Black bog, blue hills

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on November 14, 2013

14 Nov

I’ve been working on some small paintings this week ( 5″ x 7″ ) – I really enjoy painting on this scale as I can get results quickly. It’s not just the speed factor though ( impatient as I am ) it’s the ability to make a better response to the landscape. At the moment I find this more difficult with larger work – covering the canvas takes longer so the response is less immediate. I believe that smaller works and drawings often have an energy about them that is lost in larger work. I would love to scale up in the future and get better at making bigger paintings – a bigger space, bigger brushes, more paint – it’s good to think about the possibilities. For now small is good for me.

The composition here is based on a favourite spot of mine near Oughterard. When I drive past, I want to stop the car and get out and just take it all in. Sometimes I do but it’s not always possible and it is a very fast stretch of road.

This is how this piece started out below. I’ve used large brushes and lots of colour, a little charcoal too.

Here’s the next stage. I’ve played with different consistencies of paint – thick and thin layers over each other. I’ve used a sepia ink to describe the bog which is almost black at the moment. I allowed the paint to dry before continuing.

Once this first layer was dry, I used smaller brushes to add spots of colour – some green in the foreground and more red and blue on the hills behind – a little more definition overall.

Happy with this one now and eager to do some more..

Autumn Fire

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on October 24, 2013

24 Oct

Cover image ‘Oughterard Bog’ by Deobrah Watkins

I’ve just written this piece for the next issue of the Connemara Journal. I took the photo above on Tuesday – the colour of the landscape here in Autumn is breathtaking and this year is no exception. Never mind New England in the Fall, what about Connemara in the Fall?

October stepped in quietly this year and gave us days of unexpected sunshine and warmth beyond anything we might normally expect. The long hot Summer has already ensured that 2013 will be remembered far into the future. I’ve always loved the colours of the landscape in late Autumn – an in between time of growth and rest. Since the bog fires in April, the grasses have changed from their luminous green shoots into fields of warm brown and again over the last few weeks into a lustrous fiery orange. When the wind is up, the now tall grasses appear to move like flames and give off an imagined heat through their colour. There’s a very particular kind of light at this time because the sun is at it’s lowest. When there’s moisture in the air, there’s a flatness to the sky that reaches around everything and blurs the horizon. It always makes me think of a theatre stage where the light is low and objects appear edgy and sharpened. Keat’s describes this aspect of the season in his poem ‘To Autumn’;

‘barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, and touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue’

(from ‘To Autumn’ by John Keats 1795-1821).

‘Land Interrupted’ by Deborah Watkins

The American poet Emily Dickinson speaks about Autumn light in her poem ‘There’s a certain Slant of light’ written in 1861;

‘when it comes, the Landscape listens –

Shadows – hold their breath –

(from There’s a certain Slant of light’ by Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886)

Enigmatic lines appropriate for a season where colour and light are heightened briefly before they are dulled again. Keat’s poem ‘To Autumn’ is first and foremost an ode of praise while Dickinson uses the season as a metaphor for change and the difficult acceptance of ageing. I think that both poets and many like them recognise the beauty of the season as it exists poignantly on the edge of Winter but perfectly and eternally not yet Winter.

Landscape by Deborah Watkins

January Landscape

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on January 25, 2013

25 Jan

I started another landscape based on some photos of the bog I took in the rain this month. I began the piece on the easel and used charcoal and broad brushes with lots of colour – below.

The horizontal swipe of orange made me think of Egon Shiele‘s work – something about the combination of black and rust. I had to stop and take a look at his paintings – this one’s called ‘Truth Unveiled‘

I love the energy in the lines, the scratchiness of them, you can almost feel the hand that made these marks – the daubs and blocks of vivid colour. Wonderful.

Image taken from canvasreplicsa.com

Now back to work! I added more colour and detail to the landscape below, it’s still on the easel so the inks and paint run downwards a bit.

I take it off the easel now and do some work on the table, trying to counteract the vertical lines with more horizontal shapes of colour.

I want to darken it a little now so I use some charcoal where the paint is dry, on the hills at the back especially and in the line through the middle of the road.

I mark in the fence on the left also with charcoal.

I reworked much of the piece ( below) once the paint was dry. The fence is gone and I’ve decided to leave it out. I tried consciously to avoid being precious about what I’d already done, pushing myself to just go ahead and make mistakes – keeping the image of the place in my mind at all times.

I think this is where my greatest weakness is and I’m trying to gain the confidence to finish a painting with the same energy that it had when it began. I’m happier with the results so far and I need to put this painting away now for a few days and come back to it afresh.

