Early Christmas shopping...

I have been busy today. I went shopping for my wife's Christmas presents. They are wrapped and hidden away, ready for the day. I am not normally this organised, but while I had the cash I put it to good use....added to the fact that I knew what she wants and knew where to get it. Now if I can get a few early shoppers up to the studio........
I wont be back in the studio tomorrow, and I didn't go today as it is a bank holiday here, not that it makes a lot of difference to me. I had hoped to get a lot more done with my Oil before I go fishing on Wednesday, but that wont happen now unless we decide not to go to Sligo in the morning. I'll have to be busy painting Thursday and Friday to catch up.
I am on a high at the moment, still feeling that I want to paint...not as frenetically as when I got back from Tunisia, but keenly all the same. The financial success also is a great incentive to work. Add the fact that I have 15 clean bright new canvases awaiting me in the studio I know that I can get stuck in if I want and produce. That is assuming the 'juices' start flowing....the world awaits my newest creations.....that reminds me, I must update my website/gallery with some new work as soon as I get it done....I may upload the Tunisian work anyway in the meantime..

things are looking up...

I have the computor working again...for as long as it lasts....
I will nurse it along for a while. I have had a fairly good week this week, I started off on Monday with my finances at a low ebb, but by the end of the week I was 'safe' for another couple of months.....now any earnings before Christmas will be actual earnings and not needed for bill payments. I am sure a few other bills will appear though...they usually do.

I have been working on an oil painting, it is slow going...I had forgotten with the acrylics...but it is going well. I may try to photograph it during the week.

We hope to go to our cottage in Sligo on Tuesday, we haven't been up to it at all this year and we need to check up on it. I am seriously thinking of putting it on the market and liquidating the asset. It is on 2.5 acres with a stream bordering it, set in a sheltered mountain valley, it really is a lovely area but I can't afford to do up the cottage at the moment and it needs work doing on it.

PC problems......

My PC. has crashed again...... I'm on a borrowed laptop. I fished a pike competition on Sunday and failed to catch. I have been busy, and I still didn't get to work on any paintings. I have been to the vets with one of the dogs. The groomers with both of them. Today I stayed at home and did some cleaning, tomorrow I will try to get some photos off my PC...if I can keep it going for long enough. I spent a full day taking photos and sorting out the balance ready for a disc for a gallery, then the PC crashed. I am hoping I can retrieve them before it goes again, I think there is a problem with the ram, the computer is 6 years old. 'till next time....

A busy week, and getting busier....

I have been busy with more mundane tasks this week. Gallery visits, not to view but in an effort to organize exhibitions. I purchased some canvases paint etc. today, and as usual overspent! I now need to photograph my African works tomorrow and put them on disc for one of the galleries. I need to organise printing of cards and a catalogue of recent work (if I can afford it. I may try some bartering....) as I am out of business cards and in dire need of some kind of catalogue of work. More expense of course.
I have a couple of meetings for the angling club over the next few days also so I am going to be too busy to paint for this week. We have our bus outing for Pike fishing on Sunday too. I will be raring to go on the painting by Monday though. I may try to get some done on Saturday...at least I'll get some planning done.

I did not do well on Owel for the Last two days of the season. Noel caught a few fish though! I rose lots but the only fish I caught were small. Many of the fish were coming short and just nipping at the flies. I tried everything to cure the problem, one fish between 3 & 4 lb came up 5 times and still didn't commit to the fly. I even tried dry fly to entice fish to actually take instead of swirling at the fly only to have them literally roll over the fly to drown it rather than take it in their mouth!!! EXASPERATING!!!
In the last hour of the final day, (I had returned one takeable fish after the first 10 minutes, only to find the fish adopted the previous days dalliances after) I only had a few small fish taken and about 12 others playing with the flies, so I put up two dries again. Within ten minutes I rose a good fish, struck him and pulled the hook out almost immediately...I'd forgotten how small the hook I was using was...and that was it for the year.
Oh well there is always the pike fishing and a few trips to the rainbow fisheries......
Now I need to get back to work.

It's Hot!.....not the weather, the painting..

Here is the painting mentioned in the previous post. I have kept the foreground minimalist. I like the heat in this painting. The effect I wanted is definitely there. I am also happy with the tonal effect created between the distant mountain and the sky. I have not done any more to the other work yet though.

I won't be back in the studio now until Friday. I am fishing for the next two days, the last two of the trout season. We are spending them on Lough Owel. I hope the fish oblige, we decided against Ennel or Sheelin tomorrow as the forecast is for strong breezes and the bigger loughs might be a bit rough. Gales were forecast for this evening and tonight, but as yet they have not come, I hope they aren't around tomorrow.

Work in progress.....

this one is about 31 iches by 29 inches, acrylic on canvas.
I am not sure about it yet though. I think the sea is too heavy, although I may just cut down the sky area as in the second photo.

Aside from this one I am working on another piece. I am happy with it as far as I have got. I now need to work on the foreground which I want to keep minimalist. This is goint to be the hard part......I will have the urge to do more.....

Tomorrow will see the resulting work, I hope! Tonight I am going to go back to this painting. I may just play around with it on the computer for an hour or so and experiment the lazy way.....just so I can be clear with what I want to do.

A pleasant days fishing on Lough Owel

I enjoyed yesterdays fishing trip. We fished Lough Owel, mainly over towards the small pumphouse shore. I caught a lovely wild fish of 2.5lb within two minutes of starting. It turned out to be my best fish of the day, though I did come out of a bigger one. I ended up with 6 fish in total, two of them over 2lb (1kg) and although the fishing wasn't spectacular there was enough movement from the fish to keep interest high. I feel if there had been any natural fly on the surface we might have had a good day. Flies that caught were daddy-long-legs, olive bumble, lght olive bumble and a claret hopper. The only other fly I tried was a golden olive bumble but I felt this was too bright for the conditions (bright) so did not fish it for long. The weather was scattered showers, bright spells and a nice south westerly breeze, creating a good wet fly wave on the windward shore where we were fishing. Temperatures dropped in the evening though ending sport early.

Another painting....and more fishing

Here is the latest painting acrylic again. This time I concentrated on the sea. The colours and the way the surface developed wind lanes created the interest. I may need to do more work with it. The other painting is still sitting there, the sea is similar but more heavily painted and the landscape is more defined. It needs a lot more work though.
I am going fishing again tomorrow. I haven't decided where yet but we will probably end up on Lough Owel, just to allow Noel to find a few fish hopefully. We only have another couple of trips before the season closes, tomorrow and then two days next week. Hopefully we will get a few fish.