This is the second painting in a recent series based on the Lecknavarna townland near Killary. Here’s how the painting began – it’s a 12″ x 16″ canvas board.
Blue and red dominate and these are the colours that stood out when I was there. The fiery red is unusual for this time of the year and the effect was accentuated by the low fall of light. The mountains ( the Ben Coonas ) complement with rich tones of blue. I’ve accentuated the depth of hue in this initial sketch and I make a mental note to do some more studies like this soon as there is an immediacy and an energy to the piece at this stage that would work on a smaller scale.
Here’s the next stage. I’ve used some dark ink on the mountains and I’ve added more detail to the road and middle ground.
I work with paint and ink together at this next stage and add some green to the foreground to give it more definintion.
The mountains have become a little too dark and flat so I attempt to lighten them next.
This continues below and at last I feel that the mountains are coming alive. I referred back to the initial sketch to help me achieve this. The paint is still wet when I take this photo.
This is the same stage but the paint has dried and dulled a little. Once again, this will deepen once the piece is varnished.
