Category Archives: Donegal

Water to spare

‘Water to spare’

~~~

A dog’s tail, an empty chair, an empty terracotta pot. Anticipation. Lush. Inside outside interaction. Who waters? Who sits? Who is the sleeping collie waiting for?

~

Yellow wall and red geraniums, green growth of many shades and shapes. Who chose the vibrant warm wall colour? A corner of a cane table with text heavy folded paper. A broadsheet. Who reads?

~

Can we guess the occupants’ race or creed or country? Could it be North America or Europe? It doesn’t seem parched enough for Africa or most of Asia or Australia. Water to spare for pretty household plants, a collie in the house not herding sheep or cattle. Time enough for reading the Times.

~

Just a glance at a small corner of a lucky life lifts and heals my heavy heart.

~~~

This is an ‘ekphrastic’ poem, ie a prose poem written in response to an image

I have been learning about different poetic forms from Alison Smith who runs the free Facebook group ‘Womens School of Metamorphosis, Radical change from inside out’

https://www.facebook.com/groups/wsmradicalchangeinsideout/?ref=share

Flora

Foot bruised by an accident of enthusiasm

I can sit on the salvaged Parker Knoll recliner

pondering in splendid regality.

Spider Queen surveying her domain

of seven growing decades

Through wide opened double doors

On the hottest day of herstory

~

Up close (and so personal)

A bee fusses the scented pelargonium

on Dad’s old hand built coffee table

Marquetry stained by decades

of over enthusiastic watering

A fly dies in the cobwebbed corner

~

Foreground of swaying

frothy alchemilla mollis

Mum’s favourite coloniser of stone patios

and steps, perfect foil for sweet

Pastel pink blowsy Summer Wedding

rose blooms, stark against darker shadow

Memories of those North facing gardens

~

Backdrop of top heavy sycamore crowns

Rustling with seed jewels

Harbouring raucous caws of picus picus

Five for silver or six for gold

Most likely seven for those family secrets

Never been told

~

In the midfield young rowans

reach adolescent feathered arms

Up to the light. Early years stunted

by the North wind

Now finding strong footholds

Deep in the Donegal granite.

~~~

Weather

This is the Atlantic! Well just the small tidal strip between Cruit Island and Kincasslagh (County Donegal)
A very brief walk down by the shore with the dogs yesterday before getting caught in a horizontal hail storm
Unusually high tide up into the fenced field down by the shore (if you can’t get through it you have to go round it!) Always thankful for my waterproof boots (wellies), good coat, hat and gloves in Donegal !

Happy New Year 🕉

St Stephen’s Day

Watching the sky from our ‘sun room’ where we overwinter our geraniums. Nursing a sore back.

sudden gusts

of black dust

motes of

starlings

or small

songbirds

burst forth

from spidery

sycamore skeletons

waving bony

branch fingers

across the

gentle soft

grey sky

with luminous

liminal spaces

watched from

inside a

hazy cloud

of codeine

and caffeine

by bright globes

of whitest

geraniums

startling

against

these winter

hibernating

greens

faves of ’17

Here are some of my favourite moments and paintings from the last 12 months

And here’s to a peaceful, healthy and creative year ahead for us all. Namaste!

4 panels, untitled, each 70 x 50cm, in my studio, made in November


‘Yesterday was red’ aka ‘Pink’

55cm sq on canvas, made in November


‘Vessels’, made in October/November

Shipped rolled up in a tube to a customer in Pennsylvania just in time for Christmas


‘Split’ a diptych, each piece around 90×70-80cm. Currently being stretched and framed by the wonderful Seamus Quinn, at Artworks in Letterkenny, County Donegal


One of a group of paintings, displayed at the Show House, designed by Collette Ward Interiors, at the Ideal Home Show in Dublin this Autumn. This one was subsequently placed with a private collector


Celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary in August this year, though actually this photo was taken out our gorgeous niece Nancy’s wedding!


So thrilled with my fantastic solo show at GreenFuse Gallery, in Westport, County Mayo in May. Photo shows me and the gallerist Vincent O’Donoghue. The paintings behind us are ‘Blood and Concrete 1&2’ which were later also shown at The Model in Sligo, and one of them (the one behind Vincent) was selected by a private collector


‘Due West’, the signature piece of my solo show, of the same name, at Green Fuse Gallery. Its huge, about 150 x250cm

2016-12-30-14.40.05.jpg.jpeg

The making of ‘Ruined gables, night painting’ was a first for me! Painted in the middle of the night with very poor light in the studio, but I love it!


A view of the ruined ‘clachan’ (group of cottages close together) on Cruit which inspired the ‘Ruined gables, night painting’ above


My largest painting to date, ‘Tower’, about 1m x 3m, painted at the end of 2015 and sold to a private collector who lives on another, even tinier island off the North West coast of Donegal. Getting it delivered was quite a feat in itself

Looking forward to loads more adventures in creativity in 2018. Maybe bigger and bolder works! Looking forward to keeping in touch with you all and hearing your news and comments

Oh! And I had a new grandson in May too! Welcome to littleBryn Malachy Doyle!

available from home

This is ‘Evening walk, Cruit Island’

A large signature piece, on canvas, framed

This is an even larger piece, ‘Due West’

Approximately 150 x250 cm it will make a dramatic statement

These 2 above are ‘Stateside 1’ and ‘Stateside 2’

Each 120cm square on canvas

If you want to see more images of my work, or find out more about these shown here, including prices, payment and delivery details, please email me on liz-doyle@live.com

Thanks

Liz Doyle

You can also find some of my work at these galleries:

http://www.thedoorwaygallery.com

http://www.velveteasel.co.uk

http://www.greenfuse.ie

(cover image shows a few on Cruit Island, the starting point for many if my larger psintings)

Strokes and structure

Here are 2 of my recent large works

The top one is ‘Evening walk, Cruit’

110 x 160cm

The bottom one is ‘Ruined gables, facing West’ , 120 x 160cm

They were both painted during the same short period of a few weeks, about 4 or 5 months ago, in Winter.

They were both inspired by, and had their starting point in an evening walk at sunset, with the Western light, on the tracks around our home on Cruit

They are both unusual for me as they were mostly painted using brushes. And also the paint mixture was more liquid and had a higher proportion of oil, so the surface us more glossy than usual

Both have some strong diagonal marks as central structures to the composition.

The top piece is more balanced, with a fairly traditional compositional structure, with the mountain and horizon quite central.

The lower piece has a distorted, unbalanced structure, with a weird sloping section to the horizon on the left, and strong diagonal marks ambiguously reaching down from the pyramidal forms into the foreground

The brush marks were applied very quickly in both works. And there are dribbles and splashes

The colours in the top piece are warm and strong, but mostly complimentary and /or harmonious. Whereas the colour in the lower piece are strong and sometimes clashing, even bilious.

For me the results are very different. The top painting is comfortable, even comforting. The lower piece is unsettling, maybe anxious making.

I have never analyzed my work like this before. I almost never write any sort of artist statement. I would be very interested to hear what other people might think. About these paintings. Or about me writing about my own work. No holds barred! Please be honest. A diogue would be great. Thanks