Here’s a photo-story about our move to Ireland. The photos are all by Séamas Johnston, my husband. He is also the architect of the move, the new studios and our new life. He’s been amazing. It’s great to see all his hard work finally come together.
Packing the Car, Swansea (before much stuff was packed)Endless Packing! It felt never ending.Lateral Flow Test – one line means no covid. We discover that our tonsils are not that dangley bit at the back of your throat. We also did a PCR test but there are no photos of that.Irvine Moving Solutions – they are moving our stuff – we saw their van coming off the Belfast ferry at Birkenhead!Stena Line Ferry Terminal at Birkenhead, Liverpool. It was a long wait to get on.The otherside of the Irish Sea. Early Morning Belfast from the ferryHow everything has grown at Meadow Cottage!The studio windowSéamas reflected in the studio windowsHattie doing “Cat Patrol with her eyes” on a new viewWe ALL love the new multi-fuel stove!Finally, I am in my beautiful new studio. It was made by L E Haslett & Co. in Tyrone https://www.facebook.com/lehaslettI love the view from the studio. I cant wait until my stuff arrives from storage and I can get back to painting.
Just to warn you. I have access to wifi this weekend (on a 3 day trial) but we decided to use a different company for our internet but they can’t install it for another 10 days so my responses will be delayed. My business remains closed until the middle of this month (July 2021).
Port Eynon and Horton from Salt House, Gower (A recent commission)
Just a quick notice to say that my shop on this website (www.emmafcownie.com), and shops on Artfinder.com and Singulart.com will be closed for a month from today. This is to cope with final packing, tidying up and a million and one things we have to do before leaving Wales as well as the period of self-isolation we have to undergo in Donegal (14 days, possibly less, depending on the results of our PCR tests after day 5).
I like this painting. I find it very calming. I especially like the clouds. I also like the emptiness of the beach. That is something I aspire to in my home.
This painting is actually wraped in bubblewrap in in the upstairs hallway. It had been hanging in our bedroom with three others for a couple of weeks. They had been refugees. They were evacuated from my attic studio because I had needed to paint the ceiling. I have since painted the bedroom wall. I still have the floor to finish.
Almost painted!
All of my other paintings are wrapped in bubblewrap and stored elsewhere. We are in the midsts of packing up and redecorating the house to put it on the market and move to Ireland. It is a mammoth task. The more we do the more it seems to grow. We are at the wall-papering-and-painting-floors stage. I say “we” but I should say “he”. My husband, Séamas, has done 98% of it. He has spent months and months working at it. I have been putting stuff in boxes and labelling them. I have only recently started helping with the decorating. It is exhausting. I wake up every morning and think, “I am so tired”. It has taken me weeks but I am 80% there. Unfortuantely, I feel like I have been 80% there for several weeks now. I once read somewhere that you should start packing a month before you intend to move. I have been doing this for at least three!
I initially spent months trying to pretend it was not happening because I found the thought of it too stressful. I am not alone, many people (only 40% amazingly) say that moving house is more stressful than going through a divorce and most people (60%) say they are put off moving because of the change involved. That’s me.
I have been getting rid of stuff for well over a year and a half now. I started with selling my surf boards on ebay then my old academic books on Amazon, but the pandemic put a stop to that. I have been getting rid of other stuff lately; clothes, china, novels, picture frames. I have found it utterly exhausting and it provokes all sorts of emotions, not all of them pleasant. There is a wierd sort of grieving in throwing things out.
A visit to the Council Dump (sorry, Recycling Centre) is one of my favourite things to do. It takes so much emotional and physical energy to get stuff there, it’s a joy to come home without it. There has been the occasional jumper or pair of shoes that I decided to keep or put on ebay rather than send to a charity shop, but mostly it’s gone. I cant believe how much stuff I still have. It’s like a bottomless pit. Everytime I think I am getting there I open another cupboard or wardrobe and find more! Our house certainly has a lot of storage space.
