Drawings

June 22nd
In the studio I have begun some large scale drawings 315x140cm on paper. I'm working with charcoal, pastel and conte crayon. At the moment they are almost like mind drawings. I'm not thinking too much about what/why - I'm simply doing, getting to grips with the large landscape format. The format is very freeing and I'm enjoying going a little nuts, being expressive without worrying about a viewer. I'm working very quickly, two at a time. I plan to work back into them with paint later.

My Meditation

June 20th 
Back to photograph some more. I have established a lovely routine when I arrive at Artspace, I first pop down with my camera to check on the Foxgloves and spend a little time with them. Its a gentle mediative way to being my practice for the day and I feel immediately connected to my work when I enter the studio. I've been getting some wonderful shots which I can't wait to blow up and experience large scale. When I arrived this time though it would seem something has interfered with these beauties. One very large plant has been removed from the ground from its base, broken and thrown on the ground. It was disappointing to see. 

Ready!

June 18th
Finally the Foxgloves were ready for me to begin photographing. Oh wow how amazing the variety of colours and plants. My collection at Kinnego Hide are doing so well. Theres many plants this year where last year it was the lone magestic plant that caught my imagination. The lower buds are opening to reveal their delicate entrances into the deeply coloured inviting tube shaped blossoms. The bees are making full use of them. The lower buds are opening in a variety of magenta and violet while some of the smaller plants have pale almost white blossoms.

Floxglove progress

June 12th 
I've been tracking the progress of the Foxgloves this year and its such a nice experience checking on them to see how they are doing. I am concentrating on the ones closest to Kinnego Hide. Theres quite a few flowering here this year in a lovely sheltered part of the wood. Its quite dark here though so photgraphing them will be challenge for me to get really accurate colour. They aren't ready yet but the rest of the reserve is pulsating with life. You can really feel the energy in a very tangible way. I touched the young floxglove plants the other day and was so affected by their velvet softness. Absolutely beautiful.

Catch up & beautiful Blue Bells

June 3rd
Back to Oxford Island again after a break of about 6 weeks or so while I concentrated on other projects. Namely my position as Derry/Londonderry UK City of Culture 2013, Artist - in - residence in schools with the Culture Company. I worked with Culmore Primary School for 5 weeks on a watercolour project. It was a great project with a lovely school. So its back to the reserve now and exploring all the new growth. The last couple of weeks I've spent time out and about the reserve having some special encounters with the birds and a very sick rabbit. The Blue Bells are out in all their glory, mostly spanish I think.

Daffodils and sunlight

One of the highlights of last week's preview was sharing the cyanotype process with visitors to the Artspace and giving them light sensitive paper to make their own sunprints. I was so caught up in it all I took very few photos but this is a screengrab of one of the results before it went home with its proud owner. Plenty to mull over from the open studio/ preview and meanwhile it's back to work again.

Feedback

Great to see some stuff up and get some really positive feedback on the work in general. Lovely week so far.