Looking through my recent work, I was surpised to realise that I haven’t painted many paintings of Arranmore Island in the last couple of years despite visiting the islands in the summer. So I have put that right with a series of new paintings.
As always I am entranced by the journey to and from the island. You can read my short History of the Island here
Arranmore is lucky to be served by two ferry companies. There is The Arranmore Ferry (Blue) which is based on the island and Arranmore Ferry (Red) which is not. Yes, I know the names are almost identical, just a small matter of “The”. They both offer a fantastic 15 minute journey from Burtonport (Ailt An Chorráin) to Arranmore Island. On a calm and sunny day the view on the crossing are just heavenly. Sometimes there are dolphins too.
Map of Arranmore and the coast off Burtonport
The ferrys sail through a narrow passage past a scattering of islands on the way to Arranmore.
Route of the Arranmore FerrysOn Rutland Island, Donegal – Emma Cownie
Rutland Island (Inis Mhic an Doirn) lies between Burtonport and Arranmore, Donegal. William Burton Conyngham (a local landowner for whom Burtonport takes its Anglised form) had warehouses, a street of houses, a post office and a school built c. 1784 to capitalised on a the abundant herring fishing. Unfortunately, the herring disappeared very early in the 1800’s and the station fell into disuse. The island was inhabited until the 1950s. These are the remains of the fish factory and landing stage on Rutland Island.
House on Inishcoo, Donegal – Emma Cownie
Opposite is Inishcoo Island with Mount Errigal in the distance peeping out from under the clouds. The jetty in the left hand corner belongs the magnificent Inishcoo House (see painting below)- once a coast guard house, built in the C18th.
Inishcoo House, Ireland (SOLD)
There are several tiny holiday homes dotted across the islands (and cows)
Ferry Home (Arranmore, Donegal) by Emma CownieInishcoo cottages Ireland (SOLD)Inishcoo (To The Fore of Arranmore) – Emma CownieBlue Ferry off Arranmore, Donegal – Photo by Emma Cownie
A you can see the views are quite idyllic. Whether from the ferry or from the island. To be honest, I wish the ferries were like the Circle Line on the London Underground, where you can ride the tube rround and round (it takes and hour and an half apparently, I have never done it) and you could ride them back and forth to the island all day!
I am very excited to have an article in today’s Irish Independent on Sunday about me and work by Niall McMonagle. Below is my expanded Q & A interview that was much edited to feature in Niall McMonagle’s What Lies Beneath feature . It’s interesting to see that the online version had a different headline from the printed version (Below)
Irish Independent article 22/2/2023
This expanded interview will be in two parts, published as two blogs, today and next Sunday.
Q: Take me back to your earliest memory of your awakening interest and awareness of art. How old were you and where were you? I realise that you became a full-time artist much later but as a child did you draw and paint?
A: I enjoyed drawing and making things from an early age. One of my earliest art-related memories was drawing a picture of my mother in the kitchen at home with our cats and dog. I knew I wasn’t very good at faces so I decided to avoid this issue by adopting a bird’s view of the kitchen!
My picture of Mummy (with pets)
Q: As a teenager you did embroidery, sewing and used oil pastels. Can you say something about that please. And when it came to pastels what was your subject matter?
I took up embroidery when I inherited some embroidered table clothes, threads, a hoop and some iron-on embroidery pattern books from my great aunts. I really was taken by the beautiful designs and the intensity of the colours of the threads. The dark winter, in the North of Ireland, has prompted me to take it up again as it’s something I can do under artificial light. I am like a child in a sweet shop, trying appliqué, embroidery and felting. I am still exploring.
Chain stitch embroideryNeeedle felting
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I enjoyed the physically of oil pastel sticks and the vibrancy of their colour. I used to paint interiors – my bed room a lot. I got real pleasure from observing the changes the bedroom lamp made to the form of the bed under the bedspread. It was the start of my obsession with light and shadow.
