Life Drawing Residency in Roundstone

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on May 14, 2015

14 May

Cover photo: James Hanley (RHA), Carey Clarke (RHA), Gavin Lavelle and Una Sealy (RHA) outside the Lavelle Art Gallery, Clifden

We’ve had some interesting visitors to the gallery recently – old friends and acquaintances that we don’t get the opportunity to meet often enough. Pictured with Gavin outside the Lavelle Art Gallery are RHA ( Royal Hibernian Academy ) artists James Hanley, Carey Clarke ( former president of the RHA ) and Una Sealy. They were part of a group of fifteen artists that were here for a life drawing residency, organised by mutual friend and RUA painter Rosie McGurran. Continue reading →

Life drawing Residency in Roundstone

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on May 5, 2015

05 May

James Hanley (RHA), Carey Clarke (RHA), Gavin Lavelle and Una Sealy (RHA) outside the Lavelle Art Gallery, Clifden

Black Bog

by Total WP Support Inc.. Posted on October 30, 2012

30 Oct

This image of Roundstone bog inspired the painting above. It’s unremarkable as a photograph but I love the contrast in it, between the darkness of the boggy landscape and the gem like blues of the mountains and paleness of the sky.

This is how the painting started below.

I started at the top of the page and kept the colours clean when working on the sky and mountain shapes. Then I outlined the line of the land in a dark ink and I dragged some of the colour down using a brush to make a yellowish wash. This is the how the painting developed below.

I worked quickly using a combination of acrylic paint and ink together and brushes of different sizes. I like the way the paint settles when I work quickly like this, some effects are accidental but I have an idea about the overall feeling I want the piece to have. The middle and foreground dominates in this one because the marks are broad and gestural and this contrasts with the relatively careful way the sky and mountains have been painted. The richness of the colours that I have used in the landscape also make it stand out – browns, reds, golds, yellows and some dark blues. I like the way a large brush stroke gives the impression of strata, like layers of matter so the effect is being allowed to see under the earth as well as across it, to see the layers of material that have built up under ground over time.

I’ve decided to call this one finished as I’m happy with the results as they are. I’ll varnish it once the paint has dried and this will give it a protective coating as well as making the colours appear richer, as they were when they were just made and a bit like the way the colour of a beach pebble looks deeper when it is wet.

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.