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Boat on Rossbeg Beach, Donegal

Painting of Rossbeg Beach

The west coast of Ireland is dotted with islands, big and small but also plenty of sea stacks. Perhaps, they were once sea arches, I am not sure. If they were the crown of the arch fell in to create these majestic pillars. They can be seen from miles away. Even on misty days. This one, Tormore (in the painting above and below) is miles away, near a very remote location called Glenlough Bay. There is something exciting and other worldly and timeless about  it.

Rossbeg Beach, Donegal
Rossbeg Beach, Donegal (Photo credit:Emma Cownie)

 

Rossbeg (sometimes spelt Rosbeg) is a tiny townland on the west coast of Donegal, just three miles south-west of Portnua and Nairn. This is the Dawros Peninsula. There is a pier and a scattering of houses, some are modern, but many are old cottages, probably used as holiday lets.

Road above Rossbeg Beach:- Phot Credit Séamas Johnston
Road above Rossbeg Beach:- Photo Credit Séamas Johnston

There is another beach around the corner too.

Rossbeg on the Map
Rossbeg on the Map
Boat on Rossbeg Beach: Photo Credit - Emma Cownie
Boat on Rossbeg Beach: Photo Credit:- Emma Cownie
Rossbeg Beach, Donegal
Rossbeg Beach, Donegal (Tide further in): Photo Credit:Emma Cownie

 

Rossbeg postcard
https://www.johnhindecollection.com

 

The beach and the view is just perfect. The water is so very clear that the rocks and seaweed are visible from quite some distance from the shore.

Rossbeg Pier (From Marina.com) note the cows on the baech
Rossbeg Pier (From Marina.com) note the cows on the baech
Rossbeg Pier (From Marina.com) note the cows on the baech
Rossbeg Pier (From Marina.com) You can see the seaweed from up high too!
Rossbeg Beach:- Photo Credit Séamas Johnston
Rossbeg Beach:- Photo Credit Séamas Johnston

Boat on Rossbeg Beach, Donegal, painting by Emma Cownie

Boat on Rossbeg Beach, Donegal, painting by Emma Cownie

Buy the painting here 

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Summer Newsletter 2021

Here’s my summer newsletter. I am shutting up shop for a  month from 20th June to 20th July. All going well, we will be safely installed and open for business (online at least) in Donegal by mid-July. I am already longing to get back to my painting routine.  I can’t quite  believe that after being ground so long by my broken leg and the pandemic that we will actually move house/studio to another country by then. It’s a huge step!  Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly!

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Paintings of Árainn Mhór/Arranmore, Donegal

Arranmore Donegal

I recently join the Stair Árrain Mhór – Árrain Mhór History Facebook group and was overwhelmed by the positive response I received from the members when I put my most recent post online there. I was asked if I had any more paintings of Arranmore for them to see, so here’s a collection of all my paintings of the Island that I have completed in the last two years.

Where it reads (Private Collection) it means that the painting has been sold. I hope you enjoy looking at them.

To see my Donegal paintings for sale click here

Poll na mbadaí (Harbour of the Boats) Arranmore, Ireland.
Poll na mbadaí (Harbour of the Boats) Arranmore, Ireland (Private Collection).

 

Painting of old cottage on Arranmore, Donegal_Emma Cownie
Brightening Up (Arranmore, Donegal) SOLD

 

Darkening Clouds On Maghery
Darkening Clouds On Maghery, Ireland (SOLD)

 

Painting of Arranmore lane, Ireland by Emma Cownie
After the Rain, Arranmore, Ireland (Private Collection)

 

Landscape Arranmore Ireland
Stone Shed Arranmore Ireland (SOLD)

 

Landscape painting Donegal
View From Poolawaddy (Private collection) painted in early March 2020

 

Painting of The Two Tin-Roofed Sheds, Ireland
The Two Tin-Roofed Sheds, Ireland

 

Red Roofed House Painting
Rusty Roofed House, Arranmore, Ireland

 

Irish Landscape painting_Emma Cownie
The Two Red Roofed Houses, Ireland (Private Collection)

 

landscape painting of Arranmore Island_Ireland_Emma Cownie
Down the lane, Arranmore (Private Collection)

 

Painting of Arranmore, Donegal, Ireland_Emma Cownie
Cloughcor, With Errigal Behind (Ireland) (Private Collection)

 

Donegal painting
View from Arranmore (Private Collection)
Donegal painting of area around Cloughcor, Arranmore
Around Cloughcor (Arranmore) (Private Collection)

 

Painting of Donegal Island of Inishkeeragh_EmmaCownie
Over to InishKeeragh (Private Collection)

