CASTLES OF CORK.

On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 11:45PM , Martin Law <martin.rainbowmaker@gmail.com> wrote:

CASTLES OF CORK.

It's just as well that i wasn't dependent on 'Castles of Cork' to keep me afloat, or i might have been lacking in fortification.

Aside from a few choppy waves in the nature of the commisioned transaction there were also the conditions i produced the work under.

Only once before have i ever done something of such architectural exactitude, and that was twelve drawings of local churches in Co. Wicklow for a calendar.

Remarkable, at least to me, if not humourous, is that i didn't have a chair to sit on to comfortably draw the twenty castles and detailed map, working on an unusually low table. So i did the whole work perched on the wooden arm, just two inches wide, of the armchair. However, water off a seagull's back so to speak.

Important to note, all drawings were done solely with a fine sable brush, not a pen.

Which leads me to wonder, are they drawings or paintings, and what's the difference?

Anyway, a test of discipline, as it's something i 'can' do though it's not my cup of tea. Which is a fair enough reason to not do another one of its kind.

At least twenty four hours attentive concentration on each one, which also had to be worked out beforehand on tracing paper. In most cases from the flimsiest of reference and even at times almost none at all.

The prime example being Oilean Beag Castle, the one with the sheer cliffs, which i was told no longer exists but for a few remaining stones where the foundation was, with perhaps a vague bit of an engraving to go by.

Funny thing was, i had a dream that night where i was hovering above the site. In the dream i teleported myself to a sideways on view, distinctly saw the headland with cliffs and crashing waves.

The very next day the author instructed me to reconstruct from imagination a sideways on view, which i did, somehow.

Just look at all that precise stonework. All done with a brush. As if i'd actually been there, back then.

Over all it's an exercise in brush strokes.

Every single one in place. Done so as to imply light and shade and volume, as well as the organic flow patterns and rhythms of nature. I doubt you'll find even one superfluous stroke. The intent being, to make it visionary as well as literal.

Well, the work can speak for itself. Though there's hardly anyone i know of who knows i did them and the author is no longer with us.

Nice though, to think that ultimately they come to be studied and enjoyed by more people. It's seldom if at all that i receive a response from people who see my work.

So what else is new? All that focussed energy must go somewhere.

Just another one of those tests of discipline of what it takes to do a good job. So now you know a tiny bit of what it took, regardless of reward or no reward.~

The book itself, (with the cover replaced by another artist) is:

The Castles and Fortified Houses of West Cork. By Michael J. Carroll.

Bantry Studio Publications, 2001.

Bantry. County Cork.

Martin Law. (Rainbowmaker).

Art: Oilean Beag Castle, martin law

art-work : digital panplay, "Castle Puzzle", Oct13 - wfp for moo

-CASTLES OF CORK - Ballinacarriga Castle