Still Painting

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on December 12, 2012

12 Dec

Still painting yes, but still using a roller and a very large bucket of matt white emulsion. I’d love to be one of those people who can manage more than one major project ( ie: painting the house and some other stuff as well – like the other kind of painting ) but sadly I am not and frankly it’s a wonder that the family haven’t starved and/or run out of clothes as this task has been truly all consuming. On the positive side though, the house has never looked better. Unseen corners that haven’t been noticed for years are emerging and EVERYTHING looks brighter – there’s a lot to be said for ‘Brilliant white’! I have had the occasional splurge of colour like this green wall (below) in my kitchen which I love. We have prints and paintings here that we have bought/collected and swapped over the past ~~fiveteen~~ fifteen years or so. The toaster sketch is by our friend Joyce Tansey and the Coffee Pot is by Blaise Smith. The print under the Toaster is by Kathe Kollwitz and the landscapes are by good friend and talented painter Mary Donnelly. The Little Trees drawing is by canadian artist Luke Ramsey. I love them all.

and just look at those shiny white skirting boards and that sparkly architrave – I do feel proud!

Here’s a bit of red in the front room below.

I love red and also have some in my kitchen. The fabric in the blind came from Ikea – out of date now. I still treasure it even though it’s a bit faded. There’s ‘Jellybean’ our ginger cat outside on the window sill..

I’m almost there, just another coat of gloss in the hall and that’s the downstairs done. Upstairs can wait till after Christmas..

Soon back to painting on canvas then – I’ve a couple of hen paintings that need to be finished which I’ll post about in a little while.

Miry Place

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on October 12, 2012

12 Oct

I’ve started a couple of paintings based on some photographs I took out near the coast at Aughrus recently. This is how the first one began.

I want the main part of the painting to have a golden glow (this is how the grasses appeared when I saw them) so I’ve used lots of gold paint in broad strokes across the page. I’ve sketched in the sky using a combination of blue and white paint and I’ve left a space for the bog pool in the centre of the piece. Here’s the next stage below.

I’ve played with different consistencies of paint and ink and I’ve used brushes of different widths to vary the effects. I like the movement that a large sweeping brush stroke gives and I also enjoy the way watery paint pools around thicker clumps of colour. I’ve tried to keep all the colours as fresh as I can, not allowing them to muddy too much and washing my brushes often between applications. I want this dark bog pool to be the focus so I’ve used dark blue and brown inks for the central shape and surrounded it with light and metallic shades to describe the grasses.

Here’s how the second painting started below.

I’ve used blue, purple and white paint to sketch in the sky and clouds and I’ve outlined a broad shape in red to describe the russet coloured ferns I saw in the bog that day. Here’s the next stage.

Oooo I like it here! Something about that red and green together – these colours appealed to me when I took the photographs in Aughrus. I love the way the blue ( a watery pool ) has bled in to the cream and pink paint. I’m sorry in a way not to have left it here as the colours are lovely and fresh and true to how they were. It does look very unfinished however and so I continued working on it as you can see below.

I’ve gone in with lots of colour to the extent that I’ve had to stop at this point so that it doesn’t become too sludgy. I’ve tried to give the area on the left of the piece a vertical direction to suggest some tall grass shapes. The dark blue shape across the centre describes a wet pool and beneath that some green plants. I’ve more to do on both of these paintings but I’ll have to wait a day or two until the paint has dried completely.

Blackberries

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on September 14, 2012

14 Sep

Blackberry picking is as much a part of Irish childhood as the 99 ice cream cone, watching Saturday morning cartoons and rice krispie buns. I think smeara dubha was one of the first Irish words we learnt at school and there was usually a story in the first term or an essay to be written on ‘Ag Piocadh Smeara Dubha’.

These photos were taken on a road near our home where my own girls go to collect the berries with the same excitement and pleasure that I experienced at their age. They trawl the roads and hedgerows and return with sticky purple-tinted hands, brambly clothes and plastic buckets filled to the brim. G likes to make berry smoothies with vanilla ice cream ( sieved to get the bits out ) and my favourite ( when the mood takes me ) is apple and berry sweet pastry tart served with piping hot custard. Yum.

Here’s some more pictures – this one below is a more typical bunch with it’s assortment of blacks, reds and greens and some empty stalks where the ripe ones have been nabbed.

This next cluster is almost ready to bloom, each berry a strange parcel of swelling crimson lobes..

