Water is Interesting....

Christmas is but a week away, and thankfully I have been very busy since my last post.  I have more work to complete next week so I'm not relaxing yet, but I am looking forward to Christmas.
I don't have any images of a Christmas nature to share, but that's not surprising, I got Christmas cards printed with my own work earlier in the year.  Great, I thought, I'll send them this year, it's ages since I did my own...       ...but do you think I can find where I put them?  No chance!  I'll probably come across them in January.   I've had to go out and buy cards to send.

 

I used  this image on the cards I had printed, so to all who recieve standard shop bought cards... this is what the cards should look like...  I painted this way back in September 2010 , it's not unlike the work I have been doing recently, but that is not particularly unusual since I have a fascination with water, be it still, running or other.

Water holds mystery. Pools and streams have fascinated me ever since I got my first wetting in a small pond at the age of five. There is a world of seldom seen dramas under the surface, waiting to be discovered in little cameos, appearing like mirages in isolated clarity behind the reflections of normal light. A world of fish and crustaceans, that is also full of other life unknown in the world above.

Mystery is to be found in a small rock-pool, the finger of the incoming tide creeping in toward the pool, seeking to free the mysteries hidden below the reflected blue. This is what makes water so interesting. Each time you look into a pool of water a different mystery can be found, like the water itself, the mystery is fluid.

This has an influence on my work. Again and again I come back to painting water, it's like a child playing in the rock pool, hunting for little crabs, or fishing for minnow with a net in the local park's pond. I am reliving the excitement of childhood while exploring the light and movement on the surface as an adult.

At heart I'm still the five year old, fishing in pools and puddles.

Work is seldom finished in one sitting.

 

 

I have reworked the 3rd Derrynane painting from my post of October 6th , well at least the green area in the foreground.  

I have cooled the greens down considerably as you will see.  This has helped the foreground sit more solidly and given a stronger base to the work.  This particular painting has been niggling at me for a number of weeks so I eventually gave in and did the rework last week, and added detailing on the grass today over the dry base colours.  It just goes to show, it can take more time examining a work than actually painting it to get to where we want it to eventually go.  Or maybe I'm just slower getting there than most artists are.  Apart from this I have been working on a smaller piece, a view from Glendalough.  Sadly I am not at all happy with the results, it is cold and dull.  Just like the weather.

 

Later this evening I have to deliver a few paintings to Clontarf for an annual exhibition I take part in, so this post will be a little shorter than I intended, but if I don't post today it could be another week before I do at all.  Until then keep warm, and dream of summer seashores.