Stamps designs: Nollaig 1999

These are roughs for a set of stamps that I designed for Christmas 1999.
They are my favourites of all the stamps I have done for An Post, perhaps because my nephews and niece modelled as the children in the nativity play.

And here are the finished stamps.

Oisin and Niamh of the Golden Hair

This scene shows Oisin, son of Finn Mac Cumhaill, riding off across the waves to Tir na n'Og, with Niamh of the Golden Hair.


Here is the artwork and below is a sheet of the printed stamps.
It was certainly a big thrill to see my work reproduced as a stamp, and to think that they were being seen and used by millions of people.



I revisited both of these legends in the book The Names upon the Harp by Marie Heaney.

"The Children of Lir" and my other stamp designs

I'm trying to get the Stamps page on my website sorted and here are some of the images that will be going up there.
The first set I did were two mythological scenes.


This one shows the Children of Lir who were turned into swans by their wicked step mother. The rough is above and here is the finished artwork.

This was in the days before I had a computer and I had to painstakingly paint the lettering onto an acetate overlay. Those were the days.

All My Step-by Step Videos

Here are the six different videos that I have so far uploaded to YouTube.
They are not in any particular order.
I'll be adding new ones occasionally, and I'll try to find a place on my website for the video player, so check back for new stuff.
I hope you'll find them interesting.

Still Life of a Decanter on Damask

In case any one was wondering what kind of work I do in my spare time, here is a still life that I did last year. It has just sold in a Dublin exhibition, so I'm feeling a tiny bit wistful for it.

The technique I generally use for painting like this involves doing a pretty detailed drawing direct from the subject, and then working the painting up in oils using colour notes and photo reference. The end result is that these paintings have a muted, monochrome appearance that is very much what I'm after in this series of oils, as a contrast to the work I do in book illustration.

The Robert Dunbar Archive

My good friend, Robert Dunbar is a highly respected academic working in the field of Children's Books in Ireland. A series of his radio interviews has just gone live on the Children's Books Ireland website, and one of them is with me. I think it was made about ten years ago so it's an interesting archival piece.

Just click on this link.

Valentina's Room

I've just come across a page in Valentina's Room, which is all about my work. 

Valentina is an Italian girl working in an Irish bookshop's Children's book department. I must say it really interesting to get her perspective on my work.

Grazie mille, Valentina.