Barley Waving in the High Field 2
Category Archives: art
Barley Waving in the High Field
Mam’s Hands in Hospital
During Mam’s last stay in hospital, her hands, unposed, just lying on the bed. We took her home a few days later, where she spent her last weeks. Thirty years of rheumatoid arthritis have distorted her joints but I see resilience rather than frailty in this.
Moon Jellyfish on Fota House Wallpaper
I’m with an artists collective, Mór Artists and in April we were invited to explore the wallpaper designs, as well as some of the rooms, in Fota House. Scanning through a folder of one of the wallpapers, this pattern struck me as unusual and an idea for putting something out of place against it made sense. As I’m immersed in the sea and the motif resembled the centre of moon jellyfish, I put the jellyfish against the wallpaper to explore incongruity, repetition and interference. I used homemade oils throughout and Michael Harding’s Warm White.
Valentines Day 2025 – Sold
This piece was well received at my recent solo exhibition in the Grainstore Ballymaloe. It depicts a rough sea, I only got into the sea for a proper dip twice in February. The lighthouse island can barely be seen above the sea. Homemade oils used, silver for the shadows around the waves.
Shower over Ballycotton Bay
I painted this in casein and it gave a nice wash effect to the shower clouds in the sky. I struggled with the sea a bit, tried Terra Vert first and it would not bind with the casein medium, so I switched to permanent green.
Petroleum Sea Foam 3
Full Moon Sea Glow – Sold
This is my first time using casein paint as a medium. Casein, the main protein found in milk, has been used as a binder for paints for millenia, long predating oil paint. Schmincke, a German paint manufacturer, make a special binding medium. I mixed my powder pigments with the binding medium to make casein paint. They are quite runny when water is added so care is needed when water is mixed. My iriodin blue silver pigment created pleasing effects on the breaking foam in the foreground.
Petroleum Sea Foam 2
I recently saw a film about Hilma af Klint’s life. I needed a break from figurative painting so I did something more abstract. Acrylic paint is basically plastic so I wanted to explore the idea of pollution at sea, and how out of place yet beautiful to look at it can be. No two discs are the same. The natural background and white glow is oil paint.
Hydrangea Re-emerging
I’ve had a long, rough winter, so when I saw the hydrangea in my front flower bed coming back to life at the start of March, I felt an urgent need to paint it outside. I used a new green, ‘theatre green’ very bright and perfect for capturing the fresh vibrancy of new leaves. The branches painted loosely to highlight their fragility.
eastcorkpainter 