More travelling stories...

I am back from my travels again. I have done a bit of fishing, and made quite a few studies in Co. Mayo. I think they may make a nice little series of paintings. I am considering working a little more abstract with them too.

I have done very little painting apart from these studies recently, and I need to organise a show for the end of June.
I have not heard back from the organisers of the Montenegran festival regarding availability of transfers from Dubrovnik airport so I will not go this year. It is too late to try to book flights now, the festival is due to start in two weeks. I hope to go next year instead, assuming that they may be a little more organised. I have plenty to be going on with at the moment anyway.

I will try to keep up to date with the Blog a little more too. I tends to be difficult when I am away so much though.

Mayfly time again...

I have been busy for the last week. I am just back from the North today, and now I need to get organised for my annual weeks Mayfly fishing. Everything is booked, but I need to ensure I have enough flies tied, the outboard enging is well serviced and I have enough two-stroke oil to do the week. We are going to Lough Mask this year for a change. Lough Corrib was quite poor the last couple of years.
Meanwhile, I have to do a few design drafts tomorrow, so I can finish a design commission for Friday. I am still waiting to hear back from Montenegro, I cannot get direct flights into Montenegro and need to know if I can be collected from Croatia. Until I hear I can't book flights, so I think I will miss the festival for this year. I refuse to pay almost 1,000 euro for flights into Montenegro, via London and Paris........ I could take a month in the Algarve or in Africa with Christine for that price.

A great start to May

We have had a couple of great days weather-wise. It is about time spring/summer arrived!
Consequently I have spent the holiday weekend getting the garden in order. I attacked it with gusto, and I have gone a bit too far...with all the major changes to the layout and heavy pruning on the shrubbery it is going to be a weeks work to finish.
I don't expect to be painting much this week, unless a commission that can't wait comes in. I need to get some more canvases before I start work again, so I can take a break during the weeks gardening and go into town. I'm off now, I've got a skip to fill with garden waste.........

Back from Our travels

We are back from Nice and the Cote D'azur in the french riviera. We also visited Montecarlo in Monaco which is just a short bus ride up the coast from Nice. The coastal landscape is interesting, and as we were flying into Nice I had an amazing view of the coastline west of the airport itself as we approached the airport parallel to the shoreline. The Public bus service in the area is very reasonable, at 4 euro you can get the bus from the airport and unlimited use of local busses and trams for the day. Obviously we did a lot of our touring and sightseeing by bus and tram, it sure beats paying through the nose on our own public transport at home.

The bus to Montecarlo was only 2 euro for a return ticket. It is a nice trip along the coast too. I preferred Nice to Montecarlo, even though Montecarlo had some great specimens of the giant white strelitzia plants. It was amazing to see these bird-of-paradise flowers towering over the banana trees beside them. I had to look twice to check which were trees and which were strelitzias. There were many standard strelitzias flowering all over Nice and Montecarlo. Also Montecarlo was in the process of preparing for next months Grandprix motor race so there were barriers and viewing platforms being erected all over the place, which made it quite scruffy.

Sadly we did not have the time to visit all the sites immortalised by the impressionists in the area, nor to any of the art galleries in the area which include galleries devoted to Renoir, Matisse and Chagall among others.

I have just recieved an invitation from the Association of Fine Arts Belgrade-Serbia & Montenegro to an International Art festival in Montenegro. It is in mid June this year however and I am not sure I will be able to go. I need to check my diary dates, it is shortly after my weeks mayfly fishing over in the west. If I can't make it this year, hopefully I may be able to postpone until next year as I would love to go to Montenegro, situated on the Adriatic coast, with a warm meditereanean climate... There are a number of my artist friends and aquaintances among the twenty invited artists. The festival is just down the coast from other friends too.

Hopefully I may be able to adjust my schedule to fit it in. I know I have to cancel a major fishing competition, and another is the day before I need to go, but I may be able to fish that one.

I'm going to go now and start checking flights, diaries and everything else....

An Artist's work is never done...