Hen Paintings

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on November 16, 2012

16 Nov

I’ve been working on a couple of hen paintings this week. I haven’t done any for a long while and we sold the last two of mine in the gallery at the week end. The subjects are our own hens and so I started by taking some pictures of them in the back garden. The two red ones are Rhode Island Reds and the grey is a Bluebell. You may remember I wrote about them during the Summer when we found our first egg.

They move around together and often imitate each others exact movements which is amusing to watch, a bit like synchronised swimming. Well not really..

I especially like the triangular appearance of their bodies when they lean over, it’s such a striking shape.

Bottoms up girls! I love this pose too as they remind me of ladies in old fashioned bloomers..

Here’s how the first painting started. I used a small 4″ x 4″ canvas which I think suits the nature of the subject and also makes for an affordable finished piece.

Here’s the same piece straight on.

And here’s the finished painting.

I worked this in two sittings. I find the first stage easier as I am mainly concerned with getting the gesture of the hen across. The second stage is always more difficult as I tend to slow down and work more finely to get the detail right. I often find that I lose some of the energy of the pose while doing this.

Here’s the start of the second piece. I continue the painting around the sides as you can see. G will frame these in his own hand made box frames which will display all sides of the canvas, like the one underneath this image.

Here’s the second painting after some more colour has been added.

This is the same stage but taken straight on.

And here’s the finished piece.

This one has lost some of the brightness and liveliness it had at the earlier stage but not too much I hope. I find these a completely different experience to painting landscapes – it’s a more direct way of working so I find myself caught up in trying to get a reasonable representation of the subject. I’m less concerned with intangibles like atmosphere or mood. The hens are dear to my heart however as we’ve had the pleasure of owning our own for several years. It’s also something that has had a bit of a revival around the country so I find that people generally react well to the finished paintings.

Autumn Gold

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on October 23, 2012

23 Oct

I took a trip out to Roundstone village at the week end and took some photos on the way. I travelled on the bog road which is a ribbon of tarmac that twists and bumps across the landscape. It’s spectacular at any time of the year because of the vast expanse of bog and lakes and the backdrop of the Twelve Bens mountains but it is really special in Autumn. The burnt orange colours of the grasses give off a deceptive feeling of heat and all the more striking against the blue of the mountains behind. It’s a combination that makes me think of the outback of Australia, wild and vast and hot.

There are few trees in this place which is something I miss but this carpet of orange heathers and grasses makes up for it. Shimmering colours against the low sun; yellows, browns, ochres, coppery reds – it’s a fiery mix and a golden time, a pause before the long Winter ahead. When the days are warm like they have been, it’s an extra gift, making long sunbeams indoors and tall shadows outside and unexpected warmth, reminding us to hold on to every balmy moment while we can and to savour it.

These grasses below are on the outskirts of the village.

It’s an impressive sight and the land feels alive with movement, like hair or water, the gentle sound of it making a whisper, moving back and forward and around me where I stand. Now I have the notion that I could be in some wild prairie in America, not here in Connemara where it’s green and wet.

I liked the contrast between the fence and the grasses in this next photo.

It looks bleached by the sun, not weathered by rain and wind as it has been here on the edges of the Atlantic. I want to go home now and find a sunbeam to sit in with a cup of hot tea and read about landscapes far away and bask in the last of the day.

Golden Bog

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

29 Aug

I usually work on a couple of paintings at a time so I can explore similar themes in slightly different ways. I began this one (above) with the last painting I wrote about here ( see Land Interrupted ).

I used these photographs (below) for reference while painting – they were taken recently on the Bog Road between Clifden and Letterfrack. It was evening and there was a lovely haze of light on the bog grasses, now turning golden. The light is special here at any time of the year but it is sometimes these in between times, between Summer and Autumn, between day and evening that it is most enchanting.

This is how the painting began (below).

Next I added more colour to the middle and foreground. I altered the mountain in the background a little as I felt that this line down the middle wasn’t working.

I used lots of gold and yellow in the middle ground and some pink to suggest the heathers. Then I outlined the bog furrow using brown ink.

This is the painting as I have left it below. I worked on the bog furrow shape and the grasses around it in an effort to make them merge a little but hopefully remain distinct also. I’ve defined the mountain behind with some brown ink but perhaps a little too much, I think I will try to pull this back a little when I return to it again.

