My fourth canvas was an early attempt at painting myself. Back then, I didn’t have an easel, so I painted on a level table. I would be working on the picture at an acute angle, not facing at the picture squarely. Consequently the lower part of my face is more broad than real life, I look a bit bloated.
This was my father’s tractor. He was dead over a year when I painted this in August, 1999. We had an old picnic table that we stored in the same shed as the tractor and I used it to paint this. I loved painting the rust on the hub of the wheel and the general grime and dust on the windows. Gnarly, decaying old objects are appealing to me. I had no work for the tractor to do so I gave it to a cousin of mine in 2008.
This is the second canvas I did, immediately after the first, on 16th and 17th June, 1999. This old building is on the family farm. The gable side facing away from the viewer is on the roadside. It seems it may have once stored carts and horse-drawn vehicles in bygone days. My father used to store potatoes and sick lambs in the ground floor. He kept sheep as well as growing crops.
eastcorkpainter 