Sposmadically, I return to climb my personal North Face of Everest. It also happens to be my actual face. Treacherous mountain terrain indeed -and littered with the unrescued carcasses from previous failed attempts that I hope are never dug out of the ice and brought in for a Christian burial. Cool.

I look like such as miserable creature when I’m concentrating and I seem to be developing a Roger Moore eyebrow of fun. I shall return for another assault when my frostbitten fingers have regained their dexterity and the altitude sickness has abated. By the way, the centre portrait looks very much like my brother; which is close enough for me!

All oils on panels. 10″ x 8″

Last Wednesday, I was invited to give a talk about my work to illustration and animation students at Ballyfermot College. I decided not to rely on technology and have a slide presentation; I opted instead to extemporise, with a couple of topics noted down to make sure I covered them. I always amaze myself that I can blather on at such length -I spent an hour and a half holding forth. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised because after all; I was talking about my favourite subject. For props, I brought along some illustration originals and a bunch of sketchbooks that I thought the students might enjoy and they were passed around.

One of the topics that has been on my mind rather a lot lately has been the plummeting fees for original work… Keep reading, there’s so much more to get across here

Would you like to take tea in the drawing room? Or in the painting room? The benefits of a good, strong, sugary underpainting cannot be overstated. Especially in this case, where I left a good deal of it showing through! Hence the muted hues. It was the patterned backdrop, you see. After about three hours of painting, I decided that getting overly descriptive would not improve the painting any, so I left it alone. That’s what you can see over in the upper corners -the warm greys of the underpainting. I also let the brushwork remain obvious.

The teapot is part of the dinner service my wife and I bought just after our wedding. It only gets brought out on special occasions, for example when there’s a visit from the Grand High Vizier of Pluto, or I sell a painting, which is perhaps why it has lasted longer than the rest of our  delph which has fallen victim to the children. These days, we eat en famille, directly from a burlap sack and drink from a hose attached to our neighbour’s outside tap.

Anyway, as usual, after the day’s painting I went into the garden for well-earned hosing of tea. And a bag of biscuits.

You can see a larger version by going to the ‘Buy Paintings’ gallery, here.

Oils on canvas. 14″ x 18″

Nothing to do with cricket, I’m afraid – though I must confess, I’m often stumped for something to paint. I’ve been intrigued by the beautiful and super-real paintings of Comhghall Casey. I have met him once or twice, at the life-drawing session in the United Arts Club but I didn’t manage to talk to him about how he achieves the level of finnesse in his paintings. I did learn from another source that he paints from life but works by squaring up his canvas into a grid -and works on a square at a time. He then unifies them all but I don’t know whether that comes at the end or as he goes along. Fascinating.

I started this painting with Comhghall in mind -though I didn’t attempt to grid up -it was more the general feel, temperature and composition that interested me. Something in particular from this article by James Hanley caught my attention; it was that Comhghall relies solely on the natural light that his north-facing studio gives him. This kind of lighting makes for a kind of mid-toned and cool effect. From what I’ve seen of his work, there’s plenty of blending too, so brushwork isn’t very evident. I stuck with my usual alla prima approach.

The little wooden duck is one of my children’s toys that has lain neglected around the side of my studio where I keep all the kindling and firewood. It started off brightly painted, with a string attached for pulling it along, though several years languishing in the muck and wet of my garden have scoured the paint from it.  Makes it more interesting to paint.

I took the painting to a level of finish that I seldom go to, blending and reworking until I came near a photoreal quality -then I stepped back …and decided that I’d re-emphasise the brushwork and add subtle notes and hues to the back and foregrounds! What did I learn from this experiment? An increased respect for this medium that allows for infinite variations of technique; that I have rather less patience than Comhghall and that there’s a part of me that demands conspicuous brushwork in my own work.

You can see Comhghall’s tremendous portrait work in the Davy Portrait Awards Exhibitions at the Naughton Gallery, Queen’s University, Belfast and in Farmleigh House, Phoenix park in February and April respectively.

If you’ve followed my blog over the last few years, you’ll have noticed that I spend a lot of time trawling through charity shops for trinkets and baubles to paint. [This would also explain the threadbare flared trousers, the 'Who Shot JR?' tee-shirt and platform shoes]. When the charity shops come up short, I gird my loins, visit T.K. Maxx and fight my way though hordes of bargain-hunters to get at the homeware. It can get very ugly, but occasionally I emerge with an object that’s paint-worthy. There were only two of these wine glasses and I bagged them both. The bowl, I’ve painted before -we picked it up on a family holiday to the south of France last year.

So what are you wearing?

Oils on a 10″ x 8″ gessoed panel.

The Blue Wineglass
Price: €250 framed
Exchanged for a PJ Lynch

I’m a devil for raspberry jam. Especially when it’s homemade by Róisín O’Farrell. I got this jar of crimson ambrosia in return for some artist materials and I reckon I got a good deal. At the same instant, I discovered what a nanosecond is. A nanosecond is how long it takes a jar of homemade raspberry jam to disappear when introduced into the McSherry family  home. I’m bewildered at how I managed to paint this picture -I’m sure the jar was full when I started.

Oils on a 10″ x 8″ gessoed panel.

Now that’s just gratuitous. And there isn’t even an image to go with this.
I’ll get my coat…