Over the Wall

 Had a lot of snow fall here on Friday about 6" (well alot for us).  This caused my 6 mile commute home from work to change from a 15-20 minute jaunt to a long frustrating 2 hour study in traffic chaos.  

Last year we had less snow but very low temperatures.  It provided some unusual landscapes.  This is an oil painting of one of the views from the rear of the house I was in called 'Over the Wall'.  To the left of this view is an abandoned digger and the shell of a new house  build.  The promise of completing that build long evaporated and now probably as extinct as the Celtic tiger that fuelled its creation.  I chose to not show it.  The  only hint of all this is the piece of scaffolding in the foreground. 

This afternoon I shot this guy hunting for food also in a fields over my garden wall.  The light was fading hence the grainy quality.    

Snow Time

There is heavy snow forecast here tomorrow and Friday.  On the western seaboard of Ireland I can only remember a handful of winters when there was significant snow or temperatures lower than -5°C.  This our third winter which for us has delivered both.  Maybe that was on my mind when I made this image for Christmas.

Spitsticker!

A few months ago I picked up a request to colourise some engravings.  They were all by a French artist of the mid 19th century called Gustav Dore.  Dore was a prolific artist and created a vast number of engravings to illustrate a number of books. The book in question here was a History of the Crusades by Michaud.

 

This method of illustration was overtaken by other printing techniques but there are still practitioners.  The spitsticker of the title is one of the principle engraving tools used in the construction of these images.

Andy English gives a good overview of the means by which the engravings are made.   On his site he also has a number of prints of  images which he created.  The beasts and garden ones are definitely worth a look. 

Tis the Season

 Had a little time this afternoon to do some Christmas shopping.  I confess I don't do the tasteful colour coordinated designer Christmas. I instead revel in the bright colourful stuff and have accumulated a motley set of decorations which carry memories of past Christmases from distant places.  Its dark and cold outside and I need to balance that out.  So today I added to my collection some LED lights (energy kind) and a small angel.  Tomorrow they will be artfully arranged on my tree.

The Guardian (UK newspaper) has gathered a collection of photographs of Christmas Trees (or not) that have graced the Tate Britain.  What you see is a battleground for statements ranging from the obscure - this years by Giorgio Sadotti's to the literal message left by Tracey Emin.  Check it out.