About Me
Watercolour, Paper
90cm x 65cm
€595
Ghosts of Dublin
(Hightlighted Section)
2009

"Though I work with all mediums, I’ve resisted working in Watercolour for as long as I can remember. The very aspect that for me was daunting, however, started to call to me, and I’ve since found working with them the most challenging, and satisfying painting I’ve done. I’m learning a great deal from them.

Before ever a brush touches the water, the nature of the subject has to be studied, not just regarding its linear composition, contrasts, balances, colours etc., but the innate life of the subject – how it pulls you in.

Paper is unforgiving. Unlike canvas, you cannot re-work a regrettable move.  Depending on the paper, whether it’s dry, or pre-wet; depending on the brush, whether sable or synthetic; depending on the wash, if it is thin, or you are going to the paper with a ‘thirsty brush’, the effects are wholly different. Paper also asks to be seen itself; it doesn’t want to be arbitrarily covered. You are encouraged to look at what does not need to be painted, what just needs to be suggested, allowing the viewer to do the rest – that courageous “lack of detail”!

It forces you to paint consciously, with feeling. It also forces you to treat a painting like a chess game, where the whole-game plan is in place before the first pawn is sent into battle."

On her recent work in Watercolour -