As per the overarching tone of this summer - continued travel with a trip to Dublin followed the next day by a cross-country run to Ros Muc in Connemara to visit the ancestral house of a friend which has been refurbished; very remote and with its own pier which allowed some gorgeous swimming at high tide - lying on ones back looking at 'mare's tail' clouds dry-brushed across a cerulean sky: doesn't get much better than that.
A couple of interesting images:
Couldn't get a better angle on this as it was rather high up on an internal wall - it could be an idealised view of Connemara but the interesting thing is that it is a collage... of overlaid sheets of copper; I have never seen anything quite like it but unfortunately nobody seemed to know anything about it. That's not a great description but it was very unusual.
To the left front was the swimming area; I reproduced this one in B/W because I feel that the west of Ireland is very stark in its tones and shapes .
This totally demonstrates how kitschy nature can be - no artistic sense at all; that said, all present maintained that they had never been so close to the end of a rainbow but that the water was a bit deep for gold-hunting.
Another tasteless view from the same point:
The little sign says 'Valley Ice Cream' - used to be made in Thurles (home) in 1980s - dear me how parochial one has become!
One final cliché - a poet friend of mine (now sadly dead) once said to me that clichés are clichés because they are true - take what you want from that.
During the course of my travels I was doing a lot of driving and at one point I was quite tired: when I opened the door of the car to get out this was what I was parked over:
That has to be one of the best pieces of ground art I have seen.
Ok -you might think I was just swanning around enjoying myself but there has been a fair amount of work done as well:
This drawing which continues to ruminate on the theme of teeth,steel, rust and decay was done while in Ros Muc (not just sitting around enjoying myself y'know) and will hopefully eventually produce some interesting prints.
The second screen print was completed too, with very mixed success . Here are some shots of the process and then I will comment:
The original photo taken from Georges quay on the way to CCS last March
Pastel and charcoal study from the pic
rough drawing for print
Gouache colour study for print
drawing for stencils
Stencils
Various stages
This one was out of register for one stencil but I decided to keep it
Ok - I have to tell you that the pictures probably look a little better than the reality; there was a lot of cleaning up to be done. I think my biggest problem was that I wasn't all that familiar with stencil-making and I was a bit mean with the freezer paper; consequently there were a number of leaks around the edges of the stencils; I have made up my mind that I will recut the stencils and give it another try -at least this time I have a better idea of what I am at.
At the same time there are a couple of other things I would like to try.
Next post will be about books and steel..........gnomic comments.
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