This process has been like shedding many “skins” that I inhabited in the past. One skin has been the academic books from when I was a lecturer and researcher in Medieval History. Another were the “tidy” clothes and lots of History books and DVDs, from when I was a school teacher. I threw out a lot of running gear. I have accepted that after breaking my leg so badly that I will never pound the streets for exercise again. So the boots and shoes with anything but the flatest of heels went for the same reason. I also finally admitted to myself that I will never go back into the classroom as a teacher. It has been 4 years now. Who am I kidding? I didn’t renew my teacher’s licence this year. What a relief. Come to think of it, I don’t think I was sent a renewal notice. Never mind. It amounts to the same thing.
This has made me see how we gather “stuff” around us. I think I do it to give myself a sense of security and identity. Maybe this is because I moved house a lot as a child. I lived in 5 houses in three different parts of the country and went to 7 different schools before I was aged 11. Apparently, moving house when you are a child isn’t terribly good for you. Setting off for university, my father had to tell me to decant part of my record collection because there just wasn’t enough space in his car for my stuff and us! He had to bring it all back at the end of term too! As an adult I have lived in three different cities; Cardiff, London and Swansea. We have been in Swansea for 21 years. I have gathered a lot of “moss” that time. Séamas has also gathered a fair bit of DIY stuff, those sealing guns in particular (see illustration).
Sealing/Caulking Gun
I don’t know where I get my hoarding from. Not my mother that’s for sure. She has been doing her version of Swedish Death Cleaning for years. “Welsh Death Cleaning”, you could call it. It is a sort of a minimalism for older people. She very disciplined about clearing stuff out so that she can either a) move smaller one day or b) so we don’t have to do this when she is no longer with us. No object or piece of clothing stays in my parents home for very long if a) it is no longer worn on a regular basis b) regularly used or c) very decorative. Otherwise, off it goes to the local charity shop. Many years ago, when my sister moved to London “temporarily” to do an MA at the Royal College of Art, she left her old Morris Minor car at my parent’s house . After a few years, when it was it clear that she wasn’t moving back home, my mother sold the car. She gave the money to my sister. Jane is still a bit mifted about it. If you left to her it would still be in the drive! I guess all that moving house over the years taught my mother discipline.
When we bought this house over 20 years ago, I declared I was never going to move house again. My mother said that’s what women say after giving birth, but most of them go on to have more children! Yes, life has a way of making you eat your words. Here I am preparing to move house.
My tendancy to gather of stuff accelerated after I had my breakdown. I once tried to do the Marie Kondo thing (in fact I found a few rolled up in my airing cupboard Maire Kondo-style) but I got overwhelmed. I couldn’t keep it up. I lacked the energy to do anything much, let alone decide what to chuck out and then do it. It is a form of hoarding. Yes, it’s an ugly word. I am not as bad as those poor souls they make TV programmes on Channel 5 about, yet. I am still somewhere on that unpleasant spectrum. It’s a sort of compulsion. I can’t let go. Breaking my leg, didn’t help either. When everyone else was decluttering in the early days of the first lockdown, I was confined to the bedroom! Then, when I was ready to get rid of stuff, all the non-essential charity shops were shut! For months.
The strange thing is that once I have cleared space, I can see and appreciate what I have choosen to keep better. I now look at stuff and think, do I really need that? I go back to the packed boxes and take things out; thinking: why did I pack that? It’s like the ebb and flow of the sea. I clear out stuff, feel some satisfaction and then I find more stuff and have to go through the process all over again. The other side of the coin is that twice yesterday, I went to find something, only to realised that I had chucked it out!
I need to be tougher and get rid of more stuff. I follow “Be more with Less” decluttering account on Instagram in the hope that some of the inspirational quotes will sink in. I know I have a long, long way to go. The only “skin” I want now is that of an artist and blogger. I don’t kid myself that I won’t buy more stuff in the future, but I hope I will be better at shedding it more regularly. I will be following my mother’s example! She’ll laugh at that!
