working like a hound dog

This week I’ve been working like a hound dog (well, not like my hound who could sleep all day on her bed on the heated floor) but like a hound who works hard… all day!

Anyway, I’ve been working on a series of larger paintings which is all very exciting but although I’m working larger I have been trying to complete the same number of paintings that I would in an average week. This means an increase in actual hours painting and I have to say I’m pretty knackered.

But it’s not the time that is the thing that exhausts me it’s the head stuff. With each painting, at each stage, one is trying to create or achieve something and at every stage there is the potential for it to go well or not. I’m constantly holding my breath and making a choice to do this or that or the other, which might make the painting but maybe ruin it.

I imagine that this is common to not just art but to many things. The tension is most acute when I’m working on new ideas, things that I am trying out. I guess it’s a case of “feel the fear and do it anyway” right?

flowers for mother

This is one of my favourites from the new series. 24x 24inches oil on streched canvas

it’s up to you

It’s still very dark and stormy here today.

powerscourt walk

From the last of the bright sunny days at the end of October

Powerscourt Walk 8×8 inch oil on canvas bord

we were promised a hurricane

OK, so first of all apologises to those of you who have to suffer the effects of real grown up hurricanes. Over here, we get storms but no hurricanes as such. So it was with some excitement that we were told that a huricane was coming to town!

This one was the kind that’s like a major A list celebrity that has sunk to the D list, having lost almost all it’s power crossing the Atlantic. Even so, we were informed that this hurricane would be propped up by a high tide and low pressure so that it might perform with something of it’s past glory.

source:weheartit

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t wishing the destruction of a hurricane on us, but I have to admit there was a little part of me (the part that sometimes wants to laugh at bad news) that was just a bit disappointed. Don’t think badly of me!

fire and stone

On our recent quick trip to London the girls and I ate in a very cool and surprisingly child friendly restaurant called Fire and Stone in Convent Garden. I loved the lighting and snapped a photo of the condiments as we were leaving. My kids are used to this kind of behaviour from me by now but I did notice a look from our waiter.

fire and stone 8×8 inch oil on canvas bord

face to face meeting with virtual friends

The Art Fair in the RDS this weekend was a great success on lots of fronts. The Bad Art Gallery sold four of my paintings at the fair. A fifth is under consideration by a client and they have secured a commission for a sixth. We’re still happy dancing here! 

It was also a great opportunity to get to meet lots of other artists  and people that I have met “virtually” but have never actually laid eyes on in the real world (as it were!). I’m exhausted and I wasn’t even really doing anything.

Here’s a photo of the display on Sunday (just before closing up)

apple picnic

one of the paintings shown at the art fair this weekend.

apple picnic 16×16 oil on canvas