Kilkea Castle Grounds

Built in 1180ad by the invading Normans, this castle was the longest inhabited castle in Ireland until the financial crash nearly a decade ago. In recent decades it was a hotel and plans are afoot to reopen the hotel..

The two towers of the castle, in grey limestone, are intrusive in this idyllic scene. I echoed these two vertical shapes in various parts of the design. Most notably the reflection in the river, the two trees on the right and the two trees on the left of the castle. This places the castle as part of the landscape. I think this is a harmonious arrangement in this instance, rather than placing trees etc. at random. Of course if this is too obvious it will look un-natural.

The use of only three colours will guarantee harmony of colour, provided the colours are well distributed over the entire surface as secondary and tertiary mixes. The three colours used here are Indian Yellow, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue plus black and white. There is no medium used, only White Spirits.

The size is 16.5″ x 12″ and was painted in a single ‘wet on wet’ session of about two hours.

Here is a video of the painting process. To view in realtime change setting to .25. Quality can also be set up to 1080HD. See you soon.