The Sea

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 15, 2012

15 Mar

The sea is a constant source of inspiration here as we have stunning stretches of beautiful beaches and coastline to enjoy.
The Atlantic ocean is completely different to the Irish Sea on the East coast of Ireland where I grew up. It is wild, cold, often dangerous and always beautiful compared to the temperate waters of the East coast.
I have done a number of sea paintings on paper with paint, ink and chalk, to give the effect of the waves. Here are two examples below;

I was thinking about Japanese sea prints when I was doing these. The famous one below is called ‘The Waves at Kanagawa’ by Hokusai. It is part of a large collection of Japanese prints in the Blackburn Museum in Lancashire in England.

Hokusai (1760-1849) is possibly Japan’s best known artist but this image is not at all typical of what was being done at the time. Traditional Japanese art would not have painted the lower class fisherman, seen here riding the waves in their boats. Neither would they have been concerned with perspective, used here to show Mount Fuji in the distance. Hokusai was influenced by Dutch landscapes of the time and his unique use of colour and flattening of images went on to influence Western art. European artists such as Van Gogh, Manet and Degas would have studied this style and made elements of it their own.
In my paintings, I imitated the use of perspective by making the waves the focus in the foreground and and suggesting a typical Irish island shape in the background.

Telegraph poles

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 13, 2012

13 Mar

Telegraph poles line the road ways here and are as much a part of the landscape as the scraggy Connemara sheep. There are large areas of protected land on which there is little evidence of any human interference save for the ubiquitous telegraph poles. The harsh winds in Winter bend the poles so that one in five ( or so it seems ) breaks the line and leans over drunkenly. The first two photographs show this and below them a painting of mine.

The telegraph poles and wires bring something to the landscape for me and more often than not I choose to include them in my work. They are after all a lifeline for the communities here. Of course, most people also have mobile phones nowadays but the uneven topography of the land and small population means that there are still pockets of land with no signal and so the telegraph wires are much needed for communication.
I use charcoal over acrylic paint to illustrate the poles and wires and I love the way these lines follow the line of the road and can bring life to a painting.

Inspiration from others – Ghislaine Howard

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 12, 2012

12 Mar

Ghislaine Howard is an English painter whom I have admired for some time. Her drawings and paintings are bold and expressive and I love the way that she uses her materials so powerfully.
Although Ghislaine has done many landscapes, her work is primarily about the human figure.

Her maternity paintings are the ones I admire most personally, the portraits of her expectant self and the series she made as an artist in residence at the women’s hospital in central Manchester in the 1990’s. Here is a link to a gallery of these paintings on the artist’s website;

http://ghislainehoward.com/art-paintings-drawings/the-human-condition/

Drawing seems to be at the core of everything she does and I love the expression she gives each mark – sweeping black lines that sometimes stand out and sometimes merge with colour.

These two images below are taken from an exhibition called ‘The Choreography of Walking’ which took place in the University of Salford in 2011. This work was done in conjunction with the university’s Podiatry department and celebrates the simple act of walking.

( reproductions from Arts Development Team, University of Salford’s photostream on Flickr )

I love the sense of movement in these paintings and the bold use of colour and line. I admire too the way that each gesture – line, brush stroke and smudge sits undisguised just as it was made. This brings the paintings alive for me because it is as much a celebration of the act of painting itself as it is of the subject matter.

Painting the Rain

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 8, 2012

08 Mar

It has rained a lot since last Summer, sometimes for weeks on end without a break. It is very much part of life here in Connemara. It is often possible to really see the rain moving in sheets across the sky and this can look very dramatic against the backdrop of the mountains and coastline.
Here is a photograph I took which captures this and below an attempt of mine to paint/draw the subject.

I have used charcoal here over the finished acrylic painting to give the effect of rain. I love using charcoal like this, smudging it in places and leaving its grubby texture just as it falls over the canvas or page. I was very struck by the possibility of using paint and charcoal together when I first saw the work of Ghislaine Howard, a figurative artist who uses both of these materials. I will look up some images of her work to put in another post.

