Here a photos of the two 'Burren' paintings. I have left them aside, and I will consider them for a while. The blue is causing me concern although I like the luminescence of the paintings. The upper work is 30 by 20 inches, the lower 24 by 18.

I'm off up to my studio now, and I am looking forward to working away for the day.......Hopefully on something productive.

I am not going into the studio today. I am suffering from backache. It is not condusive to creating art.
I did quite a lot yesterday..I have taken photo's but I haven't downloaded them yet, and I am on the wrong computor to do it. I may get it done later. However I am happy enough with the progress so far. The works are very blue, which I am unsure of....mainly because they are not my usual palette. The colours are suitable to the landscape though, the cold limestone flags of the Burren in Co. Clare. Beautiful in summer with the abundant flowers, but very cold in winter with the exposed rock. I have made the sky a deep cobalt blue at the moment but it will change. I over-painted the existing sky because it did not work. I am as yet unsure of what I want to do with it so I have just given myself a blank area to work with, but one that sits in with the landscape.
I really wanted to get stuck in again today, but I had a bit of back-ache yesterday and it's worse today so I really need to rest it a bit. I also have the AGM of the angling club tonight...I hope my seat is comfortable enough....

I didn't get fishing, but I got quite a lot of work done in the studio last week. I was away for the weekend and I travelled up to Northern Ireland to have dental work done today so I have been busy all this week/weekend. I am hoping to get to the studio tomorrow again, I have a painting on the easel I want to get back to. Our angling club AGM. is this week and I am in charge of running this months club competition on Sunday so I am going to be busy this week too. The competition is our start of season Pike competition, the first of the year, just prior to the start of the trout season and our trout competitions. I hope the weather will be pleasant for it. The weather was quite good up until today, but it has been grey, wet and windy today, the trip up North and back was dreary and unpleasant, spray everywhere and poor driving conditions so I am tired. I was tired before I started though...a lot of driving and long hours over the weekend in conjunction with little sleep, plus an early start today...

Opening day blues...

I checked the weather forecast for Thursday, it is to be wet and windy, strong winds from the west.....That has put an end to any ideas about travelling over to Lough Corrib for the opening day. I have gone every year for years, but after last year (conditions similar) I realise it is too much of a trip just for the sake of going out when conditions are bad. It works out quite expensive too by the time deisel, boat hire, incidentals (meals etc.) are all taken into account, so to spend the money and 7 or 8 hours return journey driving just to get onto the lough and hide in shelter for the day is just not feasible anymore.....Old age catching up on us! realistically though it will be better if we go later in the year when fishing is more comfortable and more productive.
I am busy on friday with meetings too, and down in Wexford all weekend so the long drive and back would have been felt by Monday.. ...it is probably for the best.
.....I might pop out for a few hours on Thursday anyway, to one of the Rainbow fisheries close to home.

here is the promised picture of my self portrait. The photograph is not a bad representation of the finished painting.

I went fishing yesterday, well I went visiting a few venues......everywhere we looked was frozen over, we ended up fishing the liffey above Leixlip for an hour, but with no success...and the cold caused us to give up quickly.

We had little faith in fishing the area we were, it was the last place to try for open water as it was running. We probably should have gone straight to a river after the first case of frozen venue, that way we could have fished either the Barrow or the Suck...we travelled far enough going from area to area to do the trips anyway.

I was in the studio today, but it is too cold and miserable so I did not stay. I was also aware of the fact that the snow we have falling at the moment might make driving home difficult later. Ergo I am about to do some work on the computor.

I have been busy painting

I have been working away, painting a few studies.
They have been quite loose and I have enjoyed painting them.
I have been away here and there as well during the week, added to the fact that I potted up the 40 odd strelitzia (bird of paradise) seedlings that have started growing it has been a fruitful week.

I will endeavor to put photo's on the blog during the week, I need to download from my phone and upload the pics from the PC....I am using the laptop at the moment and it does not connect to my cameraphone. I also need to take quality photos of the portrait to send to Portugal.