Here’s another of my recent paintings, it was also hanging in the bedroom.
On Thursday I did something I have never done before. I did a presentation to a bunch people in London via the internet. During the darkness winter days of lock down I have sat at my computer and listened to quite a few people give presentations on subjects as diverse as Art (Jennifer Pockinski, Elizabeth O’Reilly), Irish Language (Manchán Mangan), Irish Bogs (Creative Rathangan Meithea), Irish Cottages (Ulster Architectuaral Society) and Literature (Gabriel Byrne) and thoroughly enjoyed them.
Artfinder: Mental Health Awareness Week
This Thursday, I got my chance to see behind the scenes of these sorts of events and talk about my experiences for Mental Health Awareness Week with On Thursday I did something I have never done before. I did a presentation to a bunch people in London via the internet. During the darkness winter days of lock down I have sat at my computer and listened to quite a few people give presentations on subjects as diverse as Art (Jennifer Pockinski, Elizabeth O’Reilly), Irish Language (Manchán Mangan), Irish Bogs (Creative Rathangan Meithea), Irish Cottages (Ulster Architectuaral Society) and Literature (Gabriel Byrne) and thoroughly enjoyed them.the team behind the online gallery, Artfinder (www.artfinder.com). I was also featured in a news blog on their website. During the pandemic many people are probably used using Zoom or Teams for their work meetings but I have never had this experience before. I think this is why I suggested a quick trial hook up the day the before. I had also seen things go slightly awry during those webinmars. My personal favourite was when the speaker’s laptop battery suddenly died and he had to rush off to find another laptop and the chair had to fill in for ten minutes whilst he did this!
Googlemeet and Zoom
I am so glad that we did a practice run with Jane and Kirsty. We started with Zoom. The sound on my laptop was dreadful and everything sounded like it was underwater. Jane and Kirsy sounded like a couple of unintelligable dolphins! Between my old Laptop and a ropey internet connection (Now TV, or “Not, Now TV” as we like to call it in this house), it wasn’t working. I wanted the throw the laptop across the room, cry and/or swear a lot. Obviously, I did neither.
What I wanted to do to my laptop
Eventually, Kirsty, the tech genius, came up with the idea of doing the meeting with Google Meet. “It is very low tech”, she said. “That’ll suit me just fine, I am low tech”, I said! The rest of the test worked well and we had a chat about what it was like working remotely.
On the afternoon of the presentation I waited nervously for the meeting to start and even said a prayer beforehand. Then all these youthful faces pinged onto the screen. More and more until it was full with 9 boxes and more names listed along the top of the screen of people I could not see. I am not sure if the prayer helped because I still had problems getting my screen to share my powerpoint. Thankfully Michal (the CEO) talked me through which buttons to press , in which order and we were finally in business.
Not the Artfinder Team – but my screen did look a bit like this
I then had that wierd moment before you start speaking that seemed to stretch on for ever. I looked at my screen. All I could see was my presentation, no faces now, which was odd too. I took a big breath and began.
OK – I am just going to give you the highlights.
In 2006 I started having panic attacks on the motorway – I saw a couple of (not very good) therapist/hypnotherapists and bought a lot of books on panic attacks. It did not solve my problem. I avoided motorways.
2012 Minor Car Accident – which led to me developing PTSD & Burn Out (also known as a “Breakdown”). This resulted in hypervigilance/nightmares/flashbacks/inability to concentrate/exhaustion. I found a very good therapist and had EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and during the course of this therapy started painting every day. It was a very slow recovery and it took a year to return to work part time
How art has helped me with my recovery / mental health over the years: – I find it calming, restorative, meditative and it boosts my fragile self-esteem. It also improves my concentration & energy levels. It provides a positive focus to my life, I find the colours therapeutic and painting also provides an intellectual challenge as there is a lot of problem-solving in painting. It also provides social connections through blogging & social media
As this was a presentation to Artfinder staff I talked about how important Artfinder has been in my journey into becoming a professional artist.
