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?

Return to Omey Island

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

05 Jul

I returned to Omey Island with G last week when the rare opportunity of an afternoon off without the kids presented itself! It was a glorious sunny day and we decided to walk the perimeter of the Island. The tide was well out when we arrived so we walked across the strand and made a right turn along the grassy edges. We met a small beach which we walked along before we had to climb up a bank to continue. This is the view from there across the sound to Claddaghduff (below).

Once we reached the top of the grassy mound, the view opened up to take in the rolling meadows and the sea as it wanders right out to the line of the horizon. I was immediately struck by the fields of flowers, the vividness of these tiny yellow plants ( Bird’s-foot Trefoil? ) and the sweetness of their scent in the breeze. It was a heady Summery rush and I had to suppress the urge go no further and just lie down and soak it all in! This is one of my favourite photographs (below) because it contains these perfect hues of blue, yellow and green which are my lasting memory of this walk.

Here’s the view heading West and looking out towards Cruagh Island and the Atlantic (below).

As we moved around the Western side of the Island we came across another beautiful beach (below). Looking back at this photo, it seems almost too perfect to have been real and it felt like that, a kind of earthly garden of Eden.

I took this last photo on the Southern side of the Island. The grassy slopes fall away to this outcrop of flat rock which sinks downwards towards a wide sandy beach (below).

We quickened our pace after I took this photo as thoughts of the incoming tide took over! In fact we had plenty of time. We resolved to check the times for the tides the next time and return to explore the centre of the Island.

Brigit’s Garden

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on July 2, 2012

02 Jul

I went on a trip to Brigit’s Garden recently with my family. This is a not-for-profit organisation and a registered charity set up by Jenny Beale out of her passion for nature and the environment. The gardens were designed by Irish landscape designer Mary Reynolds who was the first Irish person to win a gold medal at the prestigious Chelsea flower show and is arguably one of the best designers in the country. The gardens are located in Rosscahil which is just a few miles outside Galway city. They are set within an 11 acre site of native woodland and wildflower meadows and they celebrate our natural landscape in a design based on the four Irish seasons. These four gardens interconnect and take us on a journey through the Irish seasonal festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lughnasa. The gardens mirror the cycle of life from conception and birth through to old age and death.

Samhain ( Halloween ) begins on the 31st of October and marks the beginning of the yearly cycle. It is celebrated here in the winter garden (below) which pays homage to a time for death but with the promise of re-birth. It is a period of sleep and reflection which is evoked by a mound of earth that has been shaped into the sleeping body of a woman wrapped around a pool. Another figure made of bronze leaves rests on the ground in an island within the pool. She is listening to the earth, waiting for it to stir again and bring forth new life.

Image taken from Pbase Gallery

Image taken from Stream

Imbolc is the Spring garden. This is the old Irish name for the festival that welcomes the arrival of Spring on February 1st, now known as St. Brigit’s Day. In the cycle of life, it is the garden of youth where children can play and enjoy the basketwork swings and a wildflower meadow.

Image taken from Signpost Tours

Here’s one of my photos of the Spring Garden (below) with wild flowers in full bloom.

May day heralds the festival of Bealtaine which is celebrated in the Summer Garden. This is a time of young adulthood, sexual awakenings and marriage. The garden tells the story of Diarmuid and Grainne, the fleeing lovers in Irish mythology. Their bed is a grassy hollow facing the sun and a path of standing stones leads to a throne where the lovers unite and sit together, masters of their own destinies.

The Autumn garden marks the festival of Lughnasa which begins in August. It is a time of harvest and celebration. Spiral beds contain herbs for cooking as well as healing (below).

Two circular lawns interlink and are circled by columns of stone to allow space for dancing. There is a long table for feasting and celebration. Three yew trees mark the exit of the Lughnasa Garden which signifies the end of the cycle and the possibility of renewal which lies ahead.

Image taken from Stone Art Blog

There is much more to see and enjoy here as well as the four symbolic gardens. There’s a giant sun dial, a woodland walk, a living willow play area for children and a place to hang wishes (photo below).

This is a view of one of the wildflower meadows from the woodland walk (below).

I spotted this owl in a tree (below) which I hadn’t noticed on previous visits. The unexpected is part of the magic of this place..

You can round off your visit as we did in the cafe which offers delicious home baked cakes! I’ll be going along again soon and I’d recommend it to anyone, especially at this time of year when the wildflowers are in full bloom.

