Work in Progress - August 2020 & Birr Arts Festival

First post in a while, I got a good bit of painting done over the few months of lockdown, I managed to get two of them finished before I give them a glaze or two and I’m hoping to get some still life paintings of the props done over the next few weeks. I’m still looking into introducing new characters and I’m thinking of using a really local myth about werewolves, in the western half of Laois and Kilkenny county, which used to make up the old kingdom of Ossory there are several myths about werewolves so I’m thinking of going along the same lines as the sluagh and making some sort of mask that would be fairly solid and easy to manage.

I’d also like to do something with the Stray Sod creature. I think it features a fair bit in fantasy but it has origins in Celtic mythology, so I’ll be starting to work on a costume for that at some point soon too.

In July we ran 4 weeks of workshops to conclude what people had paid for prior to lockdown, they finished last week or the week before. A few things have been rescheduled, confirmed and proposed.

First up this week, I’m delighted to have 2 paintings showing in Birr Arts Festival which will be hosted virtually here. The festival launches on Friday 14th of August at 6:30, all information can be found over at the link on the Birr Vintage Week Facebook page

One of the Horde, Oil on Canvas, 2020. One of the 2 paintings being exhibited virtually in Birr this week.

Next up then is 2 exhibitions in October, both curated by friend and artist Sinéad Keogh, Soul Noir is returning for it’s fourth year and will be in Dublin and the second show is a solo exhibition in Tallaght Library that Sinéad is organising and curating, I’ll post dates and details closer to the time. She has a place secured in Clondalkin Library too, I’m not sure of the dates yet for that one but I’ll be giving talks at both.

Westport has been rescheduled too for the end of February, so all going well it’s down to launch on February 25th at Custom House Studios. There’s a couple more things lined up but I’ll post about them later as they approach.

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 - February 2020

I’ve been working away on the new paintings for Westport, I’m fairly happy with them but a couple will need a glaze or a couple of highlights scumbled in later. That’s it as far as the studio goes really, just painting away.

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In Heritage House the Cork & Canvas nights are going well, we’re going into the fifth night of them this week and we’ve started running workshops in painting for senior citizens, after school workshops for children aged 7 to 12 and starting this week there will be workshops for teens. I think they will all run for about 6 weeks. They’ll run along side the school terms so I think we’re going to try another batch of 6 week blocks until the summer.