The Kite flyer, Charcoal on Paper
The Kite flyer
Charcoal on A2 paper
County Waterford
Nigel Borrington 2019
Allihies copper mine, Charcoal and graphite on paper – Nigel Borrington, 2019
Allihies copper mines
Beara Peninsula
County Cork
Charcoal and Graphite, on A2 paper
Nigel Borrington 2019
Allihies is just about as remote a place as they come in Ireland !!
This Charcoal drawing shows just one of the pump houses at Allihies, county Cork. I think there are about 6 of them still standing around this small village.
It was In 1812 when life in Allihies changed utterly as a rich copper deposit was discovered in the area and the biggest copper mining enterprise in Ireland was established by the Puxley family .
The steam engine and pump house both pumped water out from the mine shafts and was used to lower the miners into and out-of the mine, some 250feet below the hill side. Its hard to imagine now the life these miners had , many did not live that long while doing this kind of work.
The Landscape around the mines is just wonderful with mountains facing the coastline of west cork, again its hard to image how the noise and smell of these pump houses change this location and the view of hundreds of miners returning home after a days work must have been something to see, they shared small homes in the village, mostly twenty of them shared the same small houses.
Independent Heart, A poem by : Jodie Moore
Charcoal drawing
Nigel Borrington 2019
Independent Heart
Soft words you spoken
From the heart that is broken
I know deep inside
You have a level of independence
With a mystery of suspense
You are recovering
Waiting for someone
To catch on to the discovering
Of the real you
With a heart so true
Giving of your best
Expecting nothing less
While hurt is making amends
Leaning on loving friends
Accounted for in time you spend
With words you write
Not giving into a broken hearts flight
Staying strong
Carrying others like me along
by Jodie Moore
Storm clouds, BlackValley, Killarney National Park – charcoal and Pastel drawing
Storm clouds at BlackValley
County Kerry
Ireland
Charcoal and Pastel
Nigel Borrington 2019
Monday Poetry : The Comfort of the Hills – Will H. Ogilvie
HEART! If you’ve a sorrow
Take it to the hills!
Lay it where the sunshine
Cups of colour spills!
Hide it in the shadow
Of the folding fern;
Bathe it in the coolness
Of the brown hill burn;
Give it to the west wind
Blowing where it wills;
Heart! If you’ve a sorrow
Take it to the hills!
Heart! If you’ve a sorrow
Take it to the hills,
Where pity crowns the silence
And love the loneness fills!
Bury it in bracken
Waving green and high;
O’er it let the heather’s
Peaceful purple lie!
Trust it to the healing
Heaven itself distils;
Heart! If you’ve a sorrow
Take it to the hills!
Hook head Light house county Wexford, Charcoal and Pastel, Nigel Borrington
Hookhead lighthouse
County Wexford
Charcoal and Pastel Nigel Borrington Feb 2019
Friday Charcoal and Pastel drawing
The lighthouse at Hookhead, county Wexford – Drawing using Charcoal and Pastel on a sheet of A2 cartridge paper.
I have wanted to include the hookhead lighthouse in drawing for sometime so today I used a photo taken about 6 years ago taken one February evening on a walk around the base of the lighthouse looking out to sea. It was late evening just after sunset and light had just just been turned on, a magical moment to be there.
The drawing today took about four hours to complete and is one of the drawing in the last week that I have enjoyed working on the most 🙂 …..
Kilkenny landscape art – Charcoal and Pastels on Paper – Winter trees
Kilkenny landscape art,
Winter Trees,
Charcoal and Pastels on Paper
Kilkenny landscape art – Charcoal and Pastels on Paper – Winter trees
This is my second large scale drawing this week, worked on an A2 sheet of cartridge paper with the drawing itself being formatted to fit inside an A3 mounting card and frame.
I am really enjoying working with charcoal and pastels again, I feel that I could and most likely would be able to get more detail into each drawing if I used a set of pencils, high details for each landscape view however is not that much of a worry for me at the moment. The drawings I am working on at the moment are aimed at being Proprietary Artwork for later paintings.
I am learning all the time now about the possibilities of working with what is the very basic mediums of black charcoal and Pastel, the skills of blending and smoothing the charcoal on the paper, back into areas of grey. Drawing with both these mediums is very interesting, detail is possible but needs care to produce, each stage of the drawing needs fixing on the paper so that it is not smudged.
As with any drawing or painting when finished there are areas I like and areas I do not, here I loved working of the misty sky and the trees but found the foreground of the wet muddy field a challenge. I am happy overall and feel I have managed to work in lots of texture and levels of details hidden in the mud in the foreground and very happy with the blended sky.
I am not in all honesty yet looking for finished work as I want to keep learning as much as possible so the more I learn the better and the more that makes me have to look and think about a finished work the better. I am not finishing anything that I would not show to anyone so that is at least very pleasing.
This is the same drawing cropped down, I wonder if its better without the foreground area or better with it ?
If anyone wants to make a comment here – it would only help me 🙂 🙂
Kilkenny landscape art – Charcoal and Pastels on Paper
KIlkenny Landscape art
Charcoal and Pastels on Cartridge paper
Format 297 × 420 mm
Nigel Borrington 2019
Monday Drawing
Kilkenny landscape – A Charcoal and Pastels on Paper
This week I plan to continued building up my painting and drawing skills, I will continue selