I spent most of my morning running around doing errands...posting letters & a parcel, lodging to the bank, collecting materials, visiting the recycling bank. At lunch I delivered a painting and eventually arrived at the studio for the second time....I had to go off before getting out of the van the first time.... with a load of materials, my paints etc from the Corrib trip, a few paintings all in the back....and I hadn't got keys to the studio! DOH!!!!. So all in all nothing got done in the studio today. I spent a few minutes fertilising some of my Strelitzia or Bird-of-paradise flowers this evening, at the moment I have three flowering bracts and one more to come soon. Although they are all in the one pot I think there are a couple of different parent plants in it....it is unlikely the whole plant was from one when I bought it as there were about eight or nine seperate plants..so I am hoping to get some home grown seeds. I planted seeds acouple of years ago and those plants are doing well, I may get flowers in a year or two from these (3-5 years normally)
I am leaving you with a photo I took of Lough Sheelin..... a warm 'buzzer' evening...just before the thunderstorms...

Lough Corrib mayfly trip..

Well as promised..but a little late..I managed to catch fish every day exept Sunday...but I didn't even venture out on Sunday, the high winds made it too dangerous to go out on the lough. We had winds and some rain, but a big wave all week exept on saturday & thursday....so buzzer fishing was only possible on these two days. I managed to get a few fish too, only one was big 4lb+ but I was broken once and lost another good fish behind the boat. I fished dry mayflies most of the other time, with quite a bit of success, though no big fish landed, a few hooked and lost. Finally on Friday, the dry flies seemed to stop working, so after a couple of hours I switched to wet flies and managed to winkle out 3 fish. I learnt that evening that most anglers had struggled to catch on Friday, so 3 was a good result, even though it was my worst day. I saw a lovely 11.5 pound trout caught on the fly on Thursday, definitly a fish of a life-time, these fish are usually only caught by trolling dead baits. Saturdays river competition was not a good one for me. I managed quite well for the first two sessions but blanked in the third...and after that I did not really try in the fourth...the blank had already destroyed my chances of qualifying anyway. I was too tired by the afternoon anyway, so with no hope I decided to relax for the last session. It is 9 am monday morning now, so I am off to the studio to work on some paintings... I did a little when I was over in the west, and I want to do some work on/from them..I can't find my camera againto take any pics...now where did I leave my head??

I'm back again.

I spent 6 days on Lough Corrib...fishing 8 to 10 hours...drove back last night. Today I fished a major competition.....and failed miserably...but thats another story..and I am knackered, beat, exhausted, worn out, weather burnt, cut, bruised, but happy. I'll give all the details of my trip in my next post. I'm too tired tonight....a hot bath and early to bed for me. I'll leave you with a picture of Malachy's Island on lough Corrib....this Island has old houses on it and used to have families living and farming year round.

Greg Long, Artist and Angler

Greg Long, Artist and Angler

I'm off to the west for a week...of fishing!, and maybe a little painting..I am taking a couple of canvases etc. just in case I have time to do a few plien air studies..possibly from the lakeshore house we have for the week. Obviously I wont be blogging for the next week...but I'll let you all know how I got on upon my return..
I still have a few messages to run, hooks to buy (for fly-tying) spools of line for cast, a few other last minute jobs need doing too....but mowing the lawn won't be one of them...it's still wet and miserable...good grass growing weather, my lawn will be 12 inches high when I get back!!
see you then.

Ebay enabling the ripping-off of Artist's work again

I had a good day yesterday, plenty of fish, and a few good ones in amongst them, then I came home to an email letting me know that a chinese rip-off merchant had one of my painting photos up offering it at $38 on ebay....any size you like. I have spent hours trying to get it removed. These chinese companies have no regard for intellectual property rights or copyright theft. They even use the artist's name as a selling point. I'm informed in china you can use these until you are asked to stop. I am fuming at the moment. Ebay is taking it's time removing the item too. It doesn't seem to matter that a chinese company is claiming to be the Artist, or that it is destroying years of work building a reputation. Ebay even makes it difficult to have the offending items removed..I have to fax forms over to the USA!, stating I own the painting...the listing says I do! It is not only maddening its downright ridiculous that you have to jump through hoops to have these things removed...it's bad enought that it goes on but it seems to be encouraged by ebay...sellers are reported again and again and they are allowed to continue selling fake reproductions. This morning I had an email offering me a repro of a friends work amongst other paintings after emailing the company to desist from using my image.

