In spring and early summer, I give a hand in my sister’s flower field. Planting seed trays and pots and weeding, it can be a busy time. This painting depicts Claire in the farm shed doing flower bunches. It’s late September and near the end of the flower season. I thought the composition would be interesting, surrounded by flowers fanning out and going sideways and down rather than the usual upright direction. I’ve not done a formal painting of her before.
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.
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.
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.
