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.

The autumn has struck with a bang over the last couple of days with temps. plummeting to 5*C here last night in Connemara. Lovely day today with the trees dropping leaves and the bog turning to its autumnal siennas and ochres. We don’t have many trees in Connemara so the bog is our indicator that autumn is here.

I have had many inquiries from people  as to whether I had any plans to exhibit  my art  around Galway city. My framers  Mark and Sandra Loftus kindly let me have some wall space in their framing shop to display a selection of pieces and I must say I was delighted with the way that Sandra presented them.

Mark is an old school friend of mine and a master framer. He only uses  conservation quality materials  and is very thorough in his work . Many people commented on the excellent quality of the framing on my artwork at shows throughout the year and this is all thanks to Mark.

Their shop is located at Unit 1A, Monaghans, Tuam Road, Galway. I have included a few pics below showing their shop and the paintings on display. If you are around this area drop in and say hello!

Summer has slipped by and autumn is being heralded in by a heaving crop of apples on our apple tree and the mountain ash branches bending under their weight of berries. Here in Connemara the bog will  shortly be changing colour from the its drab summer coat into  golden ochres and siennas.These seasonal transitions inspire me to paint in a more intense manner as they  quickly fade.

I was exhibiting my work last weekend at the Birr gamefair and we were blessed with good weather. It was great to see  familiar faces and meet some  new ones.I will be shortly heading across the water to the Midland gamefair which will be held on the 14th and 15th of this month in Weston Park.I am looking forward to this fair as it has a great buzz due to the shooting season being underway and the autumnal weather improving the fishing conditions.

I have included a few images of some paintings I have recently finished.

Where has the time flown ?The CLA is next weekend and I would have loved another two weeks to prepare for it! I had so many ideas for paintings but alas not enough time. Nevertheless I am posting some images of artwork completed. I am looking forward to the three day fair .It is a very impressive show and one needs three days to comfortably see it all. Hopefully I will meet new customers and will certainly enjoy speaking to people about the great outdoors. My stand number is B229. Might see you there!

Summer has finally arrived here in Connemara with some sizzling weather last week. The burst of life which occured with flowers blooming and insects hatching it was welcoming to see.

I did not see much of the sun as I was at my easel busily working on some paintings for the show season which begins for me with the Shanes Castle game fair at the end of June. Following that I will be travelling to England for the CLA game fair, a massive show with huge crowds. It was cancelled last year due to torrential rain, lets hope this year that the weather is more seasonal. It will be quite an adventure heading over with a trailer load of stuff. I am really excited about it!

I did manage to get two days fishing lately on Lough Corrib. This is a wonderful time of the year to be on the lake as the sounds and sights are so varied. The mayfly is hatching and the trout are feeding eagerly ( in theory!).The lake is a birders paradise at this time of year with the little critters busily nesting and singing. I love the sounds of the gull colonies even though some of my fishing friends are driven to distraction by them. Some of the gulls do seem to choose the most careless nesting sites but I suppose they know better.Kittiwakes are the main culprits for this quirky behaviour in real estate. The eggs in the blog images are kittiwakes eggs , this particular bird building his nest on a rock ten feet from shore,easy pickings for the mink. The parents are determined  in their defense of their nests so maybe the mink tries to find easier pickings.

The highlight of my trip was getting some fantastic views of long -tailed ducks. I had never seen them before and they allowed my drifting boat to get within 40 feet of them. I was kneeling on the floor with just my camera lens sticking over the gunwales but they were quite relaxed feeding in front of me.

The fishing was tough as the weather was a bit too bright during the day but the evening fishing made up for it with good falls of midge.It was wonderful sleeping in my tent that night on an island listening to the sounds of curlew and relishing the thought of fresh trout   for breakfast! breakfast!

A friend of mine recently asked me to define the word “regular”. I gave him an answer which pleased him .He then asked me  with a twinkle in his eye if the word might apply to blogs! I got the hint and decided to post  about my February trip to Scotland.

I love Scotland for many reasons but the beautiful  scenery and varied wildlife are two of the best. My last  trip had been in August 2010.  The main reason for my trip was to photograph  ptarmigan and  black grouse. I decided that February would be a good time as the snow should still be on the tops and ptarmigan in snow should make for stunning photos. February should also see the beginning of the courtship display by the male black grouse.