Beach Flowers

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on June 29, 2012

29 Jun

The sun shone late one evening last week when I went for a walk along a beach in Errislannan with my family. This is a beautiful peninsula just south of Clifden. I took some pictures and we collected driftwood and paddled in the water. Unexpectedly, I found a treasure of flowers growing in the area. This is the view looking back down the beach from the furthermost point.

There is no sand here, just stones all rounded by the tidal movements of the sea.

I stopped to photograph this vivid blue plant on a bank along the beach. I am no botanist so I welcome advice on the naming of any of these! Is this one a Scabious?

Here it is again from on top. I love its starlike shape and its jewel blue colours.

I almost missed this next one. There were just two little plants on their own right at the edge of the shore. I’m going out on a limb here to suggest that this might be a wild Orchid..

The next photo is of some Thrift, my favourite plant of all. I am amazed how it manages to grow so prolifically in the most barren of places, it seems to sustain itself from rock alone.

I was surprised by how much it had turned, nearly all the clumps of flowers were a dry honey brown colour (below). I like the line of them still, their tall broad stems and their bobbles of crispy petals.

Here’s one that’s just beginning to fade (below).

This last picture is of a single Thrift flower still in full bloom. There were only a handful of these.

Fields of Cotton

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on June 27, 2012

27 Jun

The last time I wrote about Bog Cotton it was May and there were just a few scattered strands. I stopped to take these photographs outside Oughterard last week because the cotton is in full bloom now. It may not be a field of cotton as sung by Credence Clearwater Revival (!) but this tiny Irish plant is a beautiful sight at this time of year.

These fields are carefully managed and the cotton thrives on the newly cut bog surface. My feet sink slightly into the spongy top layer as I take my picutres..

I love the contrast between the dark chestnut colours of the bog and the soft greens and pinks of the grasses. The bog cotton enhances the scene like sprinkles of tiny sugar shapes. There is something delicate about the appearance of the bog here in Summer that is almost magical.

In a few months, this will change again. The cotton will disappear and the colours of the heath will deepen and take on a fiery quality and a completely different mood.

Finished Paintings

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on June 25, 2012

25 Jun

I finished these two paintings over the weekend. The first one looked like this the last time I wrote about it.

I wasn’t satisfied with it the way it was so I worked at it some more and used a tiny brush to define the water channel. This recedes in to the background now which gives a stronger sense of distance but I’ve lost the rushing water in the foreground. I think it’s a different piece altogether now (below), whether or not it is a better painting is another question!

This is the other piece as I left it (below).

I felt that I needed to do very little with this one – I just altered the line of the bog on the left slightly and added some more paint to the mountains in the background. This is the finished version (below).

Summer Bog Painting

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on June 22, 2012

22 Jun

I got back to some painting again this week and I’ve returned to the bog in Oughterard which is fast becoming a favourite subject/obsession!

I worked on two small paintings – here’s how the first one started (below).

I decided to set the composition up on a portrait page because I wanted to make this long water channel in the centre the main feature. This is how the painting progressed (below) after I had used quite a bit of paint and ink. While I’m happy with some aspects of it, the water channel is more out of control than I would like.

I removed some of the wet colour in the centre of the piece with a paper towel and attempted to re-paint the pool. This is how I have left it (below).

I’m happier with it now because there is a stronger sense of direction in the pool which moves downwards and out of the painting although the area to the right of the pool has lost some of the energy it had at the earlier stage. I’ll return to it once this layer of colour has dried and make a decision on what to do with it next. This is the second painting I started (below).

This one is on a landscape page. I want to make this large area of newly cut bog the main interest here. I worked quickly with lots of paint and ink together. This is how I have left the piece (below).

I have tried to set up a contrast between the silky darkness of the cut bog surface and the green growth that surrounds it. I feel reasonably happy with how it has turned out although I need to ‘tidy’ it up a bit when the paint is dry. There are some unwanted speckles and a little bare patch that I’ve just noticed! I’ll also need to straighten up the ‘line’ of the bog on the left of the piece as its unevenness makes it seem a bit like a black river. What do you think?

It’s a question of just the right amount of control for me so that I allow the paint and ink to move in order that the piece has some kind of energy about it but that I pull it back when it moves too far away from where I want the painting to go..