Q: You were you born in Hereford. What was your life there like – urban? rural? and was your family background artistic?
The River Lugg, Emma Cownie (SOLD)
A: My childhood was characterized by moving, thanks to my father’s career in Insurance. I was born in Hereford and lived in the town and then in a village called Morton-on-Lugg. My earliest memories are of village life; the sound of cows, visiting the river and our neighbour’s pigs. We then moved hundreds of miles up north to Whitley Bay on the North East coast. After a few years we then moved back down south to Gloucester. I found this move the hardest of all as I had felt really settled in Whitley Bay. I have also lived in Cardiff, London and Swansea. So I am a “townie” with a love of the rural which is why I ended up a Derry city and rural West Donegal. I have never felt that I am “from” anywhere in particular.
My strongest connection is to my family and to art. My paternal grandmother’s family are from Cork City. My mother is Welsh and her family is from Cardiff. I have a lot of Celt in my genes, Scottish too, hence my name Cownie. I came from a family of four children and we are very all quite competitive, creative but also eccentric and geeky. My parents painted, my great aunts were talented painters and my sister went to the Royal College of Art so there is creativity in the family genes.
Q: You studied medieval history in Cardiff and London and taught for 20 years in a secondary school. During that time did you paint and did you ever consider becoming an artist.
A: I painted, on and off throughout those years. I thought about doing Art at college but I wanted to do something different from my sister who had studied fashion at college. She did an MA at the Royal College of Art and worked for Paul Costello, partially in Dungannon, Co Tyrone, for a few years, before she gave it all up for motherhood. After my History degree I flirted with the idea of being an artist and even got some funding but it wasn’t enough to live on so I got a job with the council.
Soon after I won a fellowship to do a PhD in History so I decided to pursue that. I really enjoyed academic research and my years at Cardiff University were some of my happiest. I also spent three years doing a Post Doctoral fellowship in Kings College, London where I continued to paint. Opportunities for Medievalists were limited so I trained as a secondary school teacher in Swansea. I enjoyed working with children enormously but I was always doing something else in the holidays – writing a novel, crocheting and, of course, painting.
Painting by James Henry Johnston
It was only after my car accident in 2012 when I started to paint in any spare moments (not just the holidays) and I started to make progress. I had been inspired by seeing the works of a painter called Robert Bevan in the Welsh Museum to start painting again. My husband set up a website for me and put my work on a website called http://www.artfinder.com and to my surprise I started selling. He then formed the company Emma Cownie Art and we have been fairly successful selling art since then. He paints too, portraits mainly, under the name James Henry Johnston.
Q: I read that you’ve lived in many places in the UK. Have you painted those places. Is your work a diary of your movements?
A: Yes but in terms of landscapes I only painted the areas I have lived, or my parents have, after 2012 – so South Wales, the Cotswolds where my parents now live and Donegal and the North of Ireland, particularly Derry, Tyrone and Antrim . The light is different here to South Wales and requires a different colour palette. East Donegal, easily accessible for Derry, is also subtly different form west Donegal in light and colour.
Derry Panorama – Emma Cownie
Derry and rural Donegal. How did that come about?
Outside the cottage in Burtonport
A: It was my husband, he was home sick and wanted to have a foot in Ireland. He was born and reared in Co. Derry. We bought a house in West Donegal in 2018, as he went to the Gaeltacht there as a teenager and had lovely memories of the area. His great grandmother came from there too. I just thought the landscape was stunning. Like nothing else I had seen. Brexit also pushed us into the decision to move over here permanently. My husband felt increasingly unwelcome there. We both hated they way politics lurched to the far right. It was very unsettling.
The people Derry won me over. It’s a lively and intense city. People are funny, interesting and kind. The women in particular are stylish, articulate and self–confident. I love the fact that women of all ages, from babies to grannies wear Doc Marten boots. The city takes the time to consider all communities – there’s an LBTQT+ rainbow crossing by the Peace Bridge.
