The light in Ireland really is extraordinary.
The first image is of a painting from a decade or so ago on a drying rack under a skylight, photographed near dusk. I painted it on the private motor bridge over the river to a local lawyer's estate. I've published the reverse view on this forum before, of the lawyer's arboretum beside the river, a stop on a favourite ride that is now impossible because the road leading there carries three lanes of traffic travelling at 100kph and the hard shoulder, 30in at best, arbitrarily disappears and then the cyclist may choose to get his kneecaps knocked off by knee-high reflector holders made of steel and firmly screwed onto heavy logs, or contesting the traffic for a lane, not a winner for the cyclist. I'm glad I have my photographs and paintings of that entire part of the valley which had many other attractions for the cyclist, walker and painter. You wouldn't for instance know that only about twenty five feet from where I balanced my smallest pochade box on the rail of the lawyer's bridge, there is a heavily trafficked highway.
BTW, the painting behind the river scene is of a small bay on a very small island in the South China Sea, where I rode out a storm that was trying kill me and everyone aboard my City of Germiston -- on Christmas Eve. It's a monotone painting in purple (W&N Dioxazine PV23) into wet Titanium White. This was before I knew about Bob Ross, but it is the painting method he teaches his followers (well, okay, his followers wouldn't have the nous to make a monotint speak, but the underlying method is the same), which I learned from my painting teacher Hannes van Rensburg and sometimes still use. This is a dark and gloomy vision of destruction, but the light from the skylight still lifts it. (The orange flare isn't a camera flash, it's the sun growing smaller in the dusk reflected from a brushed brass fitting on the easel leaning against the wall, just a couple of inches out of shot.)
The second and third photos are in a different place altogether, where I've painted the wall before but this time was attracted by the Crocosmia Montbretia.
The second photo shows my lightweight table (an unnatural green so I don't forget to bring it back with me!) holding a box of 48 Koh-i-noor Giacondo soft pastel pencils (recommended, super quality, excellent value, only one of the 48 pencils not lightfast to the most rigorous standard and therefore thrown out to make space on the far left for a thin stump and a short collapsible brush), a sketchbook I made, and the leather bag in which this kit travels, plus some colour shapers, a rubber (Giacondo pastels rub out better than expected), a sharpener for several size of soft-lead pencils including pastels, a big stump, a water brush.
The third photo shows the resulting art. Note that in yesterday's painting the flowers tbemselved are oversized by at least a magnitude in relation to the leaves and the wall. Artistic license. Crocosmia is the name of the genus, Montbretia is the hybrid version in my pastel painting. Both names are often used for the entire genus. There are also a Crocosmia "Lucifer", etc, even a Crocosmia Mobius, which doesn't exist except in a painting I made some years ago as a joke.