I like this next photo because it includes the berries that have just started to turn. Close up, the creeping mould looks more like sprinkled sugar than decay. Theres something lovely about it as an image of the cycle of nature, from earth to fruit and back to earth again in just a few weeks. A reminder to enjoy them while we can.

Apple-Ripe September

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on September 5, 2012

05 Sep

Ripe apples, back to school, my birthday, blackberries, evening classes, woolen scarves, crispy air and pink skies. These are just some of the things I like about September.

We’ve been collecting apples from our trees for the last few days. We have just two – a crab and an apple blossom. The crab is still young so not enough fruits yet for jelly, but their colour brightens up the garden (below), a last hurrah before the Autumn settles in.

G likes to stew the apple right down to a pulp, then he adds molasses and pours it over yogurt. I like it barely cooked with porridge, a set-me-up for the day, delicious and all the sweeter because it’s our own. It was warm and bright this morning so I took some photos to capture them before they disappear into the kitchen.

All this talk of September and apples brought the much loved Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh to mind. His poem ‘On An Apple-Ripe September Morning’ with its imagery of early Autumn and the threshing recalls another time. Men folk gathered together to get the crops in, neighbours and friends lending a hand or paying their dues and all the loose chatter and gossip in between. Nature soaks through the lines – mist-chill fields, wet leaves of the cocksfoot and glistening bog-holes. The last verse ends on a note of awe and admiration towards all this beauty ‘I knew as I had entered that I had come through fields that were part of no earthly estate.’

On An Apple-Ripe September Morning

On an apple-ripe September morning

Through the mist-chill fields I went

With a pitch-fork on my shoulder

Less for use than for devilment.

The threshing mill was set-up, I knew,

In Cassidy’s haggard last night,

And we owed them a day at the threshing

Since last year. O it was delight

To be paying bills of laughter

And chaffy gossip in kind

With work thrown in to ballast

The fantasy-soaring mind.

As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered

As I looked into the drain

If ever a summer morning should find me

Shovelling up eels again.

And I thought of the wasp’s nest in the bank

And how I got chased one day

Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind,

How I covered my face with hay.

The wet leaves of the cocksfoot

Polished my boots as I

Went round by the glistening bog-holes

Lost in unthinking joy.

I’ll be carrying bags to-day, I mused,

The best job at the mill

With plenty of time to talk of our loves

As we wait for the bags to fill.

Maybe Mary might call round…

And then I came to the haggard gate,

And I knew as I entered that I had come

Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.

Patrick Kavanagh

(1904 – 1967)

Reflections

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on August 31, 2012

31 Aug

I went for a walk along our new cycle path just outside Clifden at the week end. It flanks the beautiful Gowlaun lake and curls around the rock faced road on the other side as it meanders in to town. It was evening and a little overcast so the light was low and a strong breeze carried cumulus cloud steadily across the sky. In between the puffy white mass, the sky was a startling blue which was reflected in the water with the last of the evening sun.

Large banks of reeds with purple crimson heads swished in the breeze – there is no sweeter sound and I hear it again when I look at this next picture below.

Here’s a close up of the reeds. I looked for it when I got home and was disappointed to find that it’s name is the Common Reed – a sadly underwhelming title for such a beautiful plant..

and some more reflections.. this bank of reeds made a lovely arc that swept across this part of the lake from where I stood. The reflection of the sky overhead is more colourful and descriptive than the sky itself from this angle.

This last photograph was taken just before I left. The evening was closing in and the landscape is almost in silhouette against the water and these gilt edged clouds. Magic.

Imagined Places

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on August 17, 2012

17 Aug

I have been working on two more paintings which are based on an excerpt from Paul Harding’s book ‘Tinkers’ (see ‘Water, Snow and Ice’)

I had a strong idea in my head about what they might look like and I worked quickly so I didn’t pause to take photos along the way.

This piece below is a view of the frozen lake from afar. I wanted to include the cabin this time and a view of the lake that would include the water under the ice.

I started by sketching out the mountain shapes in charcoal and then the lake shape in the foreground. I applied the paint quite thickly in an effort to portray the ice and snow and I used a combination of blue paint and ink to describe the water. I then used gold and brown to paint the figure as it has slipped through the ice and I continued this shape underneath where it is dropping down to the bottom of the lake. I used small drops of metallic ink to describe the fish and underwater creatures and I bubbled the ink on to the paper to achieve a watery effect. I decided to leave the top part of the piece as it is – sketchy and thin, because I think this gives it an atmosphere of cold and quiet and I like the physical contrast between this and the thicker use of paint in the foreground.

