I have decided that perfect is the enemy of good, and I need to give up on the idea that I should write lengthy blogs posts, as I end up writing nothing! So here goes,
Two grey scale paintings
One of the many great things about being back in West Donegal is that I can paint much larger paintings as my art studio is much bigger here than in Derry. So I now have two on the go!
Donegal Greyscale #1
These are both painted in acrylic paint. I find it easier to make adjustment in the value/tones in acrylic before I move onto a layer of oil as a final layer. Acrylic can act as a foundation layer for oil, but not the other way around. I had forgotten how physically tiring painting a large painting is. My arms are tired!
Donegal Greyscale #2
If you want to know about Greyscaling and why I have adopted this technique since moving to Ireland please see my post “Adventures In Acrylic Paint”
Bloody Foreland is one of my favourite locations in Donegal. It is one of the wildest, windiest and most beautiful places I have been. The light is sharp and clear. You feel healthier for breathing the air here.
House on Cnoc Fola
The wind is always blowing. It is very remote and feels a bit like the edge of the known-world.
A derelict house, Bloody Foreland
The name Bloody Foreland (Cnoc Fola in Irish means Hill of Blood) does not to refer to some past battle that took place here in mythic times, but intense red hue of the rocks at sunset. The Irish language dominates here.
Folklore records that Balor, the one-eyed supernatural warlord was eventually slain by his grandson Lugh Lámh Fhada on the slopes of Cnoc Fola. Indeed, some say that the tide of blood which flowed from Balor’s evil eye stained the hillside and gave it its name.
Bloody Foreland, Donegal
I particularly like the incredible stone walls, made of massive granite boulders, that snake across the hills here. They date from the 1890s. They suggest to me a landscape where stones were plentiful and labour cheap. It is also the sort of place where writers come to get away from the modern world and think about writing. Dylan Thomas, travelled to An Port, further south to write poetry, but left without paying his bills.
Old Farm Buildings, Bloddy Foreland
Bloody Foreland, also makes a refreshing contrast to the slopes of Brinlack and Derrybeg, round the corner, which are heavily peppered with larger modern houses and bungalows from the era of “Bungalow Bliss“.
Houses on Bloody Foreland, Donegal
This is the first time that I have been able to paint Ireland whilst in Ireland. Previously, I have worked from my photos back in Wales. Now I think that being surrounded by these colours all the time is affecting my work in a different way.
I am experimenting a little with less detail and letting my under painting show through more – to give a greater sense of the roughness of the landscape here. I am feeling my way. I don’t know how my paintings will develop in the future, but not knowing is a sort of freedom from painting the same thing in the same sort of way.
A new oil painting as of today – “Snowdonian Mountain Farm” – 60 x 50 cm – £295
Colourful oil painting of a farm nestled into the volcanic lap of a scarred mountain in Snowdonia. I love the passionate, intense colours of this North Walian mountain range, so rugged, brilliant, windswept and captivating. So multi-coloured, many hues layered on layers.
Strangely off putting and inviting in a same single crystal clean mountain breath.
Rossbeg (sometimes spelt Rosbeg) is a tiny townland on the west coast of Donegal, just south of Portnua and Nairn. There is a pier and a scattering of houses, some are modern, but many are old cottages, probably used as holiday lets. The day we visited the weather was calm and sunny. It was just perfect.
This was one of a pair of large paintings I started before I got ill. It sat in it’s greyscale state for over a month and a half until I recovered enoungh stamina to complete it!
Oiláan Na Marbh is a poignant island on the edge of the land in Donegal. It is inaccessible at high tide. Both beautiful and very sad. For it was on this island that over 500 stillborn and unbaptised babies were burried between the time of the Great Famine in the 1840s, and 1912.
