April is almost over!

Where has the month gone?  I haven't picked up a paintbrush all month!  I have been busy recently with bookings for my guiding service and needed to do a little preparation for a full weeks booking last week.  Now I need to catch up on other work, so I can't see myself painting at all this month.  I hope to get down to the cottage next week, and with a fishing competition this weekend, a couple of practice days and the Leinster championships next week too I won't do much painting before our trip to the Cote D'Azur.
I'm feeling less and less like a full-time artist at the moment.  In reality this year was always going to be problematic for serious painting though.  I have too much work to do on the cottage and here in Dublin on other things apart from the anticipated studio move during the year which will also require removal of the studio contents before transporting it across the country.

Forecast: No paintings appearing for the foreseeable future.  At least until I get the studio re-sited.

Both sides of the Pyreneese Mountains, and Catalyns.

I am back from my travels in Girona, Spain.  The weather while not always balmy was quite good, with some nice sunshine. It was warmer than the snow and sleet I've arrived home to here!  My legs are suffering after walking around the old 14th century (rebuilt from the 1st century BC) walls of the city, I don't think I've climbed so many steps and stairs in the whole of my last decade!  (Unless you count the steps in Barcelona of course.) and there are many others within the town too.  The nearest thing I found to elevators were the Spanish Castell groups who spent the evening in Independence square building human towers while we ate al-fresco. They carried on into dark, an unexpected bonus for our evening.

Girona in the evening sunshine

Spanish elevators..

There are many sights in Girona, but the river and it's reflections is one that seems to be a classic.   I was more interested in the shoals of carp swimming in the river, but I don't think they are fished for.

Girona 

Carp in the river

Girona from the old city walls

We travelled north through the pyreneese mountains to Colioure in France, still part of traditional Catalonia, to visit the Templiers Hotel famous for it's collection of art, collected in lieu of payment over the years.  I also did a little bit of painting and sketching around the harbour while we were there. 

The famous Templiers Hotel in Colioure, France

 

 Enjoying a coffee within the Templiers Hotel 

and at work around the harbour.

Views of Colioure

As usual, time caught us out and I didn't manage to visit Roses and Cadeques.  But that is another trip to look forward to in the future.

From Snow to sunshine...

We had snow this week, so spring must have arrived!  I endeavoured to paint one plein air up in the Dublin Mountains on the old military road towards the sally gap.  I thought about doing a second, but my hands were so cold I couldn't control the paint... the time of day is late afternoon and the temperature was dropping below freezing again.   In the sky are bands of cloud heavy with snow showers, these came across the sky in regular lines, throwing down their cargo of snow in 10 minute waves.  Unlike many other areas, when we get cold weather here in Ireland it is a damp cold, and although not as cold as other countries, it feels much colder.
A day later the snow had gone again, two days later I was out doing some work in shirt sleeves.  Welcome to the Irish weather.

I'm off to sunny Spain next week, (Northern Catalonia) weather forecasts for between 15 and 20 degrees centigrade, possible showers.  Just like an Irish summer.  I must remember to pack my sketchbook, I think I may take pastel pencils as well or instead of watercolours.  We will probably travel across the border to southern France too.  We want to visit Cadeques, Colioure and of we have time the Narbonne.  it will be a change from today, St. Patrick's day in Dublin where it is cold, damp and very dull.

Anticipating a studio move.

I was down at the 'Country retreat' earlier in the week, planting a few more fruit trees and some fruit bushes (currants and gooseberries) though the wildlife will probably eat most of these, (deer the shrubs and Birds the berries of any bushes that survive)  I also decided where to position my studio when I move it during the summer.  I have decided to pop it down here with a north facing view.

 

 

It will be about sixty yards from the cottage, far enough away to be 'at work' but close enough to pop home for a cup of tea.  There is a little spring running in front of it, in which I will create a couple of weirs to give me more sound from the water, I intend putting a pond in lower down, but that will be in front of the cottage to the left of this picture.  Some of our neighbours were particularly interested in what I was doing... but I don't expect they will really be bothered.

 

I decided to keep the Studio away from beside the stream as I wan't to create a walk alongside it rather than have the studio in view of the cottage.  Where I am putting it is hidden from the cottage until we walk up the Bohreen (small narrow road) as it will be screened by trees and hedging.

We are looking forward to our move to Sligo, and every little bit we accomplish leads us nearer, although there is still lots of work to be done.  At the moment doing it as we are, is a pleasure, and we are making our plans for the work more concrete as we go, because we are letting the feel of the cottage and land influence our descisions.  Most of our plans and research are now done, and we can start implementing them over the summer.  It will be a labour of love, assuming we get suitable weather this year, if it is as wet as last year work will be considerably slowed down.

