Hunt Museum Exhibition

 Falcons are one of nature's most deadly and efficient predators but they too are in danger when they hunt. Diving from great heights at incredible speed, I used glass as a medium to convey this dangerous vulnerability.

I thought the shadows were very interesting as they change with the angle of the light making the piece become sinister and eerier 

I also wanted to show the watchful waiting aspect, how some of the birds of prey are camouflaged, and unseen.

This is what inspired my project for the Hunt Museum. A 400 year old Falconry Hood, the sport of Kings, or in ancient times the cooks would use a lesser hawk to catch food to cook for dinner. Even to this day these birds transcend geographical limits and are status symbols for elite hunting, still the sport of rich and royalty. I researched the different birds and found them fascinating and very beautiful. Their hunting techniques ranging from waiting and watching quietly in the twilight to the hawks soaring at great height with keen eyesight waiting to drop from the sky at incredible speed. As the hawk plummets   towards its prey at speeds of 100 mph, it needs split second timing as it descends otherwise it may end up dead itself.

Oil on board primed with gesso. various layers and thicknesses applied then later worked into and scrapped off. 

This series of works are developed from memories invoked by these thorny bushes. As a children we would pick the fruit from these wild bushes, sometimes pricking fingers, or looking deep into the pattern of tangled growth. Some memories are clear others are more hazy. I chose to distort some of my work and leave parts sharp.

Here cling film applied as an extra layer adding more thorny interruption to my memories.

Spray paint and oil on canvas. The dense tangle comes from one initial thorn reaching light.

Happy New Year to you all. 

From a single thorn  to a tangle, the growing struggle and forms produced evoked certain interest and memories which I wanted to explore, using various mediums. I took many photos at different times of the day. From these I worked on several thorny studies. Research works were collage and spray paints. I also used collage with oil paint which worked well.

This collage incorporates some of my images which I enlarged then distorted by dragging it through a photocopier, the background is a single colour sprayed to achieve a beginning of a dark tangle.

Splish Splash Splosh Moving on to a new photography project. It's a very short project, looking at painted marks and residue of paint in Limerick. Here are examples from adventures in the rain with my camera.

This one is my personal favourite it has so many qualities that i like.

This was an exercise in glazes for my self,  I had sized and then primed board with two coats f gesso. the glazes were in parts stand oil, and other parts linseed oil, i want to see what they look like when dry. Then I was interested in the repelling quality of paint so i mixed up a little paint with turps and splattered it in a concentrated area. Next experiment was to add more runny mix with linseed oil, in the image below

I used a couple of colours and placed then with linseed oil to run down the painting, it doesn't happen instantly, but the great effect you get when the paint thins and runs in varying degrees, with the colours coming through this really enhances the interest and glazes. I also learnt that if you intend to have transparent glaze in your work it is very important to get a really smooth finish on your gesso, this was an experiment, using the oil and medium, but for the future i would spend more time on my support in the first place

I am still experimenting with the effects of oil and water based paint, I took some acrylic thinly mixed, then added some oil mixed with turps and combined the two on the board in varying degrees, initially looked good but dries disappointing. Then I painted some oil on the background and wiped off the excess to leave a staining faintly on the board. My next layer I sprayed paint on to parts of the work, then worked into it with a brush

Although it doesn't dry the way it first appears there are still some crackle effects that interest me.

For me the piece isn't working but I may try another form of this crackling and paint repelling to see if it can be improved with a different consistency 

Here I built up layers, to see the combined effects of sprays and oil paint together, first I used a layer of spray paint to create background interest and atmosphere. then I did layers of oil paint. Finally on the left side i did a concentrated area of spray, using similar colours to see how they would react. I found the combination worked well rather harmonious.

Based on the thorns and tangles of a blackberry bush, I primed paper with rabbit skin glue, and used oil mixed with stand oil, 

This time I applied the oil paint thickly, with some dammer varnish in parts.