Portrait of Aoibheann and Penny

Oil on Canvas 16' x 20'

Portrait of Aoibheann jumping on her first owed horse named Penny.
This was a tricky portrait due to the fact that her horse Penny died over a year ago, and the horse that she was jumping is her currently owned horse. It was larger horse of sandy/tan colour. So I had to paint Penny in place, who was a smaller brown horse. Working with multiple reference photos of Penny I was able to paint all the details that made her recognizable to her owner Aoibheann. Of which she was very pleased with the result. A girl never forgets her first horse :)

Eir Headboard

This is a personal project that I've just completed. It's a headboard in the late viking 'Urnes' style and is themed around the main viking healer godessess 'Eir'.

You can find a more detail post here detailing the whole process.

Portrait of Christian Cavanagh

Oil on canvas 16" x 20"

Private commission.

Phraya Nhakon Cave Pavilion

Oil on Canvas 24" x 16"

Oil painting of the Pavilion in the Phraya Nakon Cave located in Thailand’s Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, almost 300 kilometres south of Bangkok. Built for a visit by King Rama V. in 1896. He stopped here on a travel from his summer palace back to Bangkok.


This involved a lot of glazing using liquin as the glazing medium in order to paint the beams of light over rock and trees. Mostly done for fun and the challenge.
 

The Messenger painting

Oil on Canvas 20" x 16"

An oil painting based on a photo called "The Messenger" by Sebastian Kisworo.
This was an exercise in transposing a new colour palette onto an existing colour palette while trying to maintain the relationship between tonal levels. I've added a story into the composition by adding a sand snake in the path of the horse and a mountain village in the background which also help balance the extended vertical ratio of the canvas.

Painting studies

I've started some painting studies from the great film 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
' by Ki-duk Kim 

1. Oil on Canvas 206mm X 114mm

2. Oil on Canvas 206mm X 114mm

Desert Painting

Oil on Canvas 24" x 18"

Painting of Camels approaching the pyramids and sphinx that closely based on a photo by Jovelino http://1x.com/photo/43091/ I just added the Sphinx and Pyramid to the composition and adjusted the colour palette.

I took this on as a study in levels and subtle hues. Balancing the hue shifts of the sands while retaining their levels proved quite tricky because of the incredibly small differences in the colour steps. I found that the darker levels where much more forgiving but the bright sand areas in the centre around the sphinx and pyramid required a lot of controlling the mixing. Any kind of minute colour pollution ruined the colour mix so keeping your brushes clean and the turps clean was essential. Forces you to develop good painting practices :)

In from the rain

Oil on Canvas 18" x 24"

Commissioned oil painting. Portraits not being my forte, I was quite pleased with how this turned out.

Eyjafjallajoumlkull Eruption - oil painting

Oil on Canvas 24" x 18"

Finally finished this commissioned painting of the Eyjafjallajoumlkull eruption, photo by Gunnar Gestur Geirmundsson. Yep, the famous eruption that grounded so many planes in mid 2010.

Kells - Aoibheann and Daithí

Digital art - 10'' x 13''

I did this as a Christmas present for my older brother Gordon and his wife Denise. A manipulated photo of Aoibheann (niece) and Daithí (nephew) in the the Celtic/Insular Illuminated style of the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels.

It took me longer than I first anticipated, in reality it ended up taking me the guts of a year to complete. The above image is from the photoshop file while the gift itself was printed and transferred onto good quality art paper before it was float mounted and framed. The dimensions of the print match that of the pages from the book of Kells.