The Walls of Derry – Emma Cownie
Q: How aware were you of Irish history before you came to live here. Is Derry now a place beyond the Troubles? Is it often said that the Irish know so much more about England and the English than the they do about Ireland.
A: It would be impossible living with my husband for twenty five years, who grew up in Co. Derry during the Troubles, not to have learnt a fair bit about reality of growing up in the Troubles. I have also read a lot about it too. I taught some Medieval Irish History when I lectured at Cardiff University. I also taught A Level C19th British (and Irish) Political History for 16 years at Secondary school in Wales. You cannot understand the History of Britain without understanding it’s relationship with Ireland. I have also been a dedicated listener to Irish Times “Inside Politics” podcast ever since the Brexit Referendum. There is always more to learn. I have enjoyed finding out about the places I paint. I often like to write a short blog about the places in my paintings, as well as on aspect of my process.
There is a lot of British politics reported here on the radio and TV news, often with more insightful commentary and in depth discussion than I would have heard in Britain. I love that the Irish love to discuss a topic thoroughly and without acrimony. I would say Irish people are more informed about this interconnected history. I find Irish people are very articulate in expressing their views which is to be admired.
I cannot really comment on whether “Derry is now a place beyond the Troubles” as I have not lived here that long. My husband, who knows it from his youth, tells me it is a city utterly transformed from when he lived here. Back then many parts of the city were a war zone or had access controlled by the British Army.
The Peace Bridge, linking two communities across the River Foyle, seems to have connected areas that were separate before. All I can say is that Derry is a very picturesque and lively city with the friendliest population I have ever met.
Derry doesn’t hide the past either and embraces aspects of its History through various museums and excellent guided tours. Lots of tourists come to Derry throughout the year. It is a great place to live. The close proximity to Donegal, the glorious Antrim coast and Sperrin mountains in Tyrone make it ideal for a landscape painter! Plus, as an intact walled city, Derry is unique in Ireland.
Ruins of Red Bay Castle, Waterfoot, Antrim_Emma Cownie
Q: A terrible car accident on 29 February 2012 was life-changing for you. You suffered PTSD. Did that influence your becoming a full-time artist?
A: Absolutely. The accident itself was pretty minor – my car was a write-off but I expected to be back at work with a bit of whiplash the following week. The accident, however, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It uncorked layers of stress and anxiety that had built up over many years and it completely overwhelmed me. I also had many stresses in my life, including that of being a head of department in a busy secondary school.
I found it hard to get through the day and function as a normal person. Only by eventually getting therapeutic help and EMDR counseling was I able to work through my emotions regarding an earlier trauma in my life that underpinned it all. Once I started therapy I took up painting all the time. I found it soothing and therapeutic. I don’t think that people don’t talk enough about breakdowns and mental health issues. It’s a very lonely place to be. Unless people have experienced depression or breakdown themselves, people are frightened of it and don’t know what to say to you. Breakdowns are surprisingly common. People have the idea that breakdown happen because you are weak – the opposite is true. I had been strong and carried an intolerable burden of stress and responsibility for far too long. You don’t have to have been in a war zone to develop PTSD. Everyone has their breaking point, if they are pushed hard enough for long enough. My husband says breakdowns can act as “a breakthrough” – your unconscious is telling you that your way of life is intolerable and you have to change it.
Winter Morning Light on Parkmill (SOLD)
Q: Your paintings are beautifully calm, peaceful. Does that reflect your own life now or do you still live with pain and trauma as a result of the accident?
A: My painting used to be more colourful than they are now and I think that was an unconscious effort to cheer myself up. I think was depressed without realizing it. I just soldiered on. I am much happier now I have left teaching and paint full time. I make a great effort to make my colours more natural and realistic. It’s quite a challenge to capture the awe and wonder I feel looking at Irish landscapes. I am always looking for clarity in my colours and composition. I keep my palette clean in order to achieve those simplified colours and shapes.
