size 22inches by 16 inches Oil on gallery wrap canvas
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
A Painting I'm enjoying...
At last! I am working on a landscape and I am enjoying it, not struggling to motivate myself or pushing myself to paint. I'm not 100% sure of where it will lead yet but I'm reasonably happy with it and more importantly I have enjoyed painting it. We have had a few brisk November days, Hard frost at night followed by calm sunny days. The winds we had for a few weeks have stripped most of the trees, leaving just a hint of the autumnal colours behind against the dark wood. With the frost only just arrived the grass is still green and lush in the fields, not yet turned brown with a combination of mud and withered wild flowers. This against a backdrop of misty light in the low angled November sun gives a pleasing view. The painting is a view across the valley (N3 Dublin-Navan road) from the Hill of Tara in Meath, looking Northwards to the Hill of Skryne where St. Patrick supposedly lit his fire when bringing Christianity to the pagan Irish. Tara was the seat of the Ard-Ri or High Kings of Ireland. The mound in the foreground represents Cormac's Rath, one of the surviving earthen ring-forts on the site. (The painting is not quite as the eye would see it though) I included this to help create the mystical feel that the painting has developed, working with the light and subject to create a sense of history in the painting. The tower on the hill-top is an old medieval castle/tower in the village of Skryne, which, surprisingly enought is on the top of the hill. I spent a few years living in this area and caught the school bus just down the road at Ross Cross, a crossroads between Skryne and Tara/Dunsany where we lived.
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