A Selection of Self Portraits

Some of the old oil paintings I uncovered in the move were still wet to the touch, and of course they had bits of paper and fluff stuck to them.
I really hadn't a clue about the basics of oil painting back then. A wee bit of instruction during my college days might have been helpful, but I suppose pretty much all of my tutors used pen and ink or watercolour.
Here are a selection of self portraits in chronological sequence from the bottom up.
I still quite like some of the early ones. In fact the first one, done when I was eighteen, is the best of the lot.
Isn't that depressing?

Rough Sketch: Finished Piece

I'm finally getting back to normal after a few very hectic weeks of moving house and studio.
Here are a couple of images where I located the artwork and the original rough sketch. It always makes for an interesting comparison.
The picture above is from "The Names upon the Harp" by Marie Heaney, and the one below is a poster I did for Polka Children's Theatre.
"The Starlight Cloak" is a version of "Fair, Brown and Trembling", a kind of Irish "Cinderella".

The Caretaker

There is a very good RTE radio documentary on tonight about how Dr David James systematically plundered the treasures of Dublin's Chester Beatty Library.
My old friend Pat Donlon played a large part in exposing the crime, and she features in the programme.
The equivocations of James' cronies are very enlightening.
Their idea seemed to be that somehow the quality of the Chester Beatty collection was wasted on Dublin's plebeians and that may have induced David James to want to sell select items to more appreciative buyers.
Didn't seem to occur to them that he might just be a greedy thief.
Well worth a listen.