A quick, simple painting. The inspiration was a doodle my father did on one of the black painted boarded windows on one of the farm sheds.
Tag Archives: acrylics
Isolated
Painted from my mind’s eye in February, 2005. After college I worked in archaeological digs around the country. But not continuously; there were stretches where I wasn’t working and helping out at home because my mother suffers from Rheumatoid Arthritis. This was painted during one of those times. I had lost touch with a lot of the people I worked with and went to school with. So I wanted to do a simple, symbolic picture representing my situation.
Imaginary Starlit Night
Done entirely from my mind’s eye, no references. Some people think the orange and yellow lights down towards the bottom show a train, but I meant it to be a housing estate. I suppose my favourite colour is blue and I think this painting shows this. Painted in October and November, 2004.
Kurt Cobain
Not satisfied with my previous attempt at depicting the Nirvana musician, I painted this over a few months in 2003 and 2004. Despite using a reference photo, the colour scheme was my own idea. I remember taking my time doing his face and head in particular. This is a landmark painting, after this picture my paintings got more colourful and diverse.
Kurt Cobain MTV Unplugged
I’m a big Nirvana fan since discovering them aged 18. So sooner or later I was going to do a picture of Kurt who is a popular subject in drawings and paintings. I did this the last week of December, 2002. This was the first picture I got framed. It’s ok, the head is a bit too small and I wasn’t satisfied with it. So I did another painting of him.
Farmyard on a Grey Summer’s Day
This painting was started in the summer of 1999 and painted on and off into summer 2001. I was interested in how the various buildings intersect with each other. I set up inside one of the farm sheds looking out on to the farmyard. A group of local artists came to the farm to paint shortly after I finished this. I showed the leader a few of my works up to that date, and he found my style quite lacklustre, citing this picture in particular. He advised to look at the Impressionists and more colourful art. This became the inspiration for the next painting, a copy of Van Gogh’s famous Starry Night.
Brother’s Cello
An early work. My brother learned to play the cello when he was younger. I liked the shade of brown on the surface of the instrument. Painted in November 2000.
Brother’s Portrait
An early attempt at a portrait. It was difficult to make, I had no experience of painting others at the time. Dan sat for hours. He was 11 at the time. Painted in late October, 2000.
David Brown Tractor
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.
Long Garden Laneway
eastcorkpainter 