Meet the correspondents: KILKENNY, Ireland > Roger O'Reilly

"I’m based in Kilkenny, Ireland, having relocated from the capital, Dublin, three years ago.

I started filling in sketchbooks in earnest again about eight years ago. Like many professionally employed in the creative industry, I draw every day as part of my work and found little inclination to sketch until I went on a lengthy sojourn to India.

With plenty of time on my hands and immersed in an amazing and unfamiliar environment, I found myself filling in a sketchbook a week. I’ve never looked back.
One thing sketching teaches you is to look at the unremarkable and over-familiar anew. I’ve found a thousand inspirations right outside my door.

I don’t have any preferences as regards what to sketch – people, buildings, nature are all grist to my mill. I also relish the opportunity to use what I’ve to hand. Pencils, paints, coffee grinds, a screwdriver and tin of shoe polish – whatever – I’ll use it to make marks, to visually report.

For me sketching brings you closer to the source. You’re drawing out of time. Sketching unlike photography is a record of time passing, of what moves and is replaced, a montage of fleeting moments. Even where you’re drawing stationary objects you have a unique opportunity to choose what’s emphasized, what’s pushed to the background.

Photography shows us what we looked like, illustration shows us how we perceived ourselves."

• Roger's blog.
• Roger's website.