Current News - Auction Result Nora Dunne Gallery Auction

Its been a while since I updated as I have been concentrating on a rather time consuming painting. I won't post pictures until it's finished - just to say it is rather intricate and as always I am trying my best to get it right. I hope you will find it worth the wait if you are interested in coming back to see it. I have been working two and a half weeks on it so far and it is close to complete. Another few days should see it there, or as good as I can currently get it.

I am trying out various subject matter and ideas, all of which I am choosing to help me learn and improve painting various items. I could stay painting things that are easy but I know I will not improve as quick that way. I intend to push my ability as much as possible. That's something I have always believed in, as the only way to improve. I also have to be somewhat consistent however in style and overall themes, purely from a marketing viewpoint - so it's a fine balance to try out new stuff.

Something I am reading about at the moment is brushwork and brushstrokes, as this really is the core of all painting. I haven't incorporated so much of what I am reading in the latest picture but will do so in further work. It's really a case of planning ahead, and also it takes time to ingrain newly learnt methods of working. Hope that I can be disciplined enough to do what I say. It's so easy to just keep painting the same way as before and not think before applying the paint brushstroke in the right way. There's a bit more to improving than meets the eye. That's one thing I realise, and really is the reason so many people find it hard to do so. You really have to understand, learn and practice what the instruction books teach. Understanding the techniques is the first step but not always the hardest. Often techniques that look easy are tricky when you try to repeat them. The kind of things I am reading about are how to paint lamplight, candlelit scenes, outdoor evening light with artificial street sign lights, dull overcast or misty light, ripples in water, strong summer day light, winter light etc. The list of things that have to be learnt and learnt well if you are to really get good is tremendous. Again that's why even though there are a lot of good artists out there, as a percentage of all artists and the general population, their number is very small.

Auction Result.

Last 19th April my painting of Clare Island was sold in a no reserve auction. The bidding started at a low of approx. 30 euro. for all items, and went from there. My painting sold for 200 euro. I am pleased with that for my first real auction.

Carravaggio - The Taking of Christ, Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all followers of this blog! First I'd like to introduce you to my etsy shop where you can buy prints of my work at great prices. Feel free to browse. And secondly...

Here is an Easter story, one with relevance to my hometown of Dublin.

The Taking of Christ was painted by Michelangelo de Merisi, who was known as Carravaggio, in Rome in 1602. Carravaggio was relatively unknown before he painted this and it lifted him into a position of prominent among his contemporaries. At the time, there was a large number of talented painters, so it was difficult to make a living. He was however, paid handsomely for his quality of work in this painting. It took about a month to paint. Carravaggio was however an unfortunate individual, in that he often drank and brawled in street fights. He spent the last years of his life as a fugitive in France, after he killed a man in such a fight. He died in a small village in France at the age of 38. His potential was therefore largely unrealised. (His self-portrait is seen above as the man in the upper right holding the lantern.)

This work was so good that many others painted replicas of it, as many rich people wanted to own it, but couldn't afford the cost. The family that did own it , the Mattei family passed it down the generations but they fell on hard times and had to sell a number of paintings. By the end of the 17th Century, this style of art was not so much liked anymore and prices for such paintings fell from their previous heights. The painting was unfortunately mistaken at the time of the sale by the descendants of the Mattei family as being by a painter of one of the replica paintings, Gerard van Thonthorst. It was bought with a large group of other paintings by a Scottish landowner, William Hamilton Nesbit, in whose home it hung from 1802 to 1921. It was sold by his descendants to an art dealer called Kemp after having hung in a dusty corner of the house in total obscurity. At the time it was not even attributed to Thonthorst but was noted as being after Thonthurst! In other words a replica of his work!! The dealer sold it on quickly.

In 1916, the struggle for independence in Ireland was suppressed by the British army and police. One such policeman was married to an Irish doctor, (I have to research the name later!). He was accused after the uprising of having been excessively cruel to one Irish member of the uprising, while they were in captivity after the event. This lead to a plot to kill him, and in 1920 he was murdered. His wife was distraught as she believed in the innocence of her husband. She commissioned a stain glass window to be put in her church to commemorate her husband, and wanted the famous artist Harry Clarke to create it. He was in Scotland at the time and so she travelled to meet him. It was there that she was to buy the painting. She saw it as representing the innocence of Christ being stolen in the same way her innocent husband was taken from her.
She brought the painting back to Dublin. She was helped through her grief by the Jesuit order in Dublin, and donated the painting to them when she died. It then hung over a disused fireplace in their residence until it's discovery by accident in 1993. An art historian from Italy, working in the nearby Irish National Gallery, was asked to clean it, and the rest is history...

That's it for now, hope you enjoy this story and come back to see more of my work soon.

Some more History of Art and Tips on Art Collecting:
Four stages of an Great Artists Career and Art Collecting
The life story of Van Gogh
Edgar Degas
The Pre-raphaelites
Brief history of Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Deer in Snow Painting is finished...Auction News

Finished Painting

After a lot of work and some useful research into technique and colour, here is my finished painting of deer in snow. I have yet to sign my name to it, or give it it's final name, but I am pleased with the way this has turned out. I was really trying hard to get that 3-d look and make you forget you are looking at a 2-d surface. I hope I succeeded to some degree.

Auction News

The Nora Dunne Gallery is holding an Auction in their gallery on Kimmage Road West, on April 19th Sunday at 1pm. It is a no reserve Auction according to their website. I have submitted one painting to the Auction and it was accepted. All works to be auctioned are viewable at their site, Nora Dunne Gallery. Below is my painting to be auctioned. Clare Island, Mayo, oils, size 20"x16".

For a closer view, scroll down to the bottom of this page. That's it for now. Next, I intend to work on my life drawing skills and new ideas for two or more paintings, as I want to work on more than one painting at a time in future. Don't forget to check back in a week or less to see my new ideas. Meanwhile, why not check out the other posts, or my slideshow, see the link on the right!