luí na gréine Ros Beithe Ciarraighe. Eireann. 2017 cycle tour. Oil on canvas. 71x86cm 2020.
From our 2017 cycle tour of Eireann…….
Fossil…..an update (part four)
Lot’s and lot’s of play with this and rather than lot’s of writing here are some images, I am not showing every single stage with this….just those moments during the process, when a pause occurs, or when something interesting happens to change the focus or is revealing in some way. Usually it is a visual thing not easily put into words…..so most recent is last……
New painting
Sol and the crescent Moon – 400 times larger, 400 times further away. Oil on canvas 30×60 inches
24th March 2020
Fossil part three
…..some canvas staining still to be done, but adding a little more linseed oil into the mix now and more paint too, the beginnings of some texture, and a wee bit more of the liquid (again heated gently until it melts) micocrystaline wax and genuine turpentine, and again once poured it quickly solidifies…..so in all three more sessions on this piece and I am already two weeks into this.
Not constant painterly activity…..stillness and looking, contemplating and some art historical, mythological, and science research also goes on along the way. Looking for all sorts of connections to feed into the work. For instance at the moment I am reading ‘The Ancestors Tale’ by Richard Dawkins, and oddly enough I am at that point in the book that discuses our concestor with cetaceans…..including dolphins.
Not surprisingly I am looking at J.M.W. Turner’s ‘Sunrise with sea monsters’ 1845. interpretations of the painting are varied……The Tate Gallery maintains that the “monsters” are just fish, I however think that if you take Turner’s life his personal history – his mother’s tragic life, the lose of his sister and put this into the context of the times in which he lived…..the friends he had like Walter Faulks, who campaigned to end slavery, and in that context most profoundly Turners ‘Slavers throwing overboard the dead and dying, Typhoon coming on’ also ‘A Shipwreck at Sea’ and most of his work, then you have to accept that there is always going to be a deeper meaning to any one of his paintings….and then it is quite obvious that the Tate’s interpretation is at best simplistic and naive, and in fact all his works have an edge to them. The painting was done towards the end of his life and most think the painting is unfinished. For me it is as finished as it needs to be
Yesterday (16th March 2020)
This morning 17th March 2020
This evening 17th March 2020
Fossil part 2
…..The painting continues….just as the light begins to fade, but it is a nice even light to work with….so another layer….another step along the way….