Main Street Gola – Emma Cownie
I think the breakdown has left its mark on me. Feelings can get stuck. I can get a upset about a relatively minor incident if I don’t talk it through with my husband or a family member. But I think it made me a kinder more empathetic person. I have always been a sensitive person. I hate cruelty and suffering in people and animals. I also hate heights and I can find the beautiful Peace Bridge a bit challenging (at night especially). I broke my leg in 2020 and had three plates put in my leg so I have to a series of daily yoga exercises to ensure I don’t experience pain when walking.
Q: Though you paint people [‘Living it Up’] and animals your work is mainly of beautiful empty, light-filled landscapes. You mention Hopper. Paul Henry. [Your work also reminds me of Maureen Gallace.] What other art forms – literature, music for example – are important to you?
Living it up (Brynmill Park, Swansea)- Emma Cownie
A: I love to read fiction and non-fiction. I am an avid reader, usually having several books on the go at any one time. I have recently read Donegal and Derry authors such as Peadar O’Donnell and Tony Doherty to get a sense of the past, in relation to the areas I now live.
This section is more about how I work, my style and influences.
Q: How do you choose your places to paint? And is there a particular time of year that you favour?
A: Light and colour draw me to a subject. I am looking for a strong composition and clean colours. Usually bright light and strong shadows, so any time of year except for summer. I paint large paintings in the long hours of summer instead. Composition is key to my work. I also like to express the quiet like various American realists like Edward Hopper. I also love Rockwell Kent, a painter who also painted west Donegal.
Q: Do you work en plein air? From sketches? Photographs?
A: I tried painting en plein air in South Wales – I was crippled by feeling self-conscious and frustrated by my lack of control over the conditions. Plein air is also not conducive to my style of painting, and what I am trying to achieve in my work; in the magnification of simplicity, form, light and shadow. I am continually painting layers over a period of time. My creative process starts with taking the photo, editing and then using it for inspiration. I try to recreate the essence of a place I am painting rather than simply reproducing a scene. I am very much influenced by the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson and how he used composition to create dynamic images.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, County Kerry, Ireland, 1952
Q: You now live in Derry and Donegal. How did that come about?
A: We wanted to have a combination or urban and rural so that we could experience both, so we live 7/8 months of the year in Derry and 4/5 months in Donegal. The Derry/Donegal combo is hard to beat. Derry also opens up another area of east Donegal, Inishowen, as it is only a few miles away from Derry city.
Q: Your work features on a Donal Ryan Spanish version of Strange Flowers [‘Cottage on Bunbeg Harbour’] and Claire Keegan’s Foster [‘The Traditional House. Gola’]. Congratulations. Has that made a difference?
A: It has been great to get recognition from two such brilliant writers. I feel greatly honoured. I knew that when I moved from South Wales to Ireland that I was likely to lose collectors (although I still paint the Gower Peninsula in South Wales and Tenby from time to time) and it would take time to build up an Irish following.
I am hoping these book covers will help with that, plus this feature.
Cover of Claire Keegan’s “Foster”
Q: How did the dreaded Covid affect you and your work?
A: I broke my leg at the start of the pandemic and was awaiting an operation in Morriston Hospital, near Swansea as the country went into lockdown. So whilst most were confined to their houses I was confined to my bedroom for several months and had to do physiotherapy down the phone. I took months to recover and regain my mobility and make it up the steep stairs into my attic studio.
Painting in the studio with my leg up!
Artists live very solitary lives so lockdown wasn’t a massive change to my life, as such. I was frustrated that I couldn’t visit locations to take photos for new paintings so I spent months scouring through the photos I did have. I was surprised at how many photos I had discounted could be made into interesting pictures.
Covid has definitely affected our life here – I feel frustrated that we are living at arms’ length from everyone. It has meant that we have limited where we go and what we do. My husband is asthmatic, so we are very careful. We got vaccinated and boosted and always wear masks indoor but we were still very ill this summer. It knocked us both out for 6 weeks. I don’t want to catch it again because we don’t know what the long term effects will be.