Too dark?

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 7, 2012

07 Mar

I worked on this piece a little more yesterday and then decided to call it a day. I felt it had come to the point where any further tinkering would be counter productive.
My own thoughts on it at this point are, on the negative side that it has become very dark, perhaps too dark. On the positive side, it has taken on a quality which seems vaguely other worldly to me and one which might be called interesting. Perhaps I’m stretching it here!
Anyway, I gave it a couple of coats of varnish and called it a day.

I use an acrylic gloss varnish which protects the surface from dust and dirt over time. It also gives a depth and richness to the colours, especially the darker and metallic shades. For me, its a bit like taking a pot out of the kiln after a glaze firing when the colours that I have applied really come to life. I tend to choose darker colours in my paintings because I’ve always found them more interesting to work with and because facts are facts, the climate here is pretty wet and grey most of the time. (This is a subject which I try not to harp on about too much in general conversation because there is always the risk of it developing in to an extended moan which just puts everyone in a bad mood! )
Can a painting be off-puttingly dark?

Bad day at the office

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 6, 2012

06 Mar

I had one of those days yesterday, you know the kind. Apparently, I got out of the wrong side of the bed and things just kept going slightly off. I spilt a couple of things, broke a mug and walked charcoal over three floors after a brief inspection of my work room.
Then I tried to tackle a painting commission with my four year old needing attention in the next room. Not a good idea.
I should have gone for that walk after breakfast – Resolve to go for a walk tomorrow morning regardless of weather!
Anyway, I decided to tackle this painting which has been sitting around my desk for a while. This is what it looked like as I got started. It is based on a scene from one of the islands off the coast here and I had roughed in the composition. I liked the lines going out to sea in the distance with the island shape in the far back ground.

I wanted to work in a sky line that I had seen on another occasion when driving home from Galway – so I was working from memory here. The clouds seemed so dark and heavy on that evening, they appeared suspended like physical objects.
This is how I left the painting yesterday. I’m going to leave it for a day or two before I varnish it as I might tweak it a bit.

The great thing about working with acrylics is that I get lots of chances to go over paintings again. There is no rule of thumb for me with this, sometimes the paintings that I have reworked a lot turn in to good paintings. Other times the ones that have been started and finished in a single sitting work well. It depends on the piece. I think this one needs a little more work, what do you think?

Bog Paintings

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 5, 2012

05 Mar

Here are some more of my Bog paintings. These ones formed part of an exhibition during ‘Bog week’ last Summer. This is a fantastic week long festival held in Letterfrack, which is a short distance from Clifden. It is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our Boglands through music and art, a kind of pagan thanksgiving for residents and visitors.

This piece is based on the Bog road between Clifden and Roundstone village, with the ‘Twelve Bens’ mountain range shadowing in the distance.
I wanted to describe the richness of the bog colours here when the grasses are turning golden. I contrasted these rusts and golds ( I love using metallic paint! ) with the turquoise blues of the bog water. I’ve used lots of dark blue and green here too, so that it almost appears black. I wanted to give the effect of depth and shadow in the central pool to evoke a watery darkness in the piece which I sometimes get a sense of when walking in this place.

I’ve taken a slightly more literal approach here when describing the cut bog and the grasses. I’ve used lots of gold paint and ink to add a richness to the colours.

This painting is more of an imagined kind of place. I liked the way the broken down fence structure in the back ground gave it an abandoned feel.

A Treasury of goodies

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 2, 2012

02 Mar

I have just about recovered from my own excitement at getting my etsy shop up and running! It has been the culmination of a lot of work and energy and now that I am online, I am enjoying getting to know some of the etsy community. This is a really great thing when you are living in a fairly isolated part of the world like Clifden.
I have connected with people by making a couple of etsy ‘Treasuries’ which are collections of hand picked items with a theme. Apart from being lots of fun to create, they are a really good way to get in touch with other artists. People are notified straight away when their work is selected and so a connection is made when they make a comment and then view your work.