My husband, Séamas, joined the Artfinder site on my behalf in April 2013. He also set up a website a blog for me.
My first sale on Artfinder was in June 2013. It was a giclée print of “A Tenby Reflection” for £39
I sold my first painting via Artfinder July 2013
In the last 8 years I have sold over 800 works via Artfinder and gained over 6000 followers, which makes me the most followed artist on the site!
I left teaching in 2017 and became a full-time artist – I put a lot more time and energy into my painting, my website, blogging and social media sites
Early Work
Tenby Reflections (2013) My first sale on ArtfinderPerpetual Light (2013)The Light RefractedWinter Morning Light on ParkmillA Slender Light
Gower Paintings
Evening on Three CliffsColoured Sands at Three Cliffs
Ireland
Around Cloughcor (Arranmore)From Cloughcor To Maghery (Arranmore)
Mental Health, the Covid-19 pandemic and other emergencies
PTSD – I tend to think of the worse possible outcome to most things at the best of times. I usually have to talk myself down from my initial extreme reaction, but for once in early 2020 I was RIGHT! This new virus was an end-of-the-world scenario!
I kept a diary to help cope with the sense of panic and anxiety I was experiencing and then. I took my dogs for a walk in the woods on my own (Séamas was in Ireland)
I tripped and broke my leg and had to wait 5 hours for the emergency services to rescue me. You can read that long story here.
I spent 9 days in hospital waiting for an operation to pin my leg.
During my long recovery from this experience, I reflected on the differences between how we all, myself included, treat physical and mental health issues. With physical health issues there is the physical pain (there was certainly lots of that), the practical difficulties of getting around, frustration at the loss of independence and the physical exhaustion as your body heals. I also discovered that this sort of trauma was easy to talk about. There was a lot of public sympathy & concern from people.
It was a lot easier to deal with than mental health issues. I was delighted to realise that I dealt with the trauma and pain with (mostly) good humour and fortitude – although that wore off a bit when my rehab took a whole lot longer than I was expecting. I felt mentally sound even if my body wasn’t.
In contrast, when I experienced my mental breakdown, there was a lot of isolation, shame, fear, embarrassment on my part as well as physical exhaustion. I had always been a tough, independent and reliable person and I hated that my breakdown changed that. I still struggle with accepting my limitations. It was clear that a lot of other people felt sorry for me. That was not easy to bear either.
One of the few positives of the pandemic is that people have been more open about how they have struggled with their mental health. I think that it has shown people that a lot of mental health issues are related to having to bear “unbearable” situations. My huband, Séamas, says I didn’t have a breakdown down but a break through. My life, as it was, was making me ill and it had to change. During the pandemic that unbearable situation was universal. Everyone had to deal with having our freedoms curtailed, especially the freedom to see our family and friends. Many people people discovered that the joy of doing things with your hands/body such as gardening, yoga, painting, baking saved their sanity. I know that in my darkest hour I was making scones with Séamas! Art continues to keep me sane.
I answered a number of questions from Michal and staff at Artfinder. What came up: Had I painted before the 2012 accident? What can Artfinder do to help people with Mental Health Issues? How do you help someone with mental health issues? Different therapies and medications and how they might work for person and not for another.
The presentation wasn’t recorded, and in a way I am glad about that. I don’t think I would have been so open about my experiences if I thought what I said could be picked over and examined by people who weren’t present at the time. It was a strange situation to give a talk to a group of people I couldn’t really see. When I have given talks before I have had people’s faces and body language to help gauge their reactions to what I was saying. This time I didn’t. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the whole thing afterwards because of this although the staff were all very positive. I hope that my audience got something out of the experience!
I will finish with a quote from “Anthem” by the Canadian singer and poet, Leonard Cohen.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
This week I passed an important blogging milestone. On Tuesday moring I was greeted with the message that my wordpress site had passed 100,000 all-times views!
Wow!