Q: In terms of your palette what colours are essential?
A: It depend where I am painting and whether I am using oils or acrylics. The light in South Wales is more yellowy, in Donegal it is clearer and bluey-white. Our house in Derry is smaller than our Donegal house so I had to learn to paint with acrylics because of the fumes and having pets at close quarters.
Acrylics are very different to oils as you have to build them up in thin layers. They dry fast and are difficult to blend. Oils are more opaque but much slower to dry. I have to think about each medium in a different way and use different colours. With both oil and acrylics I prefer underlying warm colours (oranges, ochres, pinks and mauves) but I have to use different colours to get a similar same effect in each. With oils I would use Naples Yellow, Yellow ochre, Olive Green, Raw and Burnt Umber, Raw Sienna, Van Dyke Brown, Warm Grey, and Cool Grey, Mauve and for the sea and sky Ultramarine and Phthalo Blues.
With acrylics I would use Lemon Yellow, Ivory, Light Ochre, Sap Green, Cerulean Blue and Ultramarine blue, pink and purple, Payne’s grey for darker tones. I use more mixing white and fluid medium in acrylic. I have had to train myself to mix large quantities of “sky” colour and keep in a tub with acrylic. There’s this thing called “colour shift” which means the paint dries lighter. So it’s almost impossible to match wet acrylics to the dry colour you want to achieve. The irony is that I think that although I prefer painting in oils, I think my acrylic paintings might actually be better.
Q: The painting reproduced in the Sunday Independent on 15 January is ‘Down to the Pier, Gola’. Would you say something please about your links with, your relationship with, Donegal in general and Gola in particular.
Down to the Pier, Gola (Donegal, Ireland)
A: I love the Donegal islands – they are a glimpse of a vanishing Ireland. Gola and Inishbofin are wonderful locations, in particular, although the one I most visit and have painted most is Arranmore.
I went to Gola island because of the space as I thought it would suit my “rural minimal” style of painting which proved to be the case. They have very few vehicles and I really enjoy the peace. Isn’t that why we like the coast – with just the sound of the waves and the wind? How the houses were placed, in this vastness lent itself to composition. The islands, more than any other place I have been to, chime most with my style of painting. They have moved my style forward. Also I really like the fact that there are almost no telegraph poles to complicate compositions too.
The way the vernacular houses are arranged, sheltering from upland areas of the island, and close together suggests how people of the past worked together and with the landscape. I think I am attracted to the sense of community. People had to work together in order to survive. A sense of community, interconnectedness, of Irishness, lingers there. It is tangible.
Q: Also re ‘Down to the Pier, Gola’ how quickly does your eye know and choose the perspective and the composition of the piece? And would you say something please about how you went about making this work? Did you begin with a drawing? What colour did you put down first etc.
A: Composition is key. The cinematic-type compositions and dramatic use of light and shade. As I said before I am strongly influenced by the French photograph Henri Cartier Bresson and I often look for a road or fence posts to lead the eye into the painting.
Rule of Thirds – Henri Cartier Bresson
Elements will also be left out or simplified to give the image more punch. Most of the Gola and Inishbofin paintings are painted in my own “rural minimal” style which is the rural manifestation of the “urban minimal” style I developed to paint the city with. This style of painting is influenced by those American realist painters who paint the quiet, the spacious and the still and revere a certain treatment of light and colour such as Edward Hopper as well as by Contemporary Minimalists such Jessica Brilli, (whom I traded paintings with last year). The rules of composition are strong light and shade, use of diagonals and simplified forms. I wanted to explore the interplay of the geometry of shadows and structures – the tension between the 3D buildings and the 2D shadows. I wasn’t sure if this style would work in the countryside until I went to Gola and found it was perfect for evoking the silence and the stillness of these beautiful islands.
