I spent a few hours today painting moorhens and just having a bit of fun with the paints. I couldn’t help but giggle when I was painting their oversized feet. They reminded me of the old song “Your Feet’s Too Big” (I love the Fats Waller version! ).

I spent an hour planning my next painting this evening. It will involve quite a bit more work than the moorhens. I will keep you informed!

(By the way the background colour is white and not grey as the image shows)

I was flicking through a few photos of water birds this morning and my eye caught some images of moorhens. I do not know why but they never struck me as “paintable” birds . As I looked carefully at the images for the first time my eye caught the blues, browns, purples of the body plumage and the outrageous  crimsons and yellow of the beak and legs! I had always thought of moorhens as just little black birds that just scuttle off as soon as a person appears cursing them in that irritating shrilly call of theirs! Their oversized feet lend them a comical look and I knew I just had to paint them. I spent a few hours doodling and then began this painting. I hope to finish it tomorrow.

I am going to call it…”It Takes Two to Tango”.

Doodles

Optics hate it, clothes hates it, even skin hates it but birds love it. Mud, Glorious Mud!  What on earth am I talking about you may ask? Let me explain. As I mentioned in my last blog post I was heading up to Clontarf castle for the INREDA Xmas fair. Well the following day I decided to head off to the Bull Island Reserve to sketch and photograph its feathered residents and migrants. The day was dull and light bad and so the photography side of things didn’t overly excite me but I spent some valuable time sketching and painting wildlfowl. This is an important discipline of being a wildlife artist and the opportunities at Bull Island are superb.

Where would I begin? There were rafts of wigeon and pintail, parties of teal, shoveler and mallard .There were curlew, godwits, dunlin, turnstones, greenshank, redshank, sanderling, and knot. Herons and egrets were stalking the shorelines and the incessant soft calling of the large numbers of brent geese made for a beautiful chorus of birdsong. The incoming tide was slowly pushing all these critters towards me but by the time they were really close and would make great photographic closeups the light was gone!

I have included a few of my snaps at the end of the blog. I left the reserve at twilight and drove the long journey home to Connemara tired but well pleased.

Oh and by the way the Christmas fair was an excellent one with top quality vendors. I do hope they run it again next year.

Doodles

Time is flying and the evenings are getting longer so that must mean that the festive season is around the corner. The Christmas fair season has kicked off and I must admit I love them! My family dread me going to these at this stage as it usually means that I return laden with green and red scarves, little trinkets turned from wood and such, and these somehow end up in their Xmas stockings! Well what is wrong with that?

I have had many requests  from Dublin based folk who viewed my work online and would love to see it in person to show it in the city, so I am heading up to the big smoke tomorrow for a Xmas fair in Clontarf castle, to be held on Sunday between 10 am and 6 pm. The organisers have told me that there will be 40 quality exhibitors attending and the castle venue should be fantastic for a good atmosphere.

I better get cracking and finish off a few festive paintings!

I have just returned home from showing my work at  the Equus Live Show at Punchestown, Co. Kildare. I really enjoyed it as it was the first horse event I have done so far. This was the first year that the event was staged and was a great success I thought. The eventing was fantastic and the shopping was varied and of top quality.

I met some new customers and had plenty of chats with bird and animal lovers alike. One of the many facets of showing my works around the country that I really enjoy is meeting fellow exhibitors and it was no different at this show. Across the way from me were Tess and Julia Cooke from “Indigo Ivy”. Tess founded the  company and they produce the most fantastic tweeds for ladies and gents . It is great to see that the tweeds are made in the north.  I also met Michael and Audrey Smyth from “Smythart”. They are both great artists. Michael was selling his oil paintings at the show and Audrey was selling her animal ceramics . It was interesting speaking to them about art in general during the lulls in action!

My next door neighbour was Brian from “Euro Garden and Home” who was selling garden furniture. He has been in retail for 30 years and had good advice for me with marketing ideas.

I am exhibiting my paintings at the Galway Fly Fair next weekend. I will have a busy week painting fish! It is in the Galway Bay Hotel. Might see you there.