I took some photographs in the old graveyard in Clifden on Friday which I had a look at over the week end. I wanted to use them for a painting, but not too literally. I decided to focus on the trees and woodland floor and omit the gravestones and the old church ruin. Perhaps I will include them in another image but this time I wanted to focus on the upward reach of the trees, from the richness of the earth and the woodland floor right up in to the light and the sky.

I chose this photograph, not because it is a good photo in its own right, but because of the arrangement of the trees and because it could be a woodland anywhere and not necessarily part of a graveyard in the middle of town. Here’s the first sketch below. I used acrylic paint, charcoal and a little oil pastel.

The bluebells are suggested with some blue paint in the lower part of the piece.

I turned the page around for this one, to emphasize the length of these spindly trees.