My husband, Séamas, set up this wordpress site for me over seven years ago. When I took it over full-time in 2015, I had 91 followers, now I have just over 800! Views for my site have steadily been growing but 2020-21 was a bumper year.
Breaking my leg last year provoked the most comments by far!
Comments
I would like to say a great big thank you to every one who visited my website, bought my work, read my blogs and left comments!
It seems that I like animals almost as much as I like Art. Turns out that Wayne (Barnes) of Tofino Photography is my chattiest follower. He certainly makes me laugh! He takes wonderful photographs of the incredible wildlife of Western Canada – eagles, bears, wolves, orcas and humming birds! Take a look here.
A Candian bear catching his lunch: Image by Wayne Barnes
Thank you to everyone who has visited my website and blog. Whether you have just stopped by to look at my paintings, read my blogs but especially those who “like”, comment and buy my work. Without you I could not continue to make art.
I have been on the Artfinder website since 2013, and during that time I have been fortunate enough to sell an incredible 788 artworks! I am very proud of the 254 5-star reviews that I have collected over the years via Artfinder.
So, I thought that I would share with you some of the customer reviews and messages I received last month from the collectors of my work on Artfinder. They are the icing on the cake for me and my husband Séamas, who has been working incredibly hard packing and shipping my work whilst I am recovering from my broken leg & ankle. I often think that my collectors describe my work better than I can and love reading what they say. I am very happy that my work is appreciated and enjoyed around the world.
After You Are GoneThe Red Roofed House, Ireland
Review by Maureen, I love these beautiful, atmospheric pieces. Emma captures her subjects to perfection. These two pieces are special to me as they remind me of my youth, growing up in an offshore Island in Ireland I look forward to seeing more of Emma’s work.
Winter Shopping
Review by Laurent- “This [“Winter Shopping”] is the third painting from Emma I have bought. As before, everything has been perfect… great communication, delivery in two days.. And it is a beautiful painting!
StormOver Inishbofin
Message: Dear Emma, The painting [“Storm Over Inishbofin, Ireland”] has just arrived safely. It is lovely and I especially like the contrast between the optimistic houses and the darkening sky! Best wishes, Katharine
Between Tides, Tenby
Review by Cameron, Have been viewing Emma’s works & style for a while now so grey happy to finally have 1 of her works hanging in my home [“Between Tides, Tenby”].
Hazy Tenby
Review by Elissa, “Love this painting [“Hazy Tenby”] which was despatched and received within a few days of ordering. Thanks so much, Emma”
Roshin Acres, Ireland
Review By Helen, “We were so pleased to purchase the painting [“Roshin Acres, Irealand”]. It is beautiful and when it arrived it was what we had hoped for when we purchased it. It arrived super quick”.
I feel quite silent at the moment. I don’t have much to say. I think it’s because I am concentrating on my exercises. It has been very tiring. Recovering from a broken leg & ankle is a surprisingly long process. I have been asked a few times if my leg has healed yet. Well, yes it’s not broken anymore but it turns out there’s a bit more to it than that.
I have read that most people are able to normally walk again in three months, although the bones take quite a bit longer to fully heal. I sort of assumed that once the cast was off, it would not be long before you could walk again. I was given a leaflet by my hospital called “Following a Broken Ankle” in place of actual physical therapy. In this leaflet it was claimed that “some people return to [their sport or activity] within a few days after the cast is removed”. I’d like to meet these miraculous people. It has been 4 weeks since I first started putting weight on my ankle and I am far from “back to normal”.
My first experience of putting my foot on the ground was very odd. The muscles and tendons had seized up. I was like the rusted tin man. It felt like there were tight belts inside my foot stopping it move. It felt so weird that I initially thought that those were the plates in my foot. I have realized since that this a very daft notion as the plates and pins are in my leg not my foot. It was very uncomfortable putting weight on my leg and foot. My leg was weak as the muscles in my calf and upper leg were smaller and wasted. I had bought a set of resistance bands to exercise with and these were very effective at toning those skinny muscles. I worked hard at my exercises and needed to sleep a lot.
