Category Archives: Ireland

without you can’t get in

It started with a search for something to paint over because I’ve run out of canvas.

I chose these 2 as they are rather boring and not too textured or lumpy

They are each 70 x 50cm on board

I laid down some first layers and decided to turn them sideways

I was thinking about people out on the street during these cold winter nights and started to make some loose marks with solvent and a palette knife. I have some new gold Winsor and Newton oil. Added some of that, mixed with wax, with a roller. The shapes are clumsy and awkward

The song from Paul Simon’s new album, called wristband, the third verse running through my head. The bit about riots and how not having a wristband to get you in the door becomes a metaphor for the excluded and disenfranchised. Thinking about the election of Trump. And Brexit.

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=40220

Add more colour. Roll over and obliterate most of the scraped marks. Make some new marks with a graphite stick

Thinking too about the desperate situation in Aleppo. And David Wolfe’s moving and horifying before and after photos on Facebook 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1290315790990889&id=100000374406030
It’s not about pretty pictures

What is it about? Painting? What do we do it for? Why? How? Is there any point?

Darker and deeper

More confusing

I don’t know. But I keep painting

(Header image is another stage on the journey, not the finished image – I signed it then changed my mind)

Blood and concrete




2 canvases each 100 x 80cm (39 x 31.5″)

As 2016 draws to a close I’m trying, against the odds, to look ahead to 2017 with hope.

Hope that we will all be mindful of anything we can do that helps rather than hinders. In so many areas. For Peace. For People. For the Planet 

The paintings above are called ‘blood and concrete’.

an extra layer


Just reworked these 2 with a few more marks and a layer of creamy coloured transparent oil and wax mixture

They are each 80cm x 100cm and are part of the ‘Oceans – a tipping point?’ series from last week

I think they are much better for the extra later.  What do you think?

Here they are as they were before:


panoramic

I am really enjoying working on a much larger scale on unstretched canvas stapled directly to my wooden studio painting wall.

The top one shown here, (Martello Tower), is at my maximum size possible, fitting snugly into the full depth of my studio extension and completely covering the wooden panel cladding that is fixed over the planks.( The photo shows the painting cropped of its blue surround, which allows for it to be stretched to an approximate final size of 150cm x 275 cm.)   The unstretched canvas is 120cm x 290cm ( about 4′ x 9’6″)

Here is the primed unstretched canvas, followed by the first stage of underpainting:

The other two paintings are each 115 cm x 160cm  ‘Out walking one evening in November, Cruit’ and ‘Once they danced at the crossroads – ruined gables, Cruit’

brushes for a change

This large painting on unstretched canvas, stapled directly to the painting wall, is unusual for me. I’m not using cold wax medium, but instead oil with a liquid siccative added.  This is a much wetter medium, so I am using brushes for a change instead of my usual squeegees, scrapers and rollers.


The painting was to a certain extent inspired by views like this, of Mount Errigal and the Aghlas, across the small strip of sea that separates Cruit Island from the mainland. 

This painting is to me a natural step onwards from these three, on pre-stretched box canvas, made over the last few days


colour and boundaries

I’m having some fun with process, using old unsuccessful painted canvasses to re-work, amend or completely paint over

These 2 canvases, each 80cm sq, were initially very different abstract paintings, but both had quite a lot of structure and quite large areas with earth and ochre colours. I have kept some of the initial areas but built up additional structures and much more detail

Here are the two separately:

And here is another, larger canvas. This one is 80 x 120cm and has much more tentative amendments – might not be quite finished yet