I'm finding it difficult to breathe again today. It really gets you down. I am tired/weary. I went grcery shopping earlier today, after arriving home and putting the groceries away, I sat down on the sofa, 2 hours later I woke up.....I feel that tired. I took the paintings back to the studio (they were still in the van from Sunday) this evening. I had help to hump them up the stairs..which was nice, but I still did not have the energy to rehang etc.
I'm due to meet Noel in the morning to go to Lough Owel....I'll see how I feel.

Rain stops play...and business

Well the Art show was a disaster, rained out as it were...The show was in a large marquee, which wasn't too bad, until the rain started getting through. I packed up early, backed my van up to an entrance and loaded up. There wasn't too much damage done to the work thank god. There wasn't much sign of any art buyers anyway...the heavy rain kept any who might have come away. At least I had conversation with a few artists I knew, so it wasn't a total loss.

I have just about recovered from a party last night, I have to get organised for an Art show now. It will be an early start in the morning. Between getting organised and preparing for my holiday on the 20th I'm up to my oxsters....Hopefully I'll make a few bob ($$$$$) this weekend...I want to spend some of it on fishing gear etc....I am off to bed early tonight...I left the party after 3am...left the house this morning at 8am...not a lot of sleep..and I have to leave at 7 am in the morning...
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

A day of little disasters...

We set off this morning with the intention of going for a days fishing, it was still and sunny with forecast temperatures in the mid to high 20's, so we decided the river was a better bet than burning on a lake. So we decided to fish the Kells Blackwater...we got 3/4 of the way there and suddenly there were floods on the road.....all the way up to the river....yes the river was in full flood, chocolate coloured and on the banks. End of river fishing.
We decided then to continue on to lough Sheelin, and as we hadn't put the enging in the van we had to hire one. We set out eventually about 3 pm. motored down the lake and settled in. The bright sun and little ripple meant we were going to have to wait until evening to have any chance of fish. About half an hour before the sun reached a low enough level, big thunder clouds formed and there followed thunder & lightning.....end of fishing for the day....you dont wave 11ft carbob lightning conductors on a lake in a lightning storm....
Arriving into shore we heard that two houses in Kells had lost their roofs in a mini twister with the thunder storm earlier.... it could have been worse....we could have got one of those on the lake..

....Oh yes, we didn't catch anything...

I'm a lazy so and so.......

I vegetated yesterday...I did a few errands in the morning before going up to the studio..then did very little work..and came home early and litterally did nothing other than cook dinner. I DIDN'T EVEN SWITCH THE COMPUTER ON!
After an early night I felt a little better today. I still did very little though. I spent a few hours this morning running errands again...and this afternoon Christine and I took the dogs for a drive up into the mountains and went for a walk in the sunshine..dogs included of course...
I took the camera, took a few shots and then needed to change the film..guess what? I had picked up a new roll of 36 exposure film and had put it down again while organising the mutts.....consequently forgot to pick it up again...so no more film for the camera.......which was one of the reasons for the long drive in the first place...
....ahh well maybe it is for the best...less film to develop....less cost for me..LOL.

I'm am off fishing in the morning...we decided to try Lough Owel again..we haven't been in a while.
I recieved a letter from the Irish trout fly fishing association this morning..the national river championship has been moved from the Clare river to the Liffey at Newbridge, but it has also been brought forward by a week too...I have to come back from Galway-Lough Corrib early as it is on the 27th. I was due to fish Corrib 20-27th so I will have to come home on the 26th.
I would have preferred to fish the Clare river too....although the liffey would seem to be 'home ground' considering I qualified about 15 miles away, it is a totally different river and I have not fished it either...but it will suit the freestone river anglers rather than the dry-fly water fishers.
Mind you I grew up on freestone water so I will find it fairly easy to fish...but I lose that slight edge..we will see how it goes....