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.
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.
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.
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 