans I raise my glass to you may you rest in piece..

'Bowie' Palette knife, oil paint on denim (cause it's cheaper than canvas;-)) 
Part of a series the rest of which can be seen by clicking the link below
http://conorcoady.blogspot.de/search/label/Portraiture

Christmas wishes

On your bike

Berlin is a city made to cycle, like many other European cities you can accsess all areas of Berlin on your bike. The majority of streets have spacious cycle lanes and the trains and trams come equiped with carraiges where bikes can be brought on board for a paltry sum.

This, unfortunaley, is logistically impossible to do in Dublin, a city that is served by a large bus network with no capacity for bikes. Dublin has of course lots of other virtues and being one eight the size of Berlin has a centre which can be cycled from one end to the other in fifteen to twenty minutes.

Berlin ist eine Stadt zum Fahrrad fahren. Wie viele andere Europäische Städte kommt man mit Fahrrad überall hin. Der Großteil der Straßen verfügen über geräumige Fahrradwege und die Sbahnen und Straßenbahnen kommen ausgerüstet mit Wagen wo Fahrräder können, für wenig Geld gebracht werden.

Leider ist das in Dublin logistisch unmöglich. Einer Stadt, die von einem großen Bus-Netzwerk mit Platz für Fahrräder serviert wird zu tun. Dublin hat natürlich viele andere Tugenden und als einer acht die Größe Berlin hat ein Zentrum, das von einem Ende zum anderen in fünfzehn bis zwanzig Minuten gefahren werden kann.

Flying Irish man

Frankfurt airport waiting on a plane

On kaiser str in Frankfurt looking toward the main train station

After four hours hanging around on the plane to Dublin

Saturday, on an outing with the Urban Sketchers Berlin group (for the first time in a long time) was an eye opener. We met in the Moabit area of Berlin at the "Classic Remise" show rooms for antique cars. Initially I was under the false impression that it maybe a small collection of Rolls Royce's and jaguars but the place is packed to the rafters with all shapes and forms of cars from the early 1900's to the present day sports cars either to buy or rent. the place is a treasure trove which I won't be long revisiting.

Citroen and Jaguar (I'll have two of each)

The only regret i had was not spotting the ailing Ford companies 70's saviour, Ray Iaccoca's 'Mustang' (also the hero of  'the dukes of hazzard') until it was too late to draw it 

Recently commited to paper

 Using both sides of the sketch pad can leave interesting water marks, my brush is a new pentel waterbrush which had to be bought as I lost my brushes and pens on a recent trip to Ireland. I am very happy with the  resulting stronger colours and wetter working. still not recommending the expensive habit of losing materials though

 

 

 My hair would never be thick enough for anything like this guy with dread locks, happy with the small bleed onto the other page and the mood created by people facing away.

 

 

Well it is Valentines day shortly, must remember the flowers and chocolate.

 

Sleeping worker seen through two beards (working Title!!)

flying

On the Ryanair flight back to Berlin after the festive season spent in Dublin 

Umberella meeting of Urban Sketchers Berlin

'Urban Sketchers Berlin' Met up yesterday in the Market hall on Bergmann Strasse (I've always known it as this only to discover recently it's called 'Marheinekhalle'. We were a healthy sized group and it was great to met, in person, a few people whom I know only as three centimeter photos on the Internet. The weather was not at all conducive to drawing or painting of any form luckily the Markthalle has a roof and we all remained in doors.

Fruchthaus Lorenzen

 They were all very busy at the fruit stand but the boss gave me the luxury of a three minute pose

Some familiar and some not so familiar faces of 'Berlin Urban Sketchers'. While we are not quite Honk Kong's Umbrella movement we are moving with Umbrella's.

After a strenuous round of afternoon sketching there was a little trouble finding a restaurant that was both big enough for a group of our size, and interesting enough inside to give us all something to draw. In the end Cafe Josephine won our custom I ignored the decor and drew Werner, Annette and Christian. It was great to have the opportunity to met up with the group again and thanks top Katrin for organising it  

Organ grinders alive and well

Organ Grinders, (or "Leierkasten", "Lyre cabinet" men as they are referred to in German) are alive and well on the streets of Berlin but their monkeys have been stuffed. Here's one spotted recently on the train looking absolutely spiffing old chap.

taking a well deserved reading break

 Perhaps it is all in a name. I used to see organ grinders in Dublin when I was growing up but they are now a thing of the distant past, no longer to be seen. The name "Organ grinder" has negative connotations, and has had for quite some time. Where as It wouldn't necessarily bother if me if I heard the 'Lyre cabinet' man was coming around the corner... even if he was dressed very similar to Otto von Bismark...

'Lyre cabinet' man in front of Alexanderplatz station with a stuffed monkey

Proper Nouns

 People in  Places

Just People

People in Places with some Things

People in Places

could be Lassie

A look at people from place to place

Pencils at dawn,  10 minute sketches in diary

 On the Ubahn with the dog and the news paper

 Night and day train montage

two ladies on the train

Two ladies on the train.

Beach bums

  A marooned boat on the beach in Binz lets people know where the fishers beach starts beach bar is located a few kilometers back from the pier.

  in the same area of the beach there are always plenty bathers with or without clothes, strolling or lying leisurely around. 

 

Up the main street of Binz is the well known hotel Loew Hotel which stands as a classic example of “Bäderarchitektur” (bather architecture) with it’s exagerated and spacious balconies built so that, god forbid anyone should get a tan in the late 19^th century.

„Strandkörbe“ or beach baskets such as this one speckle the length of Binz beach. In the main belonging to the many Hotels which now line the promenade, they can be rented for the day or weekend for a reasonable price. 

A look at Benny, Boats, and a beer in Breege

 

This is Benny, he is the three wheel van that carries the same name as his owner who also owns the smart little fish takeaway in Breege harbour, Benny is used daily to deliver and pick up the fish for the takeaway when not doing this he generally hangs around the harbour car park. 

 

Behind Benny are the Breege harbour public toilets and shower facilities. These facilities are used by the docked sailors, fishermen and yacht owners. they are cleverly disguised as a quaint little thatched cottage. 

 

 Turning to the Harbour itself and looking out across the Jasmunder bodden, moored on the pier are all types and sizes of boats including here depicted the "Phoenix".

 

 A thatched theme is in evidence all over Breege. Here made to look like a herons nest to attract the attention of passing tourists to a local bicycle hire shop. (The Heron is plastic)

another view over the Jasmunder bodden the one that cost me twelve mosquito bites on the sketchpad holding left hand, still not sure if it was worth the preceding three days of pain.  

 

 Finally time for a beer.

Rembradt Bugatti exhition in Berlin

I managed to catch the last day of the Rembrandt Bugatti exhibition in the Alt Gallerei last sunday and it was a great exercise in animal anatomy and generally enriching experience. I still find it unbelievable that he sculpted all of these animals "vor ort" so to speak, in the zoos of Paris and Antwerp.

The speed and accuracy at which he must have worked to form these plaster pieces must have been phenominal. Animals I generally find to be very reluctant or ambivalent models, and moving so quick, very difficult to capture in sketch or painting. I read an anecdote about him that he kept Two Antilopes in his Atelier on loan from Paris zoo, for a length of time to get a good look at them, I don`t think that would be  legal today?.

His early death at 31 by suicide was another tragic repercussion of the affects of the first world war.
He died after the demise of nearly all of the animals(through starvation) in Antwerp zoo, which he had so
tenderly and lovingly paid homage to.