Work in Progress - March 2020 and A Few Things Called Off

There’s a few bits and pieces postponed due to the Covid - 19 pandemic. Firstly the show in Westport has been put back, I’m not sure until when but I don’t mind because it’ll give me a chance to get a bit more done for it and have larger selection to pick from. I’m still painting away towards that, not at the same pace the last couple of weeks but chipping away at it. I’m running out of canvas but I have a good lot of linen there and I never painted on linen so I’m looking forward to see how the work turns out on it.

Current sketch I’m working on for a painting, hoping to get started in oils of the weekend

With Heritage House closed we’ve had to cancel the workshops, senior citizens, teenager’s and children’s workshops are all off until further notice along with the Cork & Canvas sessions that we were running on Thursday nights. As far as working from home goes I’m just cutting out the stencils for the metal boxes that the board asked me to do a while ago. They wanted animals and plants on them so when I know what they want that’s half the battle. I’m just editing the images in Photoshop, printing them off and cutting out the stencil for spray painting, so whenever we get back to Heritage House I’ll be going at them.

The image I’m working with for the fox stencil

Work in Progress - August & September 2019

I didn’t post any work in progress update in August because I’m still working away at the oil painting below and I just forgot. It was about 2 weeks into September when I remembered so I decided to post to month in one. I’ve moved off of the tree, having finished the leaves and started working on the Púca, which needed a couple of glazes to to correct tones. The hat was too light in colour and the jumper was too cool tonally, so I have them sorted now and I’m working on the tracksuit, which I’m hoping to get finished next weekend or at worst the weekend after.

I think what took so long to get the crown of the tree completed was that the leaves were so numerous that it allowed me to be a bit looser but due to how big the tree is, it meant that the leaves needed some bit of form and definition so it was a case of deciding when they had enough work gone into them without leaving them looking unfinished and monotone.

I’m hoping to start work on sketches for the next batch of paintings from tomorrow evening. I’m going to keep going as I am, allowing the canvas to serve as the background, I think it lets the viewers eye fill in the rest of the painting without painting in a room or a landscape or where ever the characters are situated and I like the look of the detailed figure on the bare background.

I’ve confirmed another set of oil painting workshops in the Dunamaise Arts Centre too and they’ll be running for the month of November, I think every Tuesday evening, the same as before and we’re going to be running Halloween camps in Heritage House in Abbeyleix.

In work, one of the members of the board asked me if I would paint some of the telecom boxes on the street in Abbeyleix, like Dublin Canvas do. They want it linked to bio diversity, so lots of animals and plants. I’ve been messing about with a few bits but I’ve changed what I was originally going to do because I accidentally made something that sort of resembled The Animals of Farthing Wood logo. I’m also going to use spray paint and stencils because it’ll save me having to seal it when it’s finished and also I don’t want to be getting caught up in tiny details that won’t be seen or noticed. With this I’m aiming to maybe have the stencils ready for Spring when the weather takes up a bit.