Ireland

 It's hard coming home after a months travels abroad. I'd like to write more in depth about our trip, perhaps things we learned along the way would be helpful to others making a similar trip sometime.

On this particular day we were visiting the Aran Island off of the village of  Doolin, Ireland. We walked around the island, enjoying it's stone walls, and green fields, coming to this ship wreck rusted out hull, and I stopped to rest and draw it. Matteo, is the Italian fellow we met on this walk and he wanted to take a photo of me drawing the ship. Below you can see one half of a double page spread in my large Moleskin art journal I did of her.

We absolutely fell in love with the village of Doolin.  This is part of the main drag. The other part is as small. A few shops to encourage tourists to buy wool Irish sweaters. I did! And in the post before this one you can see my drawing of the pink store with the thatched roof below. If you look very closely you'll see me sitting on the stone wall next to the jeep wearing my new green Irish wool sweater and sketching away!

and here I am adding water brush to paint or colored pencils not sure which now.

We backpacked in Europe, meaning all our belongings (clothes, toiletries & art supplies) had to fit in a 40L Osprey backpack and a smaller day pack,  and be not too heavy, as I had to carry things up and down flights of stairs in underground train stations, on and off buses and trains, in airports, on cobbled streets, etc. Sometimes for way longer than I felt humanly possible, but I did do it and I am proud my body held up for it all.

We took a boat ride from Doolin to the Island and it took us on a side trip very near the Cliffs of Moher. Beautiful is an understatement.

Back at our BnB on our last day before heading to the bus to Galway and the train to Dublin for our flight home the next day we stopped to say goodbye to our friend the donkey, who lived a few doors down from us. The whole atmosphere here was so very tranquil, peaceful, quiet, that it was a very difficult thing to say goodbye to all of this and head back to bigger city life.

My husband did an excellent job of planning our trip; I lucked out finding us perfect accommodations to stay in, always spotlessly clean, friendly proprietors, comfortable and attractive. Language was never a barrier even when we did not speak each others languages. We made ourselves understood.
We both thought it was one of the best months of our lives!
And were so glad we got to enjoy it together.

 

 These baggy black pants were "rain gear", although we met up with very little of that. I'm wearing them over black tights. On the way home I was wearing layers of clothes to lighten the load on my back in the backpack. Thus also wearing the green sweater under the down jacket even though it was not THAT cold.

 

And so off we went saying goodbye to Doolin, our last village on our journey, to Dublin and our flight home the next day. We can't wait to go back!

Some more Sketchbook Skool assignments completed:

And the front of that ship wreck on the top of the post!