Tigh Breslin, Gola – Emma Cownie (SOLD)
“Down to the Pier, Gola” is an oil painting. I sketched the outline of the road and buildings in thin red ochre paint. I painted the white house first. It takes a several layers of paint to create that intensity of the whitewash. I usually use thin layers of paint, but my final layer of white will be thicker. White oil paint takes the longest time to dry, which is why I often start with white. I then added the blue sky and the pink road and distant buildings. I like to work quickly when I paint in oils. I will rub away the paint if I am not happy with a colour. I have learnt to be quite ruthless with rubbing back and starting from the canvas. This way the final piece is lighter and has more coherence. I am wary of over-working the paint.
I use a different approach to painting with acrylics. It is much slower as I usually paint a grayscale (or in earth tones) underpainting to check I have my tonal values right and then I add colour. There is a lot of adjusting of colours and correction that goes on. I will often work on two paintings at a time so that I can add sky, sea and use the same colours and let them dry so I can consider the colours and how they are coming together. Acrylic paintings can take up to a couple of weeks, on and off, to complete.
Q: What do you look for in a painting? And do you have a favourite painting by another artist that means a great deal to you?
A: Often I am drawn to the light – a shaft of sunlight on a window sill or a strong shadow by a house. Often times it will be a particular colour – such as the blue of clear seas of Donegal or the pale fluffy clouds.
Robert Bevan’s “Maples at Cuckfield, Sussex” (painted in 1914) is very special to me as it was a complete surprise when I came across it at Cardiff Museum in 2012. A good painting makes me to go home and paint. I used to feel that way about the Van Gogh’s and Monet.
I just loved the muted colours with the light orange and purples and the semi abstract trees. Bevan had spent time in Paris at Pont Aven in Brittany. He met Cezanne and Renoir was friends with Gauguin. I went back the follow year to see it again and was disappointed to find it wasn’t on display. The museum was kind enough, however, to let me and my husband go down to storage to see it close up.
Q: You have sold many many paintings. Are you sorry to see them go? Has there ever been one that you just did not want to part with?
A: I have had to toughen up a lot about parting with paintings. My sister’s advice was “paint so many you are sick of the sight of them”. It did work but some paintings really are tough to let go of. I really regret selling a painting of a horse “Blaze” and another of a elderly lady carrying her shopping in Swansea town centre, called “Soldiering On”. I have learnt my lesson and I have a handful of paintings that I won’t ever put up for sale – one is of a Gower pony, another is of a cat that used to hang out at the local general store in Swansea.
Soldiering On, Emma Cownie
Q: If you would like me to include your website, instagram, upcoming exhibition etc please give them here.
A: I haven’t exhibited in recent years in galleries by choice and I sell the majority of my work via my website although I have a private art gallery behind my cottage in Donegal which is usually open, by appointment, May – October.
No sooner than I arrived in Donegal and made a start on two large paintings than Seamas and I came down with Covid 19. Apparently the current wave has been mopping up many of the people who had thus far avoided the horrible virus. I never gave up wearing my mask in shops but I still caught it. Darn! So I have spent most of the last two weeks sleeping and lying in bed trying to do very little, in the hope that my immune system will bounce back and my energy levels will return to normal.
Book Cover – Foster by Claire Keegan
I am also feeling faintly stupid but very delighted because I only just realised that Claire Keegan’s novella “Foster”, is the basis for the film “The Quiet Girl”. My oil painting “The Traditional House, Gola” has been used for the cover of the reprint of “Foster”. Actually, never mind the covid, I nearly fell over when I made the connection.
My painting – The Traditional House, (Gola)
I must have seen these adverts on TG4 (the Irish language chanel) because I thought of this film by it’s Irish language title “An Cailín Ciúin” – as just about all the dialogue is in Irish. I didn’t realise that it was the same story as “Foster”.