Most of these exercises were found on the internet. Some more were kindly sent to me by a fellow artist, Nancy, who also broken her leg but gets to go to actual rehab. So here I am 4 weeks later, I can walk short distances but I struggle to climb more than a few stairs at a time. I have made it down-stairs twice in the last week. I am currently practicing standing on one leg – the recovering leg. That was pretty scary to start with. The tendons in my ankle are still tight and uncomfortable but my range of motion is improving. I have to concentrate hard when I am walking so that I don’t limp. My husband, Séamas, has helped with the exercises. He has watched how I walk to suggest improvements and encouragement.
Perhaps in another 2 weeks, I will be more normal. Every day I make progress but it is slow progress. There has been no magical moment when nothing is stiff anymore and everything moves like the other foot. I suspect that day (if it exists) is still months away.
I am very grateful that I can finally stand on my own two feet again. I sometimes just stand up for just for fun, because I can. I am happy that I can carry something as I walk, as I no longer need a crutch. I feel that I will make it up those steep stairs to the attic studio soon, but not this week. Maybe next.
I made it down two flights of stairs to see the dogs!
A year’s a long time in art. When I look back at my paintings from early 2019, it feels like I made them much longer ago than that! This selection of “popular” (most likes/biggest reach) is based on my Instagram account, there are many more images that I shared on Facebook, that were also popular but are not included here. The work in progress photos are often very popular, sometimes they are more popular than the final painting!
The most popular nine posts/paintings are all of Donegal, Ireland, paintings.
A selection of some of my most popular Donegal paintings from 2019
Here are my most popular posts/paintings of landscapes, people and animals of Gower, Wales and Stroud, England.
Some more of my most popular paintings from 2019
Finally, a selection of commissioned work. I particularly enjoyed painting the beautiful Maine Coon cats, especially as pet portraits are usually of the canine variety!
Selection of Commissioned work from 2019
My personal favorite from 2019 is this one. There is something about the neatness of the houses on the island that I relish in this painting.
Owey in Spring
Of course, the irony is that one of my most popular posts of 2019 on social media was not a painting but a photograph that my husband took on the spur of the moment of us in woolly hats (and my new Donegal jumper) on Christmas Day!
Seamas and me!
Here’s wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2020!
It’s a long way to Donegal. About 400 miles. That includes the bit of sea, St George’s channel, that lies in between West Wales and the Republic of Ireland.
It took me 3 days to drive from our house in Swansea, South Wales to our house in Burtonport, Donegal. It took me another 2 and a half days to drive back (I got faster).
I know Google maps says you can do the journey in 12 hours in 3 minutes but that doesn’t take account factors such as ferry crossing times, day-light and human exhaustion and how slowly I drive.
I avoid motorways. I have a phobia of driving on motorways. It was triggered by a panic attack that occurred at night on the motorway bridge between Neath and Swansea many years ago.
I have had hypnotherapy, read countless books but to no avail. So, my top speed is about 60-miles per hour but I tend to cruise at about 50 (depending on the conditions and the speed limit, of course). I took me a while to get to 60 miles per hour.
I usually only drive locally so it took me a while to feel comfortable driving over 60 miles per hours.
I did all the driving, my husband in the passenger seat, taking care of the dogs and navigating our route to Donegal.
We decided to break the journey up and Seamas had booked four separate B&Bs to stay in en route (with our dogs) to ensure that I could cope with the driving. I have been back in the UK a week, have come down with a cold but it was worth every bit of effort.
Driving through a country is a real education; it is quite different from flying. Where you mostly see the insides of airports, although the flight into Donegal’s tiny airport is absolutely stunning and no wonder they been voted most scenic landing in the world for the last two years running.
