River Suck
Little James
We travelled to East Galway over the weekend to be present at the Christening of James, one of our grandchildren. He is the happiest little boy, always smiling. After heavy rain overnight, thankfully the rain stopped during the day, and the little ones could go out and run around and play in the puddles of water. Great fun was had by all, and the mothers thought this was great (yeah!).
The river in the painting forms the boundary between counties Galway and Roscommon. Its normally less than 10 meters across, but after recent heavy rain it looked as if the whole countryside was a lake. It would be very difficult to know where Galway stops and Roscommon starts. The land is very flat here and its close to the river Shannon which is also prone to flooding the countryside after heavy rain.
The scene presented itself as we were travelling home, just before sunset. I can’t resist a beautiful sky and couldn’t wait to get painting while it was fresh in my mind. The scene was all about the sky and the reflections on the flood waters but this alone does not make a good painting. Simply recording this natural phenomenon is not enough. I constructed a scene to allow me to indulge myself and include the sky. To heighten the drama, the composition is on a knife edge.
Remember I wrote about composition in a previous post, the see-saw of left and right side balancing. The traditional method of creating drama or tension is to have a vertical rather than horizontal shape to the painting and include diagonal lines in the design. Well neither of these methods would suit this scene. I placed the sun a little off centre and then put the boats a little to the other side. So all the important bits are in a narrow space. This is in effect what happens in a vertical painting. In planing the design I also included diagonal lines in the sky (the shafts of light) and the lines are echoed in the shape of the mid and foreground.
The colours are: Burnt Sienna & Raw Umber (red), Raw Sienna (yellow) and French Ultramarine. Plus, of course, black and white. There is a lot of work in the sky to achieve the movement. Of the hour and a half to complete the painting, the sky alone took nearly an hour. The video will show the buildup of shapes and the efforts in creating a random chaos in the clouds. I find it easier to make it up as I go along, taking advantage of the shapes created in the earlier ‘mad’ stage of underpainting.
The video will be included in the next post.
PictureS 
This painting is stunning! I don’t know about you, but to me you seemed to have captured something very beautiful.
Thanks for stopping by this evening.
Hugs
Thank you.
Thank you for the nice comment.
An absolutely beautiful painting, I could look at this one for a long time…
It’s such a beautiful painting, and little James is adorable.
Breathtaking sky! And with so few colors…such beauty.
love the water and the boats!
Liam the way you have captured the sky and the cloud formation with the light coming through…WOW and little James is gorgeous…happy times – Jane
Thanks Jane.
Beautiful painting -love the contrast in your clouds; sharp and blended areas. And, beautiful baby as well.
Thanks you Elena.
Beautiful colors with that reduced palette!
And what a cute boy!
Thanks.
Lovely little boy. Beautiful red hair – in Welsh a ‘cochyn’ [redhead]
He sure is, thanks for the nice comment.
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Thank you for liking my post on the Mona Lisa.
You are very gifted. Your blog is delightful and your grandson adorable. Congratulations on both.
Well thank you very much for the nice comments.
Very dramatic, & the clouds appear to actually be lit-up . Great job ! I like the info you always include about the geographical area in the scenes you paint, too.
Thanks Kathleen.
Absolutely stunning. A really eerie atmosphere you have created here. This immediately reminded me of the work of a textile artist whose gallery I visited a few years ago when she was in the Buttermarket in Enniskillen, although I don’t think she’s still there – Lorna Smyth. The interesting thing about her work is that she does all her sketches on location in Connemara – presumably not far from where you painted this?!
What a happy baby!
marion
This is brilliant and is definitely my favorite. I really like how loose and calm your brush strokes are. And along with the limited palette you use in all your paintings the harmony and emotion radiates from them. It really gives the viewer a great impression of what it may have felt like that day in the East Galway area.
Thank you Andrew for the kind comments.
Fantastic!! I love this and the story and photo of baby James is lovely too. He is a beautiful little ginger-haired boy like my own son, Shawn!