 

 

Donegal landscape painting for sale_EmmaCownie
Gortgar, Arranmore (SOLD)

 

From Cloughcor To Maghery (Arranmore) (Private Collection)

 

Painting of Donegal cottage
House by the Wild Red Flowers (Arranmore) (Private Collection)

 

Painting of Donegal. Arranmore.
Old Courthouse, (Arranmore Island) (Private Collection)

 

There are also some small watercolours I did when I could not get to my oil paints and easel due to a broken leg/ankle

Watercolour of an old white cottage with a new slate roof, Arranmore, Ireland by Emma Cownie
House on the hill,, Arranmore, Ireland (Sold)
Watercolour of Irish cottage, Donegal
The White house, Arranmore, Ireland
Watercolor of Old White Cottage, Arranmore, Ireland by Emma Cownie
Old White Cottage, Arranmore, Ireland
Watercolour of Arranmore, Ireland
Two Red Roofed Sheds, Arranmore, Ireland

 

Some of the above paintings are available to buy as prints on artamajeur.com.

 

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Is it Three Cliffs Bay or Three Cliff Bay?

Looking Back from Three Cliffs Bay
Looking Back From Three Cliffs Bay
Looking Back From Three Cliffs, Gower 2017 

 

Oil Painting of Three Cliffs Bay, Gower, Wales. This is an unusual view from Three Cliffs Bay in Gower, Wales, looking back towards Parkmill from the top of granite rock monuments of one of the three cliffs.

I loved the array of colours and found it an arresting view, away from the bustle of the waves and shouting exuberance, to the calm and reflective.

 

 

 

However, when I came to write this post this morning, I was suddenly seized by the terrible thought that I might have been guilty of getting a Gower place name wrong. I thought so anyway.   I have been calling Three Cliff Bay, Gower, Three Cliffs Bay. So what? However, I have noticed last week that a local artist and blogger called it Three Cliff Bay, with no “s”. So I decided that I had been erroneously been adding an extra “s” to the cliff part of the name. Entirely understandable because you would assume that if it’s in the plural, it would have an “s” at the end.  Perhaps I not been paying close enough attention! I felt bad, that I had got it wrong. I’d be a poor landscape artist if I couldn’t get the name of the place I had painted correct!

However, I decided this need further investigation. Trying to check this on the internet, did not clear up the matter. Plenty of others also call it Three Cliffs with an “s”. The Visit Swansea Bay website for one calls this area Three Cliffs Bay as does as Trip Advisor and the local campsite, which calls itself Three Cliffs Bay Holiday Park! You think they would know what its called, as they live there?

However, I think it’s a little more complicated than that. Google Maps actually has both names. But when I studied their map a little closer – it seems that they use Three Cliffs Bay for the tidal beach and Three Cliff Bay for the sea part of the bay. The Ordnance Survey just has Three Cliff Bay for the sea part of the bay. So finally, I turn to my trusted authority on all things Gower related – a book. Wynford Vaughan-Thomas’s 1976 edition of “Portrait of Gower” which is full of facts, stories and gossip about old Gower and its people (Wynford was a Swansea-born Historian who was taught English at school by Dylan Thomas’s father).

Wynford-vaughan-thomas
Wynford Vaugh-Thomas in his BBC days

His section on what he calls “one of the great Gower views” he calls it Three Cliffs Bay. So there. Phew! That’s good enough for me. I have worried about nothing and wasted half an hour fact checking.

It is called Three Cliffs Bay. Unless you happen to be out at sea and then is Three Cliff Bay! Unless you know better!

© Emma Cownie 2017

 

 

 

 

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Fall, Bay?

Fall Bay, Gower.

Before our visit to Fall Bay, Gower, I’d read online that it was “one of the hardest bays to reach on the Gower Peninsula”.

My curiosity was piqued. The walk from old Great Pitton Farm, to Mewslade seemed easy enough. The coastal path climbed up past Jacky’s Tor, Devil Truck and Lewes Castle until it reached Fall Bay. Not so difficult, I thought. That was until I attempted the climb down to the beach!

The beaches at Brandy Cove and Great Tor Bay also require you to clamber down some limestone rocks before you reach the sandy beach. This path, however, was much more difficult to navigate, though. The way became very narrow and I had to wait several minutes to let two energetic families come past. Still, I have this idea that one must suffer to some degree in the creation of your art so I carried on. As I started my climb down, the “path” became much tighter and steeper as the way down twisted and the rocks were worryingly smooth. The final descent was very difficult, made much more treacherous by slippery rocks. I was amazed that I didn’t twist my ankle! So no wonder, the “beach is never crowded”.