Ireland is a big country (I expect those from North America & Australia are scoffing at that statement) but it’s not quick to travel across unless you are flying. Correction, it’s relatively easy to get to Dublin but not so easy to get to Donegal. There is no railway line (they were closed in the 1940s), no motorway and the most direct route cuts through Northern Ireland, which is only a problem as the “A” roads in Fermanagh are small, windy and not as quick to drive along as the “N” routes in the Republic of Ireland.
The Republic of Ireland has changed a lot since I first visited it in the early 1990s. The impression you get driving across the South-Western countries and the Midlands is of a, modern, confident, prosperous and fast growing country.
The rolling landscape of Kilkenny reminded me of Monmouthshire on the Welsh borders with England, the Midland counties are full of farms and the roads, whilst busy, are in no way as hectic as British roads.
Crossing into county Donegal and then approaching Donegal town, I felt real excitement at the sight of dramatic mountains looming in the distance.
It felt like seeing Snowdonia or the Highlands of Scotland.
This was a different part of the world. The road behind me and ahead was almost completely empty. This helped a lot, crossing a massive bridge on the “N” road, as I could slow down without annoying other road-users, thus helping with my anxiety.
Outside the cottage in Burtonport
Burtonport is an area of Donegal known as the Rosses.
Along the west side lies the Atlantic Ocean, it’s sometimes merciless and raging, at others it is as smooth as a silk sheet and as clear as glass.
The coastline is full of inlets and tiny islands. Inland the landscape is strewn with loughs with massive granite rocks. It’s like no other landscape I have seen. It has more in common with the Highlands of Scotland (they used to be part of the same continent millions of years ago) than anywhere else in Ireland. It feels different from the South too.
The accents here are very different too as they are Ulster accents. Ulster is the name given to northern-most counties of Ireland. There are nine countries in total, six of which, since 1921, lie in Northern Ireland and three, including Donegal, in the Republic of Ireland. This part of Donegal is in the Gaeltacht, which means that Irish spoken here. It means that many of the signs are in Irish. The roads signs are usually bilingual in all of the Republic of Ireland (we have bilingual road signs in Wales too) but here the signs don’t always have the Anglicized name so if you don’t know that “An Clochan Liath” is the Irish for Dungloe or “Ailt An Chorrain” means Burtonport, you may miss the turning! Thankfully my husband is a student of the Irish language and so he could direct me.
What I particularly love about the Rosses is the little rocky inlets, smothered in seaweed at low tide and turquoise sea at high tide.
Lots of houses and cottages dot the landscape, with many islands having a house (or two) perched on top, with little jetties for returning boats.
Each with its idyllic view and solitude.
Yet, if you want company and good chat Donegal is the place to come. As my husband says, having a good chat is the first order of the day. Everything works around that.
Many an in-depth chat was had about the world with people we met. The issue of Brexit and the border-question was on a lot of people’s minds, businessmen were particularly worried by its implications.
My husband, being Irish, was a lot better at chatting at length than me. His record was a two-hour chat with a man he met on a morning walk.
I am going to leave you with one of the first paintings I have finished since returning to Wales. I have had a lot of social media stuff and commissions to catch up on since returning.
I really enjoyed my break and will regale you with thoughts on life with less internet/tv in another post.
I am winding down the social media for a while because we are leaving the UK to spend some time in our house in Burtonport, Donegal, Ireland. The internet will be available on a very limited basis so I won’t be able to post on here until mid-April. I will be checking my emails but I won’t be posting much, if anything, on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.
I have mixed feeling about the enforced “break” from social media. On the one hand, I hate the way how it sucks up all your spare time and energy and how FOMO (fear of missing out) has you checking updates. There’s always the fear that if you stop “spinning all the plates” that people will forget about you! However, I am certainly looking forward to reading books, listening to the radio (there’s no TV either) and sketching and painting for fun (not oils but watercolour sketches).
I am very excited/nervous about the whole thing because I am driving there and it’s a long, long way.
Please be aware that any artwork purchased after 25th March will only be shipped after 12th April.
