Winter feeding.

I have a steady stream of finches to my bird-seed feeder outside the window. Chaffinches, lots of Goldfinches and a regular flock of Redpolls.

Already, only 3 weeks into the "feeding season" (cold winter) I am already feeding a full feeder of bird-seed every day.

In the meantime the tits are happily eating sunflower seeds out the back from another feeder, and the Greenfinches seem to prefer the peanuts to the seed feeder.

At least the Redpolls eat most of the seed that the Goldfinches chuck away looking for the Niger Seed amongst the other varieties.

In the winter we usually get a wide variety of birds to our feeders, but so far this year there are very few other species yet. This is probably due to the mild weather we have had so far, when it gets colder it will force many birds further south and west to our more moderate climate.

Glenmacnass, Wicklow.

I have just finished (well almost) my last commission for Christmas. It is a view of Glenmacnass in Co. Wicklow, 1 meter square.

I have one or two little touches I wish to do, but in the main it is finished now.

I have photographed it along the way so you can see the work in progression, from the original sketch/design to the finished piece.

This is the Graphite sketch I worked from, giving me my composition and design.

The next stage was drawing and blocking in on the canvas with thin washes of oil paint.

followed swiftly by blocking in my base colours before rechecking my composition against reference photographs. Sadly it is too wintry to try to work on site at this time of year.

This was followed by further blocking in and a little re-drawing, mainly in the area of the waterfall and the larch trees to the top left.

This is a continuation of the blocking in process in the foreground, and I have been adding texture around the midground areas.

This is followed by further detail being added throughout the painting and adding more definition to the blocks of colour.

From here I have begun to finish off areas of the painting, mainly around the mid ground and the road and hedgerow leading to the cottage. I have also added life to the cottage roof.

From this stage on I have increased the detail around the Larch trees, the right hand hill and the cliff-face again. I have painted in the Birch tree over on the right hand side of the painting.

This is what unifies the whole of the right hand side of the work. The fine, strong branches, and the blockier twig areas binding the foreground to the background and a the same time taking the hard edge of the scree slope on the right and breaking it up, this is also helped by the green gorse bush growing out of it. I have started to bring the reds in by painting the fence in, with a rusty brown.

This final stage is where it has all come together. The repainting of the tree in the foreground. This has now been darkened and warmed up, and details such as the small branches added to break up the straight line again. The wire fence has been painted again, to reduce the red slightly as more purples, pinks and reds have been added to the tree itself making it a warmer grey than in the previous image, which has also brought the tree forward from the background cliff-face and the mid ground landscape.

Now the painting is finished as such the whole atmosphere has changed, and it reminds me of the weather we had the day I went up and took my reference photographs for the work.

I have managed to get light in the painting even though there was no sunlight to create highlights and shadows, and yet the work has the feel of a damp overcast November day.

Receptions and parties....

I have framed my works for the exhibition in Clontarf GAA club on the 25th, 26th and 27th of November. Along with this painting of the Pigeonhouse, I am sending the two fish paintings I spoke about earlier
and I am also sending October Light . All works will be for sale at the show, (Seafield road, Clontarf, Dublin.) opening on Friday evening with a wine reception at 8.pm and will continue on Saturday from 11am to 7pm and Sunday from 11am to 6pm.

I am really looking forward to the weekend as I have a party to go to, and I'm looking forward to meeting up with folks I haven't seen for years. It is amazing how time flies, and how you drift apart from your extended families over the years. As some family members are spread all over the world, it is not surprising though.

Clontarf, and Puppy dogs.

I think Clontarf is finished. I didn't do a lot more work to it, just some further work on the left-hand side. I have a plein-air frame left over from AITO in Wexford, which I have used. I think it suits the work. I just need to sign the painting before fixing it into the frame.

The painting will be in the Annual exhibition in Aras Cluain Tarbh, Seafield road, Clontarf, Dublin on 25th, 26th & 27th of November.

My little girl, Dubh, has just been operated on again at the vetenary surgery. The poor little dog has had two more growths removed and has two 10cm incisions, one on her back and one on her belly. The poor dog lost four teeth too, while the vet had her under anaesthetic.

We are not a happy puppy at the moment, and because of her losing the teeth she wasn't allowed a bone this evening when we had Lamb chops for dinner. The upside is that she is getting twice as many tasty treats, as she has to take five tablets a day instead of her usual three.

To the un-initiated that means bits of chicken, sausage or black-pudding with the pill hidden inside. These are called sweeties and are the highlight of the morning, and again in the evening, to the extent that I'm not allowed to forget them.

A work in progress.. Clontarf

These first two images are photos of the sea-front in Clontarf. They are in effect part of my referrences. The first painted image can be seen to follow the first photograph quite closely. (this is because the photo was framed to follow my main plan for the work) The second image is of the Cordyline foliage in beds along the front, and the third image is of other beds with palms, which suffered badly last winter.

