Group Exhibition in Belfast

Here is a recent oil painting that I did for an IGI group exhibition that's now showing at the Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast.
Our brief was to select a favourite painting and to do our own version of it.
I've always loved Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and so here was a nice opportunity to pay an homage to that great Dutch master.
And I made a little movie showing how I painted the picture.

The Fallen Soldier

Here is the whole of that sculpture.

I would love to do more sculpture, but I find it really hard to find the time.
I'm actually working more on the oil painting right now. It seems that whatever discipline I'm working in I'm always aspiring to get into something different.
I think that's probably a healthy state of mind for an artist.

Fallen Soldier

I've been away and so haven't posted anything for a while.
We were on holiday in Brittany and Normandy, and passed several of the war graves there.
I was reminded of this sculpture that I did some time ago.
The subject is a fallen soldier.
I was thinking of the many men who were executed in Ireland and Europe during the second decade of the the twentieth century.
This figure could be a soldier from any army.

I have to say it breaks my heart to think of all the young men who have lost their lives upon the whim of generals and politicians.

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.