I was delighted to see my two Donegal paintings “Up Bloody Foreland, Donegal” and “The through Road, Donegal” on the walls of the London Irish Centre (Camden, London). These two oil paintings form part of a “real room” of an Irish family in 1950s Britain installation. The exhibition, which is on during August through to […]
Donegal is a big mountaneous county in a big country. Imagine my shock when I discover that it’s only the 4th largest in Ireland (after Cork, Galway and Mayo) at 4,860 km2 (1,880 sq miles). It seems even bigger as there is no railway or motorways here, so it takes a long time to travel around all the mountains. One of joys of the county is that it’s relatively empty (the 5th least populated in Ireland) with 32.6 people per km2.
There’s a good reason why landscape painters use the “landscape” orientation for their canvases – i.e. the longest side is horizontal – and that’s because you can fit more landscape in that way. I have recently discovered another good reason – social media and wordpress thumbnails don’t like tall narrow paintings and crop them.
Everybody loves the Georgian Houses It seems like certain styles never go out of fashion. Last year Georgian-style houses topped a poll of the most popular home styles. I suspect that people like scale of the house as well as the the pillars and generous sized windows. Nothing says lord of the manor like a […]
New Work & Recent Sales
Arch at Whiterocks Beach, Portrush
The Peace Bridge (Derry) by Emma Cownie
St Eugenes, Derry City
Polite Houses of Maghery- Emma Cownie
Scraigs, Fintown
Abanoned (Glentornan, Donegal) -Emma Cownie
Low Tide, Summer Morning on Three Cliffs – Emma Cownie
Boat on Inch Island Donegal
Across Whiterock Beach, Portrush
Dunluce Castle from Whiterocks Beach
Towards Bloody Foreland (Donegal) _ Emma Cownie
Houses at Port na Crin, Gola
Errigal reflection (Donegal) _Emma Cownie
Washing Line, Arranmore _Emma Cownie
An Port, Donegal_Emma Cownie
House on Ishcoo, Donegal-Emma Cownie
Portnoo_Emma Cownie
Over Glenlough Bay, Donegal-Emma Cownie
Still, On Gola (Donegal)
Inishcoo (To The Fore of Arranmore) – Emma Cownie
Kinnagoe Bay (Inishowen, Dongal)
A Road through Chalford (Cotswolds)
Painswick Yews (Cotswolds)_Emma Cownie
On Rutland Island, Donegal -Emma Cownie
Sun on the Reeds (Glentornan, Donegal)-Emma Cownie
View from the Pier (Portnoo)-Emma Cownie
From Port to Glenlough (Donegal)
Errigal from Cruit Island. Donegal _ Emma Cownie
Spring on THree Cliffs Bay, Gower_Emma Cownie
Fishing Boat at Port Donegal-Emma Cownie
Portnoo Pier, Donegal_Emma Cownie
Down to Rossbeg Pier, Donegal
Over to Fanad Lighhouse (Donegal) _Emma Cownie
Errigal painting – A Commission 2022
From Arranmore (Donegal)- Emma Cownie
Ferry Home (Arranmore, Donegal) by Emma Cownie
Summer Morning on Pobbles Bay
Fanad
On the Way to Kinnagoe Bay (Drumaweer, Greencastle)
Down to Doagh Strand (Donegal)-Emma Cownie
Lambing Season at Fanad Head
Fanad Lighthouse (Donegal)
Down to the Rusty Nail
Carrickabraghy Castle, Inishowen
Upper Dreen_Emma Cownie
Portmór Beach, Malin Head, Donegal
Down to the Rusty Nail, Inishowen
The Walls of Derry
Painting of Derry City
Derry Walls by Emma Cownie
Shipquay Gate by Emma Cownie
Over to Owey Island (Keadue) Donegal
Lighting the way to Arranmore
Old Stone Cottage in front of Errigal (Donegal
Boat at the Pier, Gola
House on Inishbofin, with distant Seven Sisters (in studio)