Land Interrupted

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

27 Aug

I got back to some painting with the photographs I took of the bog in mind (see Shifting Seasons ). I have been thinking about this notion of the cut bog as a wound. It brought to mind a passage in ‘Tinkers‘ ( a book I have already mentioned a few times! )

In this excerpt, Howard is reflecting on a woman he sees in his mind’s eye, planting flowers. He is thinking about the effect that man has on the landscape. He imagines how a consciousness of this demands some small gesture as a ‘token of redress‘

..the flowers were an act of resistance against the raw earth like an act of sheer, inevitable, necessary madness because human beings have to live somewhere and in something and here is just as outrageous as there because in either place ( in any place ) it seems like an interruption, an intrusion on something that, no matter how many times she read in her Bible, Let them have dominion, seemed marred, dispelled, vanquished once people arrived with their catastrophic voices and saws and plows and began to sing and hammer and carve and erect.

taken from Tinkers by Paul Harding, Chapter 1, page 61

I love the hyperbole in this piece and the fundamental truth of it. It made me think of the cut bog as an interruption in something that is much older than ourselves or our forefathers or anything we can possibly imagine. I don’t intend to make any kind of judgement about the use of the bog, it is just one way of seeing it, as an ancient observer might, like a star gazing down on all of time. I think perhaps it is this interruption or contrast that draws me to the bog lands. The swaying grasses and heathers are like hairs and goose bumps on skin, a living breathing thing which when damaged, reveals a beautiful shock of glistening tissue and muscle underneath.

This is how my painting of the bog began (below).

Next, I added some broad strokes of orange so that this colour will come through anything I put on top and hopefully make the surface glow.

I subsequently added more paint and ink ( using different types of brushes ) to describe the heathers and grasses – greens, reds, pinks and gold. Then I used a dark brown ink to suggest the disturbed surface where the bog has been cut and driven through (below).

It’s not finished yet but I decided to stop here before the colours became muddy. I will go back to it once this layer of paint has dried completely.

Have you read anything recently that has influenced the way that you see things?

Polar Places

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on August 18, 2012

18 Aug

I came across an artist on etsy.com recently whose work I really connected with. I think this was particularly so in light of my own recent work about an imagined frozen landscape. The artist is Karinna Gomez from Fairbanks, Alaska in the United States. She makes small series of prints – mezzotints, woodcuts and etchings, sometimes handcoloured with watercolours as with the print above. This piece is called Persimmons in the Snow. Persimmons are an orange red fruit that grow on the Ebony tree. These trees can tolerate and adapt to a wide range of climates including harsh Northern weather. I love the striking contrast between the white hills and snow covered valley and the dark central group of trees that are lit by by these red speckles, a kind of earth bound constellation. I love too the vastness and silence that is suggested by the empty retreating hills and the dark sky beyond them. The only colour in the piece and the only sign of growth and life is this tiny little fruit. My second favourite piece (below) is like the first. This one is called Land of Weather .

The features of the previous piece are here, light versus dark and a grouping of dark fruit lit trees. There is more sky here though and an icy breeze seems to move across in a flurry of cloud. The central grove is bowl shaped and is cradled by the expansive landscape on all sides. They stand like a resilient group of survivors struggling against the elements.

The last piece I have included here is a mezzotint called Icelandic Water below. This is a slightly different printing technique which allows half tones of colour to be produced.

Darkness dominates this piece, punctuated only by white streaks and lights. The snow capped mountain in the background makes way for the night sky dotted with a few tiny stars. The title suggests that the large expanse in front might be water. It is broken up with bright uniform shapes that look like something man made or are they reflections or perhaps both? When I wrote to Karinna, she told me that she is drawn to the histories of polar exploration and aspects of Northern life such as self sufficiency, independence and solitude. Also the weather, land and geography of the North. Her work is an attempt to make imagery that expresses these primary interests.

If you like what you have seen here, check out Karinna’s work in her etsy shop. Her beautiful limited edition prints are very reasonably priced.

Late Summer Hedgerows II

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on August 15, 2012

15 Aug

We’ve had a bout of hot weather since the last time I wrote about the hedgerows about a week ago. Since then the roadside plants have burst into bloom and the Montbretia ( above ) and Fuchsia are aflame with blossoms. I took these photos on a walk near our home.

Here’s some more pictures of the Fuchsia. This plant is part and parcel of Connemara and it is in its full glory at the moment, slender branches weighed down with dangling blossoms.

Close up the blossoms remind me of tiny dancers in red and purple skirts, like a ragtag chorus line of marionettes..

There’s a headiness in the air that’s hard to beat. It’s a combination of good evening light, balmy temperatures and real or imagined scents – I know these flowers don’t have a strong scent but there’s an atmosphere of sweetness a bit like the conjured up whiff of an unopened bottle of wine..

I stop to take a few more pictures along the way. I think the next one is Hogweed ( correct me if I’m wrong ) which seems unfair for such a graceful plant. I love its spray of seed like flowers, it’s own little bouquet.

The next plant I encounter is the wild honeysuckle. It’s gorgeous fragrance alerts me to it’s presence before I spot it high in the hedge.

Here’s a close up. It’s such an exotic looking flower for this place, I am humbled by its presence. Right now there is no place finer or sweeter than the Connemara hedgerows.