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.