Springtime, and the painting is Plein air...

 Four Plein air knife paintings on 10 by 8 inch panels.

 

Glenasmole and the Dublin City Golf Club, from Bohernabreena

 

Howth head and Dublin City from Bohernabreena

 

 

The Upper Liffey Valley Manor Kilbride

 

 

The Upper Liffey Valley Manor Kilbride

Springtime has arrived...  at least for now, we have had a couple of warm sunny days.  The 17th of the month was almost balmy, and I put the warmth to good use by doing some plein air studies down the road, and in Wicklow.   It was great to be able to go out and work after the winter, and I am considering setting off back to the Liffey Valley in the morning if the weather holds for tomorrow.  There is a view I want to work on in a larger format.  It will need a lot more detail than these four did, and will probably take a couple of plein air trips before I come back to the studio to finish it.  The latter two images will help me recall the co,lours and conditions when working on the proposed larger work.
The light had softened by the time I got to Kilbride, the fields looking greener and the trees turned more grey than brown on the shaded side of the mountain.  But looking east from Bohernabreena the sunshine  had the trees looking much brighter and brown, yet the golf club in the first painting also showed signs of a cool light in the shaded greens and fairways of the course.  The fresh greens of new growth in the grass fields has a deep green and silver look at this time of the year.  Later on in the year the greens will become much warmer, even in the shade.  The fresh shoots of the grass give an almost magical light in the early spring sunshine, much more silvery than the early growth of the leaves in the trees and hedges later on in the spring which seem to just warm the browns and greys of the twigs before really turning green. 

Some new sketchbooks...

I have had the 'flu bug for the last couple of weeks.  I had the influenza shot earlier in the winter, so luckily I escaped the worst of it.  Even so it was no fun, with high temperatures and accompanying shivers and sweats.

I have started doing a few things now though, including a little shopping....

 

I found some lovely leather bound 10 inch by 7.5 inch sketchbooks on sale in a bookshop, and I bought six of them for myself.  It may sound greedy, but it is surprising how quickly you can fill a sketchbook when travelling or making thumbnail sketches when working on a compositional problem.  Hopefully these will keep me going for a year or two, they are good quality paper and they will take watercolour as well as pencils, pastels and crayons.  they are quite tactile too, with their leather covers, it is a pleasure to hold and carry them around.  I have already created a fronticepiece doodle in the first book, noting when and where I purchased them.  This helps me date the sketches in the books, as I rarely date the sketches themselves, but I date each book as I start using them, so I have a ball-park date on most sketches within the sketchbooks. 

These are a nice large but convenient size for travelling, and I'm looking forward to my first trip of the year.  It may be our trip to Girona in Spain in March, but I hope to get away here in Ireland earlier, aside from a scheduled trip to the cottage in Sligo.. 

A New Year.

It is a new year, and it seems to be promising to be a good one.  This evening I was treated to a wonderful sunset on my way home, and as the adage goes, red sky at night- shepherds delight; giving a promise of a fine day tomorrow.  Spring is on it's way, and the evenings are starting to show the signs of the lengthening days.  I look forward to the first flowers of spring, and the start of the trout fishing in 8 weeks time...

Since my last post I have been busy socialising over the Christmas period, and for the last few days catching up on a few jobs.  Business as usual, and hopefully a profitable year to come.  My first job next week is to tidy my studio, it became quite disorganised over the Christmas season,  mainly due to paintings being lifted out of racks and stacked here and there for viewing.  I need to safely stack them all back in the racks again to give me room in the studio for painting.  I will have to ensure they are safe from splashing paint before I can start work.  I hope to get some work done before the fishing starts, I'll feel less guilty slipping off to the river that way.

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.

 

Winter dark, and short days...

The month has nearly gone...   I have been busy this month, trying to work on a few new paintings, but I'm not happy with them at the moment.  I have sorted a few pieces out for an upcoming show next week, but I need a few more fresh works as I'm hoping to sell a couple coming up to Christmas.
The weather has turned cold, and the days are short.   It seems the day has half gone by the time the heater warms up my studio.  Even with good artificial lighting I don't like working when the natural light has gone, particularly when working on landscape paintings.  I used to switch to still life work in the winter months to allow for this, but in recent years I haven't wanted to paint any studio sets, apart from my dalliance into fish last year.
At this rate though I may just decide to paint a few more fish before the spring.  With the current temperatures I won't even need to keep them in the 'fridge while I am working... speaking of which, I have a few nice herring in the freezer.