Delphi Valley

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on June 23, 2014

23 Jun

It’s been too long since my last post as I’ve been caught up in the busyness of life and children. I’m returning with a short post about a couple of new paintings I’ve just started. These are based on the Delphi valley, which must be one of the most spectacular views here on the edges of Connemara and County Mayo. I’m working on a couple of canvases at the same time, alternating between the two. This one ( above ) is 10″ x 9.5″ – I’ve kept the palette quite cool so far with lots of blue and green. The second piece below is 10.5″ x 7.5″ and I’ve warmed this one up with some pink.

I love this shade of pink – I think it’s everywhere at this time of year, not like this of course but you can see it in a haze over the grasses if you squint your eyes.

I’ll take more photos as these paintings progress and post about them again soon.

Mannin Beach

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on December 6, 2013

06 Dec

I made a trip to Ballyconneely last week, a short drive south of Clifden. I brought my camera and made a quick detour to Mannin as the weather was so good. I normally associate the end of November with a certain gloom – receding light, rain and bitter cold but here we are, into December and still there are clear bright days. There was real warmth in the sun on this morning and the sea was calm and inviting and empty, except for a few bird tracks in the damp sand. Here’s the approach from the field below – the mossy grass is still vivid and bright. It’s deliciously spongy underfoot, feels a bit like an expensive carpet.

The Twelve Bens mountain range is clear in this one.

Here’s the cover photo again. There was hardly a breath in the air – the water was completely still and a perfect mirror for the pastel sky. All this blue seems infused with pink.

A last look down the beach.

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?

Shifting Seasons

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on August 21, 2012

21 Aug

I went out to the Bog Road between Clifden and Letterfrack to take some photographs this week. It was a clear evening and I expected to be able to see the Twelve Bens Mountain range beyond the bog and heathers but I found something else instead – the landscape seemed to shimmer, suspended between Summer and Autumn in the evening light. The heathers still abound in gorgeous clumps of pink but the grasses are turning from green to a tawny orange colour. In a couple of weeks they will look like they are on fire in spite of the lower temperatures.

Here are some more pictures below. It was windy so the images are a little blurred but I think this captures the atmosphere.

It may sound strange but I like this next one because the cut bog reminds me of a wound. The grasses are like a layer of skin over the marrow and bones of the black bog.

$Boglands between Letterfrack and Clifden$

I stood on a mound to take this one – the neatly stacked turf dries in the evening breeze and is almost ready to take in. The changing colour of the grasses is palpable, I love it’s coppery glow.

If you click on the image, you will get a better sense of it. I am really looking forward to using these images and getting back to some painting soon.

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?

Painting – Oughterard landscape II

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on June 6, 2012

06 Jun

This is another landscape based on the same area as the last one from Oughterard. I enjoyed using this lighter palette of colours and wanted to use them again.

This is the initial sketch (below) made in charcoal on a heavy weight acrylic paper.

Here it is (below) after the first application of colour. I like it’s freshness at this stage and I lose this a bit as I try to give the piece more depth. I really enjoy working with the wet paint and ink like this and look out for any happy accidents as the two meet.

This is the painting as I have left it (below). I have added more brown to convey the bog furrows underneath the heath and the grasses. I reduced the red a little but left a streak of it visible which I think gives it some direction and focus.

Painting – Landscape near Oughterard

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on June 4, 2012

04 Jun

This landscape is based on a place near Oughterard, County Galway not far from the Bog I painted recently. It is also a bog but unworked for some time and now covered in a layer of grasses and heathers. Here’s a photo I took of the area and below that the painting as it began – a rough sketch in charcoal.

This is the next stage – I blocked in some areas of colour loosely with a wide brush. I decided to use green and pale pink which is what I see/remember when I squint my eyes. I’m also thinking about this combination of colour as I saw it while taking photographs of some wild flowers near my home ( see ‘Wild Fuchsia and Nature’s Colours‘ ).

This is the next stage (below). I took this photo just after I added the green ink to the pink acrylic paint and it has bubbled as it has made contact with the paper! I want to add depth to the landscape here but also retain these broad strokes of pink as much as possible. I am trying to suggest the taller grasses with the pink and green mixture at the base of the painting but without doing it too literally.

This is the piece as I have left it (below). I added more paint to the mountain and lake in the background. I also gave the painting some more contrast with brown ink and just a little more red.

Wild fuchsia and Nature’s Colours

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on May 3, 2012

03 May

I took some more photographs of the wild fuchsia flower on a recent walk near my home in Clifden. This pale pink variety is not as commonly found as the bright red strain that adorns most hedgerows here. I love it’s delicate colours – barely pink and pale purple against the vivid greens of the leaves and hedgerow, the colours of early Summer.

I find it interesting how certain unexpected combinations of colour and tone work so well in Nature. I can imagine this mixture in a fabric print or perhaps some knitwear. Now I’m wondering if I can use it in a painting – it might be worth a try in this case.