It’s story about a nine-year-old girl, Cáit, who is sent to spend the summer with her aunt Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley) and her husband Seán, who live in the Rinn Gaeltacht, County Waterford. The film is directed and written by Colm Bairéad , based on Claire Keegan’s story “Foster”. It has won a whole pile of International awards, rave reviews and has been breaking box office records in Ireland and UK. I am really excited and greatly honoured to be connected, even in a tenuous way, to such an amazing project!
I am now going back to bed, in the hope that I haven’t over done it.
We are about to decamp to Donegal for the summer/early autumn. I have mixed feeling about returning to oil paints. It’s been a quite a steep learning curve getting comfortable with acrylic paint but I feel like I finally got there. I am not sure what it will be like to paint in oils again; oh the the joy of easy blending! I am looking forward to being able to paint larger canvases. I will continue my practice of laying down an underpainting in grey-scale paint, regardless.
Here are some of my recent acrylic paintings, mostly of Inishowen Penisula (Donegal)
Kinnagoe Beach – Emma CownieDown to the Rusty Nail, Inishowen_Emma CownieFanad (SOLD)On the Way to Kinnagoe Bay (Drumaweer, Greencastle) (SOLD)Down to Doagh Strand, Donegal
Lambing season at Fanad Head (Donegal)
Carrickabraghy Castle, InishowenPortmór Beach, Malin Head, Donegal
And finally a few also of my favourite, Gola Island.
Still, On Gola (Donegal)The Turn in the Road, Gola – Emma CownieA Sandy Road Through Gola-Emma Cownie
The weather forecast is for cool weather, so I will be packing some light jumpers. I have found, however, that forecasts are pretty unreliable for Donegal so it could be very pleasant. I am looking forward to the sweet breezes!
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).
A while back I came across a quote on the internet that has stuck in my mind:- “If I knew the world was to end tomorrow, I would still plant an apple tree today.” I was quite struck by this sentiment, especially in the light of current events.
I could not remember who said it. So I did some research. I was intrigued by what I discovered online. I found a number of statements:-
It was originally said by Martin Luther, a 16th century German monk
It was originally said by Martin Luther King Jnr, the 20th century African-American Civil Rights Campaigner.
It wasn’t said by 1) or 2)!
This puts me in mind of one of my favourite internet memes by that teller-of-truth Abe Lincoln…
Just joking!
The apple seed quote apparently originates in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, in the Protestant Confessing Church, which used it to inspire hope and perseverance during its opposition to the Nazi dictatorship.
To be honest, it doesn’t matter who said or when (although there’s a lesson about taking things at face value there) because I like the sentiment. No matter how dreadful things seem, they will pass. Eventually.
Here is my apple seed for this week.
The Road by the Loch, Ireland (80x60cm/ 31.5×23.5″)
This is another gem in the Gower landscape – the Worm’s Head Lookout Station at Rhossili. I really enjoyed painting this. This stout and sturdy single story building is made of granite and was built over 120 years ago, around 1896. It sits alone at the top of the high cliffs that look out towards Worms Head and beyond to Lundy Island and to the Celtic Sea. The wind-blasted building has an 8m flagstaff and a 6m wind generator. I was inspired to paint this because of the sharp summer shadows and the isolation of the tiny building. It oozes Hopper.
It is set in a very beautiful but dangerous coastline. Between the cliffs and Worm Head is the Causeway, a scramble of rocks and rock pools, which is open for 2.5 hours either side of low tide. The tidal rise here is the second highest in the world. However, it is fatal to attempt to wade or swim to when the causeway is flooded or partially so. The coastline and waters around Gower are lovely to look at and to paint but they need to be treated with great respect. The waters around the Worm can also be dangerous to small craft, fishing boats and surfers.
