The tutor from our watercolour class organised to meet some of us at Trinity College Dublin on Saturday last to have a small demo and then pratice painting out of doors before visiting the National Gallery to view the Turner Exhibit.
To say it was cold on Saturday morning is an understatement, the sky above was grey and colourless and there was a breeze that would cut you in two. Anyway Shirley and myself found a nice quite place indoors - where we could see the lovely vista which we had decided to paint (pictures will follow shortly). It was my first time inside of the gates of Trinity I'm ashamed to say and its a place that I'd like to visit, maybe the next time in more detail as I've seen pictures of the impressive library and would like to explore this along with the other historic buildings.
Anyway the room that we entered was located beside the Restaurant - it was signposted as the way to the student buffet. The large room/entrance hall which we entered via two large doors contained two marble fireplaces and wonderful chandlers hung from the amazingly high ceilings. The tall windows were situated high off the ground - I had to stand on my toes just to see out.
We made our sketches and then did a rough painting which we finished off with ink to emphasise some of the more notable aspects of the location. I must say that I didn't like painting outdoors, I like to have myself organised with everything laid out and close to hand, maybe I'd have a different opinion if it was dry, sunny and there was no breeze - we'll wait and see I might just try it again, just once!
Here are some of the pictures............
We left Trinity just as it started to rain and spent two hours in the National Gallery on Merrion Square, we had a very welcome lunch of delicious warm soup in the restaurant and then it was upstairs for what was the last day of the Turner Exhibit. This only takes place during January of each year - I had attended a number of years ago but the exhibit displayed a variety of different pictures. For further information check out www.nationalgallery.ie
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