I called this Treasury ‘Mothers and Daughters’ which may be a little fanciful but I chose things that reminded me about this theme and I decided on mushroom pinks and browns for my main colours. You can look at this collection and some others by clicking on the title below.

Mothers and Daughters

Etsy is a feast for the eyes, when galleries and city life is so in accessible. Enjoy!

Welcome to my etsy shop!

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on February 29, 2012

29 Feb

Welcome to my brand new online shop with etsy.com!
I am very excited to be part of the etsy community of makers and artists at last and I invite you to browse my paintings and shop at your leisure. Click on the link in the sidebar opposite to go straight there.

I will shortly provide more easy links to etsy from here and visa versa to make it all a bit smoother. I am experiencing a very sharp learning curve here folks so bear with me!!

Here’s a sample below of what you will find in the shop.

This painting is of a scene just outside Clifden. I was standing on a hill near Clifden castle looking down at a little outcrop of trees near the water. The ground in front of the trees was waterlogged and reflected all kinds of shapes and colours which I deepened for effect here. I allowed the paint to bleed which became part of the piece and for me it resembles both the trees and the reflection of the land on the other side of the bay.
I love to receive your comments so don’t be shy and let me know what you think..

Inspiration – Blanket Bog

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on February 28, 2012

28 Feb

One of the most characteristic features of the landscape in Connemara is it’s blanket bogs. It is called a blanket bog because from a distance it appears to hug the ground like a blanket. It was formed in wet, upland areas where there was a lot of rainfall around 2500BC. This happened when farmers cleared the land of forest so it could be used for pasture. They chose the higher ground where the forests there were not so thick. However, when the trees were removed, the soil became waterlogged and more acidic due to the rain. By around 500BC, at the end of the Bronze age, the farmers were forced to clear the forests lower down as the land became unusable. Heather and thick grasses were able to grow in the upland areas but their debris did not decompose and so a layer of organic material or peat began to build up.
People began to cut the peat ( called turf when cut ) and use it for fuel in the 17th century. This activity continues to day and there is much debate about methods of harvesting and conservation of our bog lands for the future. However, small scale cultivation has been going on here in Connemara for centuries and has kept the population supplied with fuel for the long Winters. This must also be something worth protecting. As anyone who has ever visited this part of the world will know, there is nothing quite like the warm and seductive smell of a turf fire!
The appearance of the bog changes from season to season. In Autumn, the grasses and heathers turn from gold into a bright orange which creates the effect of a burning landscape. Spring brings new growth in the form of bright luminous green shoots. In between these seasons the bog appears on a spectrum that is sometimes awash with the pink and purple of heathers and sometimes black and dark like the moors of a Bronte novel.
I took these photos of the bog below, near Clifden. This one is on the road to Roundstone. The cut bog in the foreground has filled with water.

This next photo was taken on the Clifden to Letterfrack road and shows the waterlogged ground with stacks of turf drying out in the back ground.

We celebrate the bog annually through music and art in a week long festival which takes place in the nearby village of Letterfrack. It is an excellently organised schedule of events based around our boglands. I have been fortunate enough to participate in the Bog week art exhibition for several years and for me it is always a welcome opportunity to return to this subject.
This next photo is of a painting I did last year for the exhibition. It is very small ( about 3″ x 4″ ) and it is done on a thick bamboo paper.

I really enjoyed working with a dark range of colours here. In life the water on the bog surface reflects the the sky between the clouds, which is sometimes a startling blue. This is not conveyed very well in my photos above but I have used this effect here and in many other of my paintings. The blanket bog is so much a part of the beauty of this area and it is a subject that I will keep returning to in my work.