Almost Christmas...

I have everything organised. But I have been a little lapse in posting here. I suppose I have been quite busy (with everything except painting) but I will try to post more often next year. See! I'm starting early for New Year resolutions LOL.
I have about 6 weeks left in my Web-design course, so that will keep me occupied until the end of January. I will get back to painting seriously again in February, just as the light starts improving again. I am looking forward to it at the moment, I've been missing my studio time- but not enough to give up the occassional day's fishing....

December has arrived....

I am still very busy with the web-design course, along with the couple of exhibitions running. I need to leave work into a third exhibition on Saturday. This will leave me without 'new stock', at least framed stock anyway. I have one or two I can get framed if someone is looking for work in a hurry, but most of what I have is just what is on the website now, and there are a few of them sold too. I raided the studio for three of the older landscape works last week for another group show I was asked to put work in at the last minute. I think they were expecting me to put some of my recent work in, but to be fair, if they wanted new works they needed to allow time for framing of the few bits I have left.
I seem to have work in nearly every group exhibition this Christmas! I guess the new work has gone down well where it has been shown.

Life is Good.

Healthy sales in the pre-christmas market. My new work has been well recieved.

The group exhibition has been going well, half of my pieces sold within 24 hours of the opening and I hope a few more will go before the exhibition is over.
I leave a few more works into another group show tomorrow. If it goes as well as the other I will be very happy. My new work has been received very well, with lots of interest in a quiet market. Sales in general have been down, but my works have sold very well, with further buyers who have shown interest in some of my pieces still to come back to make their purchases according to the show curator.
It has been a pleasant surprise, as there was always the doubt, in that dead fish were not an ideal subject matter to garner sales in a hard market. On the other hand, the old motto still stands true, Quality sells! And the fact is I was happier with this work than I have been for a few years, I feel I am back from firstly my lay-off due to ill health and then further strife with the studio in Marlay Park.

Leaving the studio was the best move I could have made, since then it has improved and lightened considerably. Looking back the latter works from the Marlay studio were all very dark and depressing. Since I moved into the new studio by the pond my work first brightened, and then became free-er and less contrived, I have now come back to more structured work again, but I have managed to keep the life and energy within it.

I am looking forward to 2010, and the promise of a very successful year, both in output of work and sales.

Time marches on, the pre-christmas shows have started. I have collected some work from my framers to go into a group show next week. The work looks very well in the frames I chose for it. I am hoping some of them will sell, but one problem with the Christmas group shows is that they usually have twice as many works hung as would be normal. As a result they can look very crowded and my work is not particularly bright and brash enough to stand out at first glance. I am exhibiting five altogether, they are from my fish series, all square in shape ranging from 10 inches up to 18 inches. It will now depend on how and where they are hung, hopefully they will be hung in proximity and not split up here and there as can happen when the people hanging are trying to squeeze extra numbers in.

I am still progressing with my web-design course, but not really able to do much work in the studio. I am hoping I will get a few commissions after Christmas. I usually do in early January, and my web-design course finishes in mid February, just in time to let me get stuck in to any commissioned work that comes in.

I am going fishing tomorrow, I need a day's R and R. The weather is going to be wet and very windy again though, but still, the fresh air will do me good.

My new website..

My Angling website has gone 'live'. I finished it and uploaded it to the server.
I haven't changed the content as such, but I just replaced the tables with CSS and a bit more design with the images and layout. I also have a full page image on the index page which will switch into the content homepage automatically after 5 seconds (If the link isn't clicked beforehand). All work was done purely with raw code using plain notepad.

I've finished playing with the site for now and it is a lot cleaner than the older one. I am now considering re-working my art gallery site, and replacing the template I am currently using with a completely new build.

If I've any sense I'll wait a while first..... LOL. Well at least until we start using dreamweaver.....

....but who said I was sensible?.

Time is flying by, It's a third of the way through November already. Sadly the web-design course is taking up so much of my time I am not getting time to paint. I have almost finished revamping my angling site though. I will probably upload it in the next week or so. I built it the hard way, using nothing but code, both htm and css.

I built the header image in fireworks, but I have built the hotspots for the links in the image using pure code. The fish is the near 7 pounder I caught late last year, I have another composite image built for my index page but I don't have a copy of it on this computer to upload.

I have a few paintings to collect from my framer this week, they have to be delivered to a group show at the week-end, it will be nice to have a few exhibited, it seems ages since I had an opening.

I am back from our weekend away in Connemara. We stayed in the beautiful surroundings of Lough Inagh Lodge near Recess. We had a great time, both touring around Carna and Cashel, Clifden and Renvyle and wining and dining in the hotel.

Here are a few photos of the area for those that don't know it.

Lough Inagh.

The West CoastLough Inagh Valley

Dubh and I near Carna

Lough InaghBallinahinch Castle

I am still keeping busy with the web design course. I can almost operate Fireworks without using the manual now...LOL. We start on dealing with Dreamweaver next week...and html/css code.
It's funny, I managed without all the bells and whistles for years, but I notice that the new browsers are not showing my angling site properly due to the outdated way it operates, so I need to learn the new techniques and css.

My dog is sulking because she is being left alone all day while I am at the course. The goldfish are nearly jumping into the studio to get their food when I come home in the afternoon... so much for Mr Dependable... LOL. the critters don't know what is going on. I guess they will have to get used to it too.

I need to drop some works into the framing shop this week for a group show in North Dublin in November. I spent last night deciding which works to send. Unusually I was trying to keep the numbers down instead of wondering what would go with what. I have a few little series of works after this years endeavours. But still no landscapes....Oh! for a dry summer!.

I will probably not get a lot of painting done over the winter (other than any commissions I get pre Christmas) with the coursework but I can still go back to my sea-bream when the course is over. In the meantime I'm getting my creative fix from fireworks/photoshop.

I'm going to sign off now, Thursday's Lads night out was postponed to Friday....
order one for me...I'm on my way.

Dreaming of dreamweaver.........

I am very busy taking a web design course in Adobe cs4 at the moment. I am not getting much time to paint, let alone post on my blog. I decided to do a course in web design to allow me to upgrade my angling site, which I built 10 years ago with a decade old system. It badly needs re-doing.
To be honest at the moment CSS script etc. is all new to me, but I hope to be up to date by February when the classes finish.

To be honest I was not even competent on photoshop, or similar programs. I use paint, but that is about all. (There is no substitute for a brush and paint. )
So I am in the middle of learning the ins and outs of Fireworks at the moment prior to moving on to Dreamweaver.

As I get more up to date I will probably have more time to post to my blog, and, more importantly, paint in the studio.

More about fish, and my paintings

I am busy,busy,busy.... working on my new sea-bream paintings. I am having fun with the concept and playing with my paint. I bought a new brand of oil paint from the art suppliers, it is artist quality but it contains much more 'filler' and is much cheaper to buy. This is allowing me to work with thick paint and even some knife work, which I have not done in years. I am refraining from showing the photos of this new work for the moment, since I am experimenting at the moment I am not sure if I will show them.

Because the works are much more stylised I am able to work from my earlier fish studies, and some reference photographs without the need for the actual fish on a plate. I may change my mind later and repaint the fish more realistically, or I may even take them further into abstraction. Yes, I am having fun!