This is why I am very glad that a team of local volunteers for National Coastwatch look after the interests of visitors and seafarers, alike. Since 2007, from 10am till 4pm in the winter and 10am till 6pm in the summer the lookout is staffed. If at the end of watch the Causeway has not yet flooded and there are members of the public still out on Worm’s Head, the watch is kept open until everyone is safely back on the mainland. So although the Lookout Station looks somewhat bleak and empty, the front door is, in fact, open and there is someone inside looking out for us all!
We have lived on the doorstep of the Gower Peninsula for almost 18 years now. It’s small enough (19 miles in length) to make day trips from Swansea possible. As a landscape artist, it has given me inspiration for many Gower landscape and seascape paintings over the years. Yet, there is always some part I come across that I don’t remember having seen before. It is 70 square miles in area, so that’s a lot of coastline, hills, valleys, woodlands, streams and fields to explore. I have always wanted to walk along the entire length of the coastal path, to see all the “linking sections” that we miss on the day trips. Perhaps, I will do it this summer.
Rhossili is always popular with visitors. It has an incredible view of the 3-mile beach of Rhossili Bay that arcs northward. In the other direction is Worms Head. This curious dragon-like, tidal island snakes off into the sea. I have seen seals on the leeward side of the island. At low-tide, the causeway can be crossed to the island. When we visited the tide was dropping and the causeway was revealing itself minute, by minute. Yet, the surprise for me was the Old Boathouse at Kitchen Corner. Kitchen Corner is a small bay to the right of the path that leads down to the Worm’s Head causeway. The boathouse was built in the 1920s and was up for sale in 2013. Looking at the real estate details, it doesn’t look like the new owners (if it was sold then) have painted the boathouse since! At low tide, the rocks below are exposed. I painted it when the green heaving sea was still at its feet. I love to capture the deep green that you only see with a summer sky. It’s a distinct colour that is often found off the coast of West Wales, in Pembrokeshire in particular. I use a lot of turquoise and royal blue to try and recreate the tone in my oil painting. There were also fishermen on the ledges opposite the boathouse.
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 […]
Northern Ireland’s Tourism is very impressive. At Whiterocks Beach, just along from Portrush, there is not one, not two but three small carparks and a public toilets which are all free to use. What’s more, there’s another car parks specially for horses and their horseboxes. I will point out though, that there is height restriction […]
We recently went to see Helen Merrigan Colfer’s solo exhibition at the Alley Gallery, Strabane. She is a sculptor & painter. She lives & works on the tip of the Hook Head Peninsula, County Wexford, Ireland. She works with resin & steel. Her work is quite incredible and very engaging. This exhibtion included paintings, many resin […]
I spent almost a month in the Cotswolds visitng with my parents recently and had a bit of time to explore. They live near Stroud which TV programmes like “Escape to the Country ” tell me is the “poorer part of the Cotswolds”. I think “poor” may well be in the eye of the beholder. […]
New Work & Recent Sales
Washing Line, Arranmore _Emma Cownie
Inishcoo (To The Fore of Arranmore) – Emma Cownie
Kinnagoe Bay (Inishowen, Dongal)
Over Glenlough Bay, Donegal-Emma Cownie
Still, On Gola (Donegal)
An Port, Donegal_Emma Cownie
House on Ishcoo, Donegal-Emma Cownie
On Rutland Island, Donegal -Emma Cownie
Spring on THree Cliffs Bay, Gower_Emma Cownie
Portnoo_Emma Cownie
Sun on the Reeds (Glentornan, Donegal)-Emma Cownie
View from the Pier (Portnoo)-Emma Cownie
From Port to Glenlough (Donegal)
Fishing Boat at Port Donegal-Emma Cownie
Portnoo Pier, Donegal_Emma Cownie
Down to Rossbeg Pier, Donegal
Errigal reflection (Donegal) _Emma Cownie
Errigal from Cruit Island. Donegal _ Emma Cownie
Over to Fanad Lighhouse (Donegal) _Emma Cownie
Errigal painting – A Commission 2022
From Arranmore (Donegal)- Emma Cownie
Abanoned (Glentornan, 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)