It has been too long since my last post and too long since I have had some time to paint. For the last month or so, my time has been completely taken up with the final stages of our gallery project, which has seen the restoration of an upstairs room in our gallery building here in Clifden. The truth is I have been doing a lot of painting in the last couple of weeks, but it has been of the interior decorating variety, involving skirting boards and architraves, new walls and old floor boards. The trouble with an old building such as ours is that when you start to clean/restore one section, the neighbouring wall or floor looks shockingly bad by comparison so you just have to keep going! Finally, finally, finally, it has come to an end and the results are worth more than the effort – I will post some photos of our new space here soon.
Today, I got back to some seascapes I started in October. This one was based on some photos I took of the cliffs at Inishturk, taken from the water – the chain you see in the foreground is from our boat. They are not very good photos in themselves but there was enough information there for me to make this painting. I am especially interested in the direction of the rock but also the inky blackness of the water as I remember it and the way the land clings onto and over the rock.
I began this painting with the texture or skeleton of the image, using some textured paste. I’ve simplified the details for dramatic effect. This was allowed to dry overnight before any colour was applied.
I applied a layer of colour to this straight afterwards ( but forgot to take a photo ) and the rest of the piece was worked today ( below )
I’m going to leave this to dry and return to it with a fresh eye. I think that certain elements work here but that others seem clumsy – the red and green in the middle ground for example seem a little harsh compared with the softer tones in the rest of the piece. What do you think?
Post Script
This morning I returned to the painting which is now completely dry to find the colours much subdued, as is often the case – below and cover image above. I’ll leave it now for a few days before deciding what to do next and move on to the next piece.
