Monday 23 April 2012

Sea Paintings on Canvas - Next Stage


To day, I worked on two of the small paintings I started recently. At the risk of repeating myself, I am showing you the paintings as I left them. The first began like this.








I added lots more colour using ink and paint together to get it to this stage (below).








I left it to dry completely before working on it again. Then I touched up the house and added some charcoal to give the effect of rain in those clouds (below).









The next photo is of the same scene but it is the larger 8 x 8 inch canvas which began like this.











I really attacked this with colour (below) in an effort to emphasize the dominance of the elements in this landscape and the insignificance of the house as a manmade construction within it. This is how it felt on this particular evening - the power of the natural landscape over everything.
I often think about this in relation to how it feels to live here in Connemara and I remember being quite struck by it when I settled here first. We are at the mercy of the elements here in a way that one is not living in a city. I suppose it is the effect of the wide expanse of the sky and the exposed, mostly treeless spaces combined with the force of the Atlantic weather.










I used a combination of acrylic paint and ink and I used my hands instead of brushes to make strong gestures with the colour to achieve a kind of drama. It's not finished yet but I am reasonably happy with the sky so far. I will let it dry and return to it later.

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