Arts & Crafts

I've always been of fan of merging my two greatest loves in life - Art and Craft. I recently took a huge canvas and painted my own humble reproduction of Kandkinsky's famed Concentric Circles.

The maze of bright colours served as the inspiration for my next project (drum roll please...)

An Hexagonal Blanket!
Marrying form and function, this kind of style allows your
creativity to run wild and will hopefully end up keeping me
warm on a winter’s evening. Each crochet hexagon will
eventually be sewn together, before I’m old and grey… or greyer!

Self portrait

I decided to go back to basics this week with the help of a very interesting book, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. Just me, a pencil and a piece of paper. Oh, and a non-permanent marker which I used to draw axis lines directly onto the mirror. This is something I have never tried before, but it really helped with measurements. Trying to forget what I look like and focusing instead on the shapes and shadows is always a challenge, but with the help of this technique it was more enjoyable as I could see the shift happening before my eyes and that really encouraged me. I always assumed that these kind of techniques were 'cheating' somehow, until I read the chapter on Albrecht Durer's grid and discovered the benefits this kind of technique has for observing proportion and perspective. I feel like I look a bit old, but we'll just say I've captured a sense of maturity and leave it at that!

Galway Girl

Alot of my paintings feature Galway City, my hometown, as the subject. I like to put my own little spin on the buildings with quirky curves and impossibly bright colours that just defy our grey weather. I work primarily in acrylics and this is my latest addition to the Galway theme - An Gailearai Beag.

Intro

Hello,

As you can probably see, I am a visual artist with an eye to taking over the world! Well, maybe not that last bit, but I am on a creative journey that I hope will lead me to all manner of interesting places and people. My first love is art and I am lucky enough to have my paintings hanging in a couple of galleries. I am also a born crafter, and love making things whether it be jewellery, crochet, knitting or reviving old pieces of furniture. I love learning new things and finding crafty uses for old things. So, here's to meeting some like-minded people on this here blogosphere and sharing exciting ideas!