I have not posted in a while, I have been very busy. I have sent the ex-libris lino prints off to Belgrade for the Biennale. I just sent these two.

One a basic lighthouse (the subject for the Biennale) in an art deco style.

The second is based on the Boyne valley and the salmon of knowledge, the story as explained here .

It includes an ogham stone (early celtic script) enscribed with 'libris' in the foreground, the salmon of knowledge, Newgrange passage tomb, and clouds in the style of Celtic pre christian stonework (spirals). Newgrange is a lighthouse in reverse, instead of lighting up the sky to direct ships, the solstice sunrise lights up the back of the tomb down the passage through a small window above the door. In effect lighting up the house of the dead.

I have been busy doing routine organisation of upcoming exhibition opportunities etc. also, plus I have had two angling competitions recently. They take up time too.

I hope to get some more actual painting done shortly, but I won't hold my breath, I have a lot of things happening at the moment all combining to make it difficult to get settled into a painting frame of mind. I have to ship another painting today. It takes a few hours to pack and post a painting, all of which takes time out from the studio. I have already spent two hours photographing work to send two images off to a gallery, it takes time to ensure accurate colours and shading, plus good sharp focus with no distortion of the painting.

At least the sun is shining in my windows, cheering up my day, but I have to sign off now, to update my fishing blog, and then back to work.

I am back at work this week

I had a few days off last week fishing etc. The work is going well. I am working on a few landscapes, one portrait and large seascape. The work is varied to say the least, but none of them are urgent so I can work on whichever I feel like doing at the time.
The warm weather last week was great for doing plien air work, and I went fishing. This week the temperature has dropped down to between below freezing and 6 degrees centigrade. At least the studio is heated....I have a new PC set up in there now too. The Internet connection is not great though, I may need to run a new line in.
I still tend to do most of my web work in the evenings though, but the 'net connection is invaluable for sending photos of work in progress, it means I can photograph the painting, download to the PC and email it all at once. It makes much more sense than running back and forth to a computer in the house.
I don't want to get into the habit of spending time on the PC in the studio though, it will interfere with the painting.

Just popping by,

I have been busy the last week or so. Even so I haven't really got that much news. I need to frame and ship a couple of prints for the Ex-libris, but apart from that I'm just painting away working on a few ideas and waiting for the weather to improve so I can start a few landscapes. I may take a trip down the country next week, but I have a couple of Fishing competitions in the next fortnight, so I will be busy with them too. Of course I've had a couple of days out this week too.....

Two recent Irish landscape paintings.

Here are two recent works, the first is a view of Connemara. Acrylic on canvas, 18 by 14 inches.

The dry dead foliage gives the landscape a warm feel with any sunshine. The light picks up the reds and ochres of the dormant foliage, while the pools of water amongst the bog sparkle with light. The reflections in the puddles and pools give a contrasing coolness to the warmth of the landscape.



More details of the paintings can be found on my website .
The second painting is an oil on canvas, of the same dimensions and is a painting of Lough Carra in County Mayo. I like the oil painting particularly, as it gives the feeling of calm that this particular lough gives. Lough Carra is the smallest of the western lakes at 4000 acres. It is an intricate Lough with many bays and points. A clear lake it is the safest of the western lakes, and rarely gets the rough waves the others can experience. The light limestone marl gives the shorelines the characteristic 'white' shallows, dropping off into deep dark water. It is along these edges the best of the trout fishing is found. This second painting is also on my website and is available to buy direct.

Easter Exhibition Update

I am back from Lahinch, the gallery have my new paintings for the exhibition. It is due to open on Easter Monday. There will be four small seascapes and four landscapes on show. The trip was a long one, not helped by a small detour.....un-intentional one, due to the navigator sending me the wrong way at a juction while taking a new route. I am well rested now though, my eyes were very sore this morning, due to the de-misting air coming up into my eyes all the while when driving. With the damp weather, the van windscreen was misting up if I turned the hot air fan off. I am going to take the weekend off now, no more work until Tuesday, Monday being St. Patrick's day.
We party this weekend......