The next three images are of the work in progress. I started by blocking in the old power station, and the foliage, along with a lamp-post. The background has been built up with layers of thick oil paint, and the white rings have been painted over the red of the chimneys. I added spirals into the foliage of the tree on the left. After ruminating for a while, mainly when the paint was curing, I decided the foliage needed to be less heavy. I made it much more stylised, allowing the sky to come through. I continued the same effect in the lower foliage, and brought the low sea-front wall into the painting. The third image has more work done both in the foreground, and on the lampost.

I don't think I am nearly finished yet, but the newer layers need to dry. While this happens I will study the work further and re-work it my imagination.

October light, Clontarf.

'October light, Clontarf.' oil on canvas; 30" by 15"

I have just finished a commissioned painting. Now I can go back to work to finish another for a group exhibition in North Dublin next month. I need to send my list of works in next week, so I'll need to have it finished, or nearly so, before then.

The painting illustrated is an earlier work, which I am sending to the same exhibition. It is a Plein air view of Howth Head from Clontarf, executed in oil paints with a painting knife. I want to combine it with my sea-bass painting (shown earlier) and the view of the pigeon-house that I am currently working on. I will endeavour to post the third work after the weekend, or if all goes well, before it.

Some landscape painting again..

My fish painting has come to a stop for a while. I have completed a couple of small landscape works this week for one of my galleries. They seem to be popular with some buyers at the moment. Possibly because they are small and affordable, they are only small studies so their price-point is lower than more finished and complicated pieces. I enjoy painting them at times, it is nice to be able to just paint what is in front of you, and by the time you start looking for the little details they are finished. Most of them are only 10" by 8", and sometimes I paint them 12" by 10". These sizes leave very little room for detail, so I can work quite loosely and freely. I have mislaid my camera so I have no images of the current work, these are two of an earlier trip... my phone cannot capture such small works, it doesn't have a facility for close-ups. I think I may have to invest in a new camera, unless we left it up in Sligo it seems to have vanished into thin air..???

These are painted with a knife which suits small works of large spaces. I'm off to Sligo this afternoon, for a final look for the aforementioned camera in the cottage and caravan. If I don't have any luck there it will be off to the camera shop I think.

Finn Eces' salmon revisited.

I have used this theme before in my work, relatively recently in both paint (both in 2008) and a lino-cut print

still available. This newest creation is more abstracted. It is a painting following on from my two recent works, with use of thick impasto planes. I have used the prehistoric symbol for water across the top, (as in my award winning "Danube" Ex-Libris, and the most recent trout painting) and the background plane is built up within spirals and chevrons, all decorative elements of prehistoric artifacts. This built up layer is then carved with slashes in the paint naming the piece (for the true scholars out there, I know the ogham should read in the opposite direction.) Bradán Feasa, the Salmon of Knowledge. The Salmon itself originally was blocked in using similar colours to the background, silver/blue/green. I changed my mind however after considering the image for a while. As an angler I know that salmon turn dark red and brown after a period in the river. This salmon had eaten nine hazel-nuts from the tree of knowledge, therefor it would be autumn and the salmon would be dark red. I have left my thumb-print in the paint on the fishes gill-plate in reference to Fionn Mac Cumhaill's burn thumb. The colour of the fish can also be representative of the cooking process so a thumbprint would not be out of place in the narative.

Further work on my two fish paintings

Well, I reworked the water in this one a little. I think I may leave it now.

The second work has been reworked extensively, without the silver foil though. I am quite happy with this one as it is, and I have even signed off on it. Always a sign that I know I have done enough.

I am going off to lough Sheelin tomorrow, hopefully I'll catch another trout to use for further pieces along the lines of this one. That's my excuse anyway. ;)

Playtime in the studio... anything to get out of the clean-up.

I started a studio clear-out with interesting results. Those that know me will know I hate tidying.

I reworked an old landscape/seascape study I had laying around in the studio. I painted a sea-bass over part of the seascape, turning the work into a painting of a fish rather than the original intended work. I then painted the remaining sections with thick impasto colour, applied with a knife as a flat surface. The landscape/seascape was too weak to make a good painting, but it made an interesting back-drop for the Bass painting. I may still rework the foreground area, I feel it needs to be flattened more (It is actually flatter in colour and tone than the photograph).

I also reworked a quick trout study with the same thick flat paint technique, carving the prehistoric symbols for water through the paint. This is still experimental. I am going to rework this, in blue and steel grey rather than the green and earth tones. I have used these to give me a contrasting background before building up another layer or two, in which I intend to allow some under painting to bleed through.

These are canvases that I did not intend to continue with, so I can happily experiment with them. I am going to look for some silver foil for the second piece, to work into the surface, I have gold leaf in the studio but no silver. I will happily play with this one for a while. Why not? I'm having some fun... ...but it will have to wait unti Monday.