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Sunday, March 28, 2010

Painting Ireland, 3

Detail, Graiguenamanagh, Sunday morning

When I was leafing through a travel guide during my planning of my trip to Ireland, I ran into the photo of the village of Graiguenamanagh, on the Barrow River valley, and I knew immediately that was a place I had to visit and paint.

I arrived there at sunset on Saturday, March 13, and got a room at an inn overlooking the river. I woke very early and opened my window to the cool morning air, the stillness of the morning prior to sunrise. The scene was so inviting that I almost caught a cold from leaning out of the window for such a long time in a t-shirt--it took some seriously hot tea to warm me up again. As soon as it was warm enough, I walked around taking photos in every direction. Then I got back to the inn, ate breakfast, picked up my painting gear and walked across the bridge to paint a view of the town in the sunlight.

Graiguenamanagh, Sunday morning, watercolor, 11x15

The resulting study is shown above. I liked the view of the stone bridge in shadow leading into the town buildings, with their interesting roofs and chimneys. I did a careful sketch in pencil, but ended up painting very fast, as it was still pretty cold, even in the late-morning sun, and I had to continue my trip before long. The water and reflections did not come out very well, so I tried to improve on them later at home, without much success.
Unlike in the previous sketches I've shown in this series, I did not use watercolor pencils on this piece, the details were added with a rigger. I used Schmincke colors on Fabriano Artistico Cold Press paper. The work was done in a hurry, but ultimately I feel I managed to capture something of the peaceful Sunday morning scene.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Painting Ireland, 2

Houses in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland, watercolor, 6x10

Ireland was a wealth of beautiful, varied scenery under changing light conditions. I didn't do as much painting as I had intended--both lack of time and the weather conditions made it difficult at times to even complete a sketch. The sketch above is an example, a scene viewed from the fourth floor of an office building, on a cold day, captured during lunch time in between business meetings.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Painting Ireland...

Enniskerry, Ireland

I'm in Ireland, on a business trip. I had to work this morning, but took a road trip in the afternoon through the Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin. The scenic route winds through mountains, blanket bog, valleys, wooded hills and open farmland. I stopped at a café in the picturesque village of Enniskerry, and took the opportunity to make a quick sketch, even tough it was pretty cold (I had to wear gloves to sketch). I'll do some more painting tomorrow. Cheers!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Marcio & Miguel Lucas at the CWS State Show!

The Colorado Watercolor Society Annual State Watermedia Exhibit opening last night was a success, it attracted a lot of visitors and artists. I was a great opportunity to see a great variety of high quality paintings, chat with some of my fellow artists and with the juror Ratindra Das. I participated in my double role of proud artist and prouder dad! Here's Miguel Lucas at four and a half months, as he poses with me by my painting Boston Harbor. He is not entirely happy, as his first teeth are preparing to show...