This next piece below is the lake from another angle. I’ve added a tree this time and I’ve made it swirl around the lake, following the lines of the snow to give the piece a sense of movement. I started this one by painting the circular lake shape, this time taking up most of the page. Once again I’ve flattened the perspective at the base of the painting so that the underside of the ice can be seen. I’ve used the white paint thickly and contrasted this with washes of ink to describe the water and the ice where it is thin. I used golds and browns again to paint the figure as it has slipped in to the water and is carried underneath.

I usually base my paintings on things I’ve seen. Working from imagination hasn’t really appealed to me before but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working on these, perhaps because this place was made so real through the writing.

Welcome Back! Seascape in Progress

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on August 6, 2012

06 Aug

I’m back after my short break and I’ve returned to the sea to do some painting..

I started this one with the idea of setting up some kind of contrast between the bright shore line and the darker water out to sea. This is how it began below.

The sky takes up less than a third of the page so the emphasis is very much on the water. I’ve used a touch of red on the island shape and some charcoal in the foreground to suggest some rock shapes. The rest of the colour is a mixture of acrylic paint and ink.

This is the next stage below. I’ve used lots of bright colour near the shore line – turquoise, green and some pink. I find the colours of the sea seductive and inviting near the shore and I want to play this against the water further out towards the horizon where it becomes mysterious and dangerous.

The next image is exactly the same but taken a couple of days later. The paint has ‘settled’ and some of the thin layers in the foreground have shrunk a bit as they have dried. The colours have dulled a little too but I’ll bring them back later when I varnish the finished piece.

This is the finished painting below. I tidied up the horizon line and added a bit more purple to the island shape. I also used some more paint and charcoal on the rocks. Once the paint was dry, I varnished the whole thing.

I’m happy enough with this one – it needed very little adjustment after the first sitting so I think it has an energy that reflects how it was made. I like the way the paint and charcol bled together in the foreground into these watery shapes that look like seaweed.

Do you think the contrast works here? What does the sea mean to you?

Bog Cotton Painting II

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on July 13, 2012

13 Jul

I’ve just finished working on this one. I’ve been tinkering with it for several days and at times painting is like this for me. Other paintings I can finish in one or two sittings. It’s hard for me to say which method works better but generally I think that there is more energy in the work that is finished quickly. This is how this painting began (below).

Here it is with more colour. These two stages were carried out during the same sitting.

I returned to the piece after a few days and added lots more detail. I’ve gone a little overboard with the blue ink here and it’s quite fluid so I have to wait until it dries before I continue.

This is the next stage (below). I’ve attempted to ‘tighten’ it up but I think that it has become confused. I’m definitely trying too hard here and it’s not working!

When I return to the painting, I try to de-clutter the image by redefining the strip of bog in the centre and I use more green in the foreground (below).

This is the painting as I have left it (below). I’ve softened some of the lines in the middle ground and I’ve used some red ink to add more contrast. I am happier with it now because I think that it has more of the atmosphere of the place. I’m reluctant to take it any further at this stage so I’ll leave it for a few days before I varnish it…what do you think?

A Forest of Green

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on July 11, 2012

11 Jul

This tiny but prolific plant grows right on the shore at Candoolin in Errislannan. This is a small rocky beach, just south of Clifden which is accessible from the roadside. It is obviously thriving here in this environment and has spread over the rocks like a miniature forest with just stone and seaweed for companions.

Here it is again, a little closer up. The perfection of each plant and each leaf is a marvel.

And closer still..

The repetition of the shapes taken from above give the image a shimmering effect. One last photo (below). I love the vividness and vibrancy of this green. I need your help to identify this plant. Is it a liverwort? I’d love to hear from you if you know.

Bog Cotton Painting

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on July 9, 2012

09 Jul

I wanted to make a painting of the Summer bog and include some bog cotton as I saw in Oughterard recently. This is how it began (below).

I used more paint to describe the grasses in the foreground and the bog surface as it recedes in to the distance. This was done while the first layer was still wet. I decided to wait until the paint dried before painting the wandering water channel (below).

After a couple of days, I returned to the piece and used some blue and grey ink together to describe the water. I also added gold paint and green ink to enrich the colour to the right of the painting. Then I applied a touch of white to describe the bog cotton. I leave it at this point although I feel that it needs more work.

When I return to the painting I see that it needs more contrast and more colour. I darken the area to the left foreground with a combination of red and purple inks and I add some pink and red to the middle ground. This is the painting as I have left it (below). I will leave it for a couple of days and then decide if it needs anything more..What do you think?