As I drove up from Holyhead showers of sleet were frequent and the air was much colder than the balmy 8 degrees in Connemara when I left earlier that morning. My first stop in Scotland was with fellow artist and friend Colin Woolf who lives in West Lothian.He and his wife Jo show me great hospitality every time I drop by and we spent many an hour looking at his latest art and photos. Jo did her best to introduce me to their cat who is called Purdey but cats being cats she  just pretended that I was not there!

The following day saw me head up towards Tayside where I spent the following five days driving around the beautiful countryside photographing and sketching. Scotland had plenty of snow prior to my arrival and I began to realise that I might have a bit of difficulty getting up on some of the tops seeing that  I was not experienced with hiking in snow. I decided to  locate some lekking sites first and following Colin’s  tipoff I came across seven males early the following morning on the lek. Leks are traditional areas where the birds congregate to partake in courtship displays to try to win a female.Females are called greyhens. I was delighted to see that they were displaying magnificently , hissing, bubbling and throwing shapes at one another.Two cocks even were trying to fight with a fence between them. I think one of the birds was a young cock and he enjoyed taunting the older one knowing that he couldn’t really do anything about it! The birds did not engage in any serious fighting as there were no hens about due to it being  in the early stage  of lekking.

They kept up their strutting until nine o clock and then flew off in different directions generally heading towards young pine plantations or birches.It was very exciting seeing all of this action and I got some valuable sketching time  using my spotting scope.The sun brought out the most fantastic colours in the birds when it did shine.I enjoyed this spectacle for four mornings and I gained valuable grouse  behaviour  information. I enjoyed several mornings observing them and spent a few evenings watching them feeding in birches. It is astonishing to see these big birds balancing on small branches as they reach for the succulent buds.

My next port of call was the Cairnwell mountain at Glenshee ski fields. This is a good spot to see ptarmigan. When I arrived I was shocked to see the mountainsides black with skiers! They were having a great season with all the snow. People do not bother the ptarmigan here and shortly afterwards weighed down with cameras and clothes I slowly plodded uphill. I had only gone a short distance when I realised that this would be considerably harder than my August 2010 walk. The snow made walking difficult as it was quite icy.I was glad that I had bought two walking sticks. I was keeping an eye out for snow buntings on the way up but did not see any. It was cloudy and coooold. I finally made the summit and sat down to have a well deserved cup of tea when the cloud descended on me and I had to beat a hasty retreat downhill. This is where the fun began. I think that I spent as much time  descending on my backside as on my feet! I really should have had crampons on my boots. The camera took a few knocks but I finally  made it to the car with only my pride hurt…all that way up just to come straight down again! I did get a photo of what I believe were ptarmigan footprints though. The mountains are dangerous places when white outs occur  and I was glad that I erred on the side of caution as the top was now completely fogged out.

I could write much more but will let the photos tell the story. My week saw very little good photographic light, much of the time been grey and cloudy , no rain thankfully.

The ptarmigan photographs will have to wait until next time!

Sparring Blackcocks

Near Aberfeldy

Running Roe

Red Grouse cock

Red Grouse cock

Ptarmigan Prints?

Partridge Cock

Feeding Greyhens

Mountain Hare

Cairnwell Mountain

Fight me you coward!

Aberlady Estuary

I would like to wish  you all a very happy and peaceful Xmas. I shall hopefully get out with the camera over Xmas and perhaps have something interesting to write about.Nollaig Shona agus athbhliain faoi shéin agus faoi mhaise dhaoibh go léir.

Hi all. I haven’t been getting out recently due to some commissions I’ve been working on and also the terribly wet weather we’ve been getting here in Connemara. It’s been nearly dark here at 2.30 pm on some of the fouler days, hardly good wildlife photographic light.

I’ve been getting a few pieces ready for the Craft Bazaar this weekend in Limerick city. They are studies of some of the common garden titmice on simple backgrounds. They are framed in a clean white frame.

Details of the Craft Bazaar are to be found in the “Exhibitions “header at the top of the page.

I am busy at the easel painting fishing scenes and fish subjects for the Galway Fly Fair. It is a change for me as I don’t normally paint these subjects but I must say that I am rather enjoying myself. I wish I had more time to have a better selection for sale but I am working on a large piece at the moment which is eating up my time. I am really pleased with it though and it should look stunning when it is finished. It is a montage of images depicting the lake trout fishing season.I shall try to post it on “On The Easel” tomorrow so everyone can have a look at the work in progress.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.