Pontoon Bridge, Work in Progress and Group Hug in Ireland

Here is my small amount of progress on the latest painting I am working on. I have less than an hour each evening to advance it, but slow and steady will get there in the end. Due to the dark evenings here in Ireland I wasn't able to photograph this painting in daylight outdoors and hence the slightly muted tone to what is actually a white canvas. Also the colours are not accurate. I'll get better photos at the weekend hopefully.

This week also I have been doing a little research on the types of printer available for printing A3 size. So if anyone has printed fine art in an A3 size I'd be happy to hear what type of printer you used, if you were happy with the result? I have a fair idea what I want to get at this stage. Once I reach the stage of printing successfully I will be able to offer many of the paintings I don't want to part with, as prints.

Meanwhile here's a little story of something that happened in Ireland during the week. It was related on the free newspaper that they give out in the mornings. I wonder would it happen anywhere else in the world.

Here's the story as it was sent to the paper's letters page by a passenger....

"I'm just writing to let your readers know about a truely amazing thing that happened on the commuter train from Drogheda to Dublin on Monday morning. I was standing and overheard everything. A petite older woman was complaining to a tall young man sitting across from her that his feet were encroaching on her space beneath the small table between them. I'm fairly sure these people hadn't met before. The woman had a large handbag between her feet and was telling the young man to keep his feet on his side. The young man said something about the woman kicking him and there was a standoff. Then the young man remarked that it was early ( 7:30am) and that he didn't want to argue. This is where it gets good. He then stood up in the aisle of the train and offered the woman a hug. To the surprise of everyone around -- including myself -- the woman got up and the two embraced, and I even detected a tear in the woman's eye. The young man then joked and offered a hug to 'anyone else' around him. Remarkably, a gentleman standing in the aisle not too far from me laughed and said that he would take a hug -- these two then embraced. Everyone around had by now tuned into what was happening and there was a good degree of laughter and sounds of approval. The three huggers, the older woman, the young man and the standing gentleman were now joking together and offered to hug other commuters. Incredibly, more people did hug -- I even hugged a young woman standing beside me. By now there was much laughter and amusement in the carriage and people at either end were straining to see what all the fuss was about. It was a genuine and very funny moment. I wish I could have bottled it. "

From Amazed by email.

I really enjoyed reading that story. It sounds like one of those surreal happenings that they always put in films, so just thought it would be interesting to share with others, especially as so many of us commute by train these days. Anyway that's it for the moment - check back in again another time for more snippets of Ireland and my art. Meanwhile feel free to explore the blog further or check out my new Etsy store via the link on the right, and the gallery too. Enjoy!