My Life as a Potter

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on June 20, 2012

20 Jun

I have mentioned my work as a potter in this blog and so I’ve attempted to illustrate my potting life ~~more clearly~~ here in order to show how my pots and paintings might relate to each other.

I learnt about Raku while studying ceramics in N.C.A.D. I also spent a few months in the south of France as a student with a group of artists who specialised in this technique. Raku is an ancient Eastern method of firing clay whereby the glazed bisque pots are heated up very quickly, removed from the kiln while hot with long tongs and reduced in bins of sawdust. The latter half of the process is in fact a Western adaptation which was pioneered by a group of American potters in the 1960’s. This dramatic process is very exciting and produces lustrous metallic glazes with crackled surfaces. I used the technique for my degree show in 1991. Here are some examples of the things I was making then.

These pots were thrown on the wheel and altered from the inside while still wet. I remember seeing an ancient Roman pot that had been decorated by finger marks made from the inside and this was a revelation to me. I became interested in the notion of clay as a skin with some kind of bone-like structure behind it. I drew lots of animal skeletons in the Natural History Museum and I also looked at plants and seed pods for inspiration.

These little tea bowls (below) were an homage to the ancient Japenese form of the technique.

The next few images are of me practising raku in Dublin in the 1990’s. The first one shows the kiln loaded with some pots and ready for firing.

This is me taking a pot out of the kiln with a long pole. I also used a tongs but I was able to hook some shapes from the inside with this rod, which avoided marking the outside of the piece.

The next photograph shows the reduction process in action – I always worked with another person for safety. I used dustbins filled with sawdust and wood shavings which ignited when the molten piece came in to contact with them. More sawdust was poured on before the bin was sealed with a lid and some wet paper. The pots were allowed to smoke for a couple of hours before they were taken out and cleaned. The reduction takes place because the chamber is starved of oxygen and so the oxides are drawn out from the metal oxides present in the glaze. This is what produces the metallic effects – copper oxide produces a copper glaze here where it would produce a green glaze in an atmosphere with oxygen present.

I set up my own pottery studio in Clifden in 1997 and made raku pots for just over three years. I learnt how to work on my own and I had a shed and a small outdoor space as well as a workshop where I prepared the clay and made large vessels on the potters wheel.

I made purer shapes – spheres and ovoids with narrow openings. I used copper and cobalt oxides in my glazes to produce the blues, greens and metallics that I liked. Here are some examples below.

The next pair (below) are simple figurative pots – parent and child.

Here is a close-up of the glazed surface (below). I still love these rich lustrous colours as you can see in some of my paintings. I identify them with the precious and the magical which is an association I like to make with nature in my paintings.

Omey Strand

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

17 Jun

Omey Island is a tidal island near Claddaghduff, north of Clifden. I drove there on a fine evening recently when the tide was out and I could walk across the strand. It is hardly noticeable as an island from the mainland until you get down to the beach. This is the view (below) looking across to Omey from the edge of Claddaghduff village.

It is possible to drive across the beach to the island at low tide and there are road signs along the way to guide you! It’s a strange sight in the middle of the strand and you have to remind yourself that the sea can cover a car here at high tide.

This is the view out to sea a little further along (below). The brightness of the open sky and glistening sand was stunning. I had the feeling I was in a desert and that I was absorbing a tonic sized portion of vitamin D that would last me a month.

I wanted to freeze the moment so that I could conjure it up again in my mind later and perhaps on some dark November evening when I will need to be reminded of such things.

This is the same view from the edge of Omey which is flanked by an idyllic stretch of golden sand and soft cushiony grass.

I returned back across to Claddaghduff making a mental note that I should allow myself more time on the next trip. Omey island has much to offer in terms of its natural beauty and its archaeological discoveries.

On my return, I took some photographs of the beach. There were some recent pony tracks in the sand (below).

These next images reminded me that this place would be under water again in a couple of hours.

Welcome!

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

17 Jun

Welcome to the new face of my blog! I’ve had lots of fun setting it up with the help of friends and experts Noel and Fiachra from Connemara Publications

I decided that my blog needed a facelift and I wanted to be able to display the imagery in a more professional way. I think that this website/blog combination does exactly that and I hope that you like it too.

You should be able to find the areas that you are interested in more easily as I’ve divided the posts and images in to different categories.

I have moved over your comments with your permission and that’s why there are two dates attached to each thus far.

Thank you all for your support!

Deborah

( Photo of bunting from Blue Moon Studios )