"Exchanged for other gold"

I'm continuing to explore the idea of a gold thread running through my landscape. I think there is plenty more to explore with this. This time, I worked in layers, glazing over existing pieces that I had created earlier in the week. They were lovely, but lacked something. I'm much happier with them now, except for one that was a total disaster! 5 out of 6 ain't bad. In one of them, the Ocean became a sky, another a bog. I might turn them around a little more and see what happens. They were all inspired by a video of the coast and mountains near Allihies on the Beara Peninsula. I have glued one to claybord, and applied some Dorland's wax medium to protect it. I really love how it turned out, the thread of gold colour, the rhythm of it all, the feeling of being on the edge of the Atlantic.

Here is what they looked like at the first layer

Another Day - Beara

A screenshot from my website, just to remind you that my exhibition, "Another Day - Beara" is continuing in the Allihies Copper Mines Museum and Copper Café, until 31st May. Don't miss it! The works look great in the space, if I may say so myself!

Click on this link to see the images and the opening speech by poet John W. Sexton.  He had very interesting insights into my work. 

Cill Rialaig - paintings - Set 1

First sunrise. So dramatic. Here are my impressions. 

Sweeping view - Is it now time to move on?

 

I had sketched this view in a concertina sketchbook a good few months ago. On this day, I wanted to try and paint it in a long format on watercolour paper, but very much keeping the spirit of the sketch. I drew the main shapes with a couple of Neocolor crayons. I premixed my main colours, preparing 2 darks, 2 mids and 2 lights. I just went for it then. Some areas required a couple of layers. And when it was well dry, I added squiggles with a few colour pencils. It doesn't look like a sophisticated painting, but I love the feeling of it and it brings me straight back to that sweeping view near Allihies.

Is it now time to move on from these scenes from the Beara peninsula? I don't know yet. There is still a lot I want to explore.

On a roll

It feels so good when I paint again. In the old days, I used to only have time to paint while on holidays or between Christmas and New Year, a time where most people who work in an office take time off in Ireland. Now, it tends to be the week when I don't paint. It's a time for eating too much and watching movies together and going for nice walks if the weather is dry enough. And it feels good. But I miss painting, even if it's only for a week. So by the 3rd of January, I was ready to get back into it. Still obsessed with the landscape of Beara, and I keep finding new little corners that I want to paint, working mostly from photos I have taken over the years. This one is a zoomed-in look at a big hill.

Abstract and representational - just playing

Using the back of watercolours that I don't feel strongly about is a great way to trick the brain into loosening up! I was planning to go abstract, but the quarter-sheet format called for another go at that landscape. For the next one, I taped the paper into a square, and felt free to explore in abstract.

I always like the close-ups. I really want to zoom in in my next version!

Exploring Beara, still

 

The red rock reminds me of an octopus. I like that. Exploring and feeling completely absorbed in the doing.

Another look at that landscape - am I done?

I keep thinking that I'm done with these views of Beara, yet each time, I find something new that excites me. This turn in the road, as you drive up after leaving Allihies behind you. I just love it. I pulled over to the side of the road, and took it all in. I took lots of photos and a few videos. I painted this one from a video which I kept on a loop. I hope my painting conveys that feeling of joy that I felt. It was February, but the light was amazing, as is often the case in Ireland - better light in winter than summer.

 

Exploring an idea

I am writing this in early December. I've just finished a big online course. I am tired (and emotional). Maybe I need to give myself a little bit of time. But that's not how my brain works. So, here I am exploring ideas around how to paint the landscape of the Beara peninsula. Right now, it's just throwing ideas on paper and see what excites me. I found that nothing was exciting me today. My studio room is North facing and the light is so bad at this time of the year. Maybe I need a daylight lamp? Both for painting and for keeping grey moods at bay. Yet, I was completely absorbed while applying paint to paper and I am seeing things I like now that I'm looking at them on the computer screen.

Squares to look at colours. I did these directly in my studio book, but now I want to cut them up so I can look at them individually!

Using a sketchbook to play with ideas. I have a beautiful Etchr sketchbook that has been languishing on the shelf for ages. Today was the day for it to fulfill its destiny. Felt good while I was working. Need to see it when we have daylight again before I decide if I like it or not

I like these bits. Ideas? Paint a few square paintings. Composition is easy in a square.

Exploring Beara - love how the light and shadows play on top of that mountain

Exploring Beara - love how the light and shadows play on top of that mountain. Trying out marks and colours in watercolour, Neocolor and pastels. The Light Blue Neocolor is perfect for the sky. I must see if I can find a watercolour pigment that would be as bright as this?  I know it looks like a big caterpillar, but it's a mountain, I promise!

Intention - at last - FYJ Week 11

Been waiting for this for weeks now. Week 11 of Find Your Joy. Intention. And you know what? Basically the instruction is to paint whatever we want!! Which I've been doing all along. No more courses for me for a long time. I'm so frustrated with it. I just feel like all I am is a number among the thousand other students. I can hear the ka-ching of the money machine.

So, here I am, doing my own thing! These are inspired by the landscape of the Beara Peninsula. Lots of big mountains and brambles.

Work in progress. Next, the thinking and editing stage.

This is an earlier version of the same painting

And another one in progress

FYJ Week 5 - Day 3

I had to think about this one, process the information, listen to the first Q&A, and then I decided I wanted to combine various elements I have enjoyed in the last few weeks, week 2 and week 4 in particular. So here is the one with a limited palette (Mayan Yellow, Quin Gold, Carmine Red and Phthalo Blue red shade). I knew I would get some deep darks with phthalo blue, and that the Sennelier Carmine red is super strong. I wanted two yellows for a bit more variety. I also used yellow and blue Dermatograph pencils (they're essentially a resist). That's more or less it. 

I definitely want to explore more of this after the course is finished. I don't have more time this week to pursue it further, but will make notes in my studio book. Squiggles, strong splashing, and lifting with a plastic card are three types of marks that feel very me, and yet, I would have avoided them in the past in my watercolours, as I felt that they were not "painterly" enough. Whose voice is that talking??  

Close-ups

FYJ Week 4 - Day 1

All the art I have chosen for inspiration is representational. With a strong focus on watercolours and clouds. Yet, at least half of the art on our walls at home is abstract!! It's ok to like many different things. Or maybe what we have on our walls is a reflection of what we both like, versus what I alone like. I wonder?

Anyways, it will be no surprise to most of you that the first artist I have chosen to steal from is Uma Kelkar. She is a contemporary watercolour artist, and I love everything she paints, in particular her big skies. 

I found that it wasn't so easy to achieve the effects that look effortless in her paintings. I am not surprised. I will just have to keep at it!

This is from the same photos I used last week, just decided to paint in portrait format so I could give the sky more space. All very dramatic. I think there is some Moonglow, Lavender and also some Phthalo blue in there. I might add a layer to get rid of those light splodges in the cloud band?

Here is how the first layer looked.

 

FYJ Week 3 - Day 5

This one wasn't so much about an emotion, but about the feeling of being in that place which is very dear to my heart. Watercolour on cold press paper, half sheet. Clearly didn't think about composition. A crop would definitely help here. When I have time, I will try a different version, with softer edges too where the rain kisses the land. Still, when I look at it, it brings me right back, better than the photo I used to inspire me.