Another Ex-Libris invitation.

I have been invited to take part in another international exhibition of Ex Libris print. It is in Serbia again, but this time it is part of a museum collection rather than last years Biennale. Obviously they were enamoured by my work at the Biennale, although I didn't get awarded any of the prizes.

I will work on the design over the next few weeks, and then I can start cutting lino blocks by the end of the month.

Working with print is a nice change occasionally too, My painting has been going well, so I can afford to take a little break and work on the print. I had considered trying an etching, but to be honest I haven't really got the experience in the method to do it without a few practice pieces.
I will post the working sketches here, and the final prints.

I have been busy again. I have finished my commission works and now I am back working toward my show later this year. Yesterday we drove out to Howth, a fishing village in North Dublin and I picked a few fresh fish up at the market to continue painting them. I have forgotten to buy more canvas though, so the fish have had to go into the freezer. I'm hoping to get canvas tomorrow, if not Monday will have to do. I had to travel down to Limerick and back today, so that ruled out a visit to the art supplies shops.
I came home yesterday evening raring to go paint my fish..... like a child with a new toy, but alas I only have large canvases left in the studio, and they are just too big to paint little fish. I am looking forward to working from them next week though. It's nice to get stuck in to work that interests me,-- but it is also great to have the commission work coming in.

Some of the fish we bought have seen the grill instead of the studio, being fresh it was beautiful. I didn't even feel guilty about not painting it first.

yoyo weather systems...

1 week later and it's now back down to 9 degrees centigrade, a drop of up to 18 degrees from last week. It's accompanied by heavy rain and some flooding, just normal summer weather... :(

Work has been going well, but I have stopped with the dull cold wet conditions....I'd need to wear wellington boots to get down the garden at the moment....

Excitement in the fish pond.

Laying eggs in the weed

I have been working away for the last few days. However I have been sidetracked today though, my Goldfish in the pond have been spawning all day. They have laid a large amount of eggs amongst the weed and blanket weed around the edges.The eggs are about 1.5 mm in diameter, and hopefully in a week or so a fair proportion of them should hatch out.

Fish eggs.

I will have to try and net them out of the pond though. Gold fish are not adverse to eating little fish. I will try to remove a lot of them into a smaller tank, upstream of the main pond, and leave them there until they get a bit bigger.

None of the fry survived last year, I had three left at the beginning of winter but they have not appeared this year, so I assume they died in the cold weather. Either eaten or from lack of microscopic food. The fish spawned very late last year because of the cold summer (about September) so the fry were very small to overwinter.

The painting has been a little slow..

I am working on two commissions and they are proving a little difficult, mainly because I want to get back to my fish paintings. However the two commissions are needed fairly soon, so needs must.

I am waiting to hear back from the venue for my Maltese show, but I suppose they are busy with other things, but I would like to know if they want some more larger works than I have suggested. I'd like to firm up the date also, so I can book flights etc. for the opening.

In the meantime I'm going back out to enjoy this weekends sunshine, this is proving to be a scorcher, 24-25 degrees C. A big change from 10 or 11 last week.!!

This is a video of the fish charging around, the cock fish chasing the hens to start them spawning. Those at the edge resting are all spawned out.

I'm back to work now. My sunshine break and weeks fishing over. I have now got the garden under control and I can get stuck in to painting. I have been doing work up sketches at the moment for two paintings, tomorrow I have to do other chores though...collecting payments, dropping into the framers, collecting materials and other run-of-the-mill general business operations.

I'm just checking in. I am trying to get a good start on a new commissioned work before I head away. The buyer needs the painting finished for just after mid June. While not exactly a rush job, if you take out the half of May I'm away for, it could be a rush to finish and dry the work. In the meantime I am just getting over a chest infection, and luckily the antibiotics seem to have cleared it up in time for my trip to Spain.
We have decided that we are just going to soak up the sun on a beach this trip, instead of trying to cram more culture in. I'll need to be rested for my fishing the following week anyway. :)

Ok! I'm off to work now.............

May is around the corner...

The end of another month.  It has flown by again.  I have been quite busy in the studio overall and work has progressed well.  I will be away for half of May between my trip to Spain and my upcoming ten day fishing break. This will mean I won't get much chance to complete any more paintings as I'll need to look after other aspects of business before after and between trips. Consequently I probably won't post here much next month either.  You will know why though....

In the meantime I'll leave you with another painting,  oil on canvas, 19 by  22 cm.

Sea-Bass.

Computers down, paintings up...

I am not on my own computers at the moment so I am still unable to upload pictures. My studio desktop is not communicating with the wireless base station for some un-explained reason. My laptop's power chord is kaput, and I'm waiting for a replacement to arrive. Therefore I'm borrowing C's laptop to post. Work is progressing, I am still working on fish themed work, but I am also working on other pieces for sales/commissions. Business has picked up a little recently, which is just as well since I have a few bills coming due, van insurance, week-away-with-the-lads-fishing, a need for New brushes, some canvas, paint.....ah well! easy come easier to go as they say.....what they forget to mention is money has a habit of being more Hard to come by, easy to go.

I had a nice surprise yesterday when I learned three small works had sold. They were in a venue that while I hadn't forgotten about, were not expected to start selling for a month or two.
They now want more works, and since they are all of a standard size have said they will organise the framing of the pieces.

Another pleasant little chore for me. Consequently, this will be another short post....things to do, people to see..and painting to be done.

I have been busy enough painting recently, but I need to do a little office work this week. I have a couple of galleries to visit also. I am slowly catching up with myself this week, but I need to do a lot more before the end of the month. I need to focus a little more.

I may get finished tomorrow, because I'm otherwise occupied for Friday and the weekend I need to. Then I can get back to painting next week.

I have just finished a small study of a Browntrout's head. It is only 20 by 15 cm, but the piece is quite effective. I had been working on the larger brown trout painting and the light changed as clouds came over....it had been sunny this morning.... and the colour on the fish changed from olives to almost irredescent greens.
You can see the difference in colouring from the as yet unfinished work. It is still unfinished because the light keeps changing. It hasn't been helped by the fact that I really need fresh subjects every couple of days rather than trying to keep the one fish moist for a week. However catching identical looking fish can be difficult at times...

I think I am going to start doing a lot more smaller works from them, they are easier to set up and quicker to do anyway.