Winter Cleaning

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on December 4, 2012

04 Dec

I’ve been busy doing lots of this kind of painting below

..and not so much of the other.

It’s a spring cleaning kind of thing that I’m going through but for us this has to happen in Winter as there’s no time in Summer when the gallery is busy. Our poor house has been sorely neglected for a good many years and so I’ve been painting walls and ceilings and skirting boards and architraves and bookshelves and window sills.. It’s time consuming and addictive because once you start in on one corner you have to take pictures down and clean them and then maybe change them around or replace them. Then you go looking for new photos or older ones and before you know it, the morning has gone!

I found a photograph of this painting while doing just that. It’s one of my early seascapes, from about 2009. It’s most likely based on the sea out at Aughrus which is a beautiful coastal area near Claddaghduff, just a few miles north of Clifden. I was using a lot more charcoal as you can see in the background of this piece. I often cringe at older work but it was nice to come across this one and I’d be happy enough with it if I produced it today. So forgive me if the posts are a little threadbare while I do this nesting cleaning tidying thing and I’ll be back soon.

Sky and Sea

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on August 10, 2012

10 Aug

The main interest in this little seascape is the sky. It started out like this (below).

I used lots of red at the base of the painting in an attempt to give the final sea colour a richness and depth. I’ve applied the paint quite thickly on the top part of the piece. I waited until this layer was completely dry before I worked on it again.

This is the next stage below.

I’ve given the cloud shapes more definition and divided them in to dark and light areas. I then used some charcoal to mark out the rocks in the foreground and lots of blue and white paint to describe the sea. I’m happy enough not to do too much more with it at this stage and I wait for this layer to dry.

This is how the finished seascape looks below.

I’ve used charcoal to heighten the contrast in the clouds and give the illusion of rain falling. I enjoy using charcoal with paint like this although they are not traditional partners – what do you think?

Woodland in paint

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on April 9, 2012

09 Apr

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.

Sea sketches

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 23, 2012

23 Mar

I made some quick sea sketches in an effort to loosen up my painting and allow it to be more expressive. To this end, I chose coloured paper, acrylic paint, ink, charcoal and large brushes.

The subject matter is the sea, its dangers and its allures. I was thinking specifically about a stretch of sea between an island called ‘Inish Bofin’ (just off the coast at Cleggan, about seven miles from Clifden) and it’s neighbour ‘Inish Shark’.

Bofin has a population of about two hundred inhabitants while Shark was abandoned in the 1960’s, due to lack of support from the government of the day and also due to the hazardous waters around it. The two islands once shared life as sisters. The Shark people regularly made the journey over to Bofin, particularly on a Sunday, so that they could attend the church there. The stretch of water and most direct route between the two is known as ‘The Sound’ and is particularly dangerous due to a cross section of currents and shifting sands near the shore. The islanders rarely took this route because of the danger and some of the men that ran the risk, paid for it with their lives.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~inishbofinisland/map.htm

When looking over to Shark from Bofin, the waters of the Sound sometimes appear almost black and it meets the Bofin shore at a deceptively idyllic beach known as Tra Gheal ( which means bright or silver beach ).

http://www.inishbofin.com/photo_gallery.html

The island is a tonic for the senses, everywhere you go the sea is just there, the sound, sight and smell of it. There is for me a wavering sense of awe and trepidation about this particular spot as the knowledge of those who perished there unsettles its astounding beauty.

I plan to continue working on a series of sketches about the Sound which may turn in to paintings later.

Loosening up

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 21, 2012

21 Mar

It takes me a day or two to get in to a painting rhythm once I have broken my routine. I have been looking over some of my work, particularly these sea paintings I did about five months ago. I plan to return to this looser style of working on paper as I can get lots of ideas out quickly and it is a good way to get back to work after a break

These pieces were done on acrylic paper. I used acrylic paint, ink and charcoal and varied the way in which the paint was applied. It is very thick in areas such as in the foreground of the middle piece and thin elsewhere. I like the way the charcoal leaves its mark on the paint and for me it adds darkness and character to these pieces.
I plan to return to this looser style of work and use these materials to bring some expression back to my work.

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.

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.