The day had become overcast by the time we reached the beach. Tears Point rises above the beach at the west end. Worm’s Head and Rhossili, is just round the corner, but out of view. The grey light meant that the waves looked greener and the cliffs more red/orange. I was drawn to painting the light through the breaking waves, where the sand and sky is reflected in the narrow part of the wave. I also loved the chunkiness of the cliff where it meets the sand and how the surf swirled around it. I got my feet and trousers wet more than once!

Thankfully, it was much easier to climb back up the path than it was coming down.

Fall Bay Rocks, Gower
Waves at Fall Bay, Gower

© Emma Cownie Art

 

 

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My Donation to the Shelter Cymru Art Auction 2016

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I have just donated this painting “Farm Under Velvet Mountain” to this year’s Shelter Cymru Art Auction – always happy to support such a worthy cause.

“A must for any art lover, the Annual Welsh Art Auctions are amongst the biggest fundraising events in the Shelter Cymru calendar and are always a great evening out.”

http://sheltercymru.org.uk

Some words about this painting –

“This is an oil painting of the Table Mountian in Mid Wales.
I painted this because I loved the colours of blues, turquoise and purple which blend pleasingly with the blue-greens and terracottas of the trees and land.

Nature unearths such lovely rich colours and casts them wide in lovely complementary chromatic patchworks.
I would say this painting is inspired like so many of my mid-Wales landscapes by one of my favourite painters, Robert Bevan, whose landscapes have influenced how I paint this type of hilly upland landscape as opposed to the landscape I paint of Gower Peninsula which is usually in my own unique refractionist style which in itself influenced by expressionism.

I love the idea that colour expresses emotion, transports and alleviates the self and a creates an emotional response to a place depicted in a painting. Ideally I like to transport the viewer to the place so that the viewer somehow feels they are there or have been there in some sense. That is somehow familiar to them.
In this painting I hoped to transport one to soft lazy warmnesss of summer in the fields of Mid Wales. The velvety feel of the Table Mountain helps heighten this feeling of softness. The warm summer breeze can often give this sense of snoozy softness and I hope some of this is conveyed in this painting with the manicure trees like hairdryed Bouffants and the dusty dryness of the terracotta.”

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Further Round

New painting – “Round from Rhossili”

One day my husband and I walked up this steep hill overlooking Cheriton in Gower Peninsula and when we arrived at the top we were amazed at the view which was a view of practically all of Gower.
We walked on and on and eventually walked to where we could see the world famous “Worms Head” peaking it’s head and neck out of the water like a rising dragon, with it’s humped back submerged behind.

I thought this would make a lovely and unusual painting, this view and perspective.
Most paintings of Worms Head are from the perspective of glorious Rhossili or from the great beautiful expanse of Llangennith beach but this view has something else. It looked like Worm’s head was a great beast swimming round the corner of the hill in the distance. I loved the patchwork of fields and colours, especially how they flowed down the hill and twisted around it, giving a really pleasing fluidity of movement. I tried to catch this fluidity in this painting.

 

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Round from Rhossili (SOLD)

Buy limited edition signed mounted prints here 

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A Woodland Reflection

This oil painting is of Ilston Cwm and the bridge, over The Killy Willy, leading to Parkmill. I have painted this bridge in a number of paintings previously sold on Artfinder but this is the first painting from underneath the bridge.

What a spectacular scene there is under bridges as the sun lights the water and this reflects on the underside of the bridge. Here it also illuminates the river bed through which we see an array of autumnal colours through the translucent, rippling water. It is a magical sight and I hope I have caught some of this visual excitement in this painting.

https://www.artfinder.com/product/a-woodland-reflection/

IMG_0729
Woodland Reflection (SOLD)

This painting has now sold but it also available as a limited edition signed and mounted print £45

[wpecpp name=”Woodland Reflections Large Print ” price=”45″ align=”left”]

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Bridge to Parkmill – a Gower painting

Delighted to say I have just SOLD this painting “The Bridge to Parkmill” via Artfinder – now off to live in Lancashire England

“This is another form the Ilston Cwn series of expressionist, “refractionist” paintings. This bridge has featured before in the best selling “Bridge series” from 2014.

This time I have painted the bridge from a different perspective rather than “head on” so to speak. I just loved the rainbow of colours reflected in the water and the grassing and variously textured river bank.
There was such a spectrum of colour in this scene with the winter sun illuminating a tapestry of colour from the foreground to the back.
Again it is almost surprising that winter yields the clearest, illuminating light and the greatest palette of nature’s colours.”

IMG_7225
Bridge to Parkmill (SOLD)

Buy limited edition mounted prints here