Kinsale: From a Sketch to a Painting
One of the questions I am asked most often about painting is what process I use to arrive at the final painted image, whether I uses studies or photographs, or whether I paint from scratch, etc.
The truth is that I don’t have any consistent method.
Some paintings come out of my head either from no particularly conscious area, or from the part that houses memory. Others begin as sketches or drawings, or maybe even painted studies. Others come from photographs I took intentionally to be used for paintings, and sometimes, though very rarely, I paint based on photographs that other people have taken.
Occasionally I take notes to go alongside sketches or photos, and sometimes I revisit a scene mid-painting to take fresher memories back to the studio where the painting is.
So there is no general simple answer, as any of the above methods are used, and quite often it’s a combination that ultimately leads to the painting.
Here’s a sketch I did of Kinsale from across the harbour just after sunrise one morning. It’s only 4 or 5 inches wide but it took a while because, well because I think I had a fair few pints the night before. (click to enlarge)
And from that small drawing and the memories of a couple of hours just looking that morning, I painted this painting of Kinsale when back in Dublin a short while after. It’s maybe 40 inches wide. (click to enlarge):
Months after finishing the painting I found a photograph of the same scene that I’d taken from where I’d done the drawing. But when I was doing the painting I had forgotten that I had also taken a photo and so it was never consulted once.
Ultimately, though both different from this first painting I did of Kinsale, the process of painting it would have been added into the pot to produce, years later, both Kinsale II and Kinsale III. Update And Kinsale IV
See my other Paintings of Ireland
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Thanks Deborah.
This is the first time I’ve ever made the two images the same size on screen and compared them - because it never occurred to me before to do it, both images being already in my head - but I think I’ll have a dig around for more stuff I have that might illustrate the process of arriving at particular paintings.
Please contact me….I would like to purchase a copy of the scetch or painting of Kinsale #1
I would like to buy a painting or print of Kinsale, get a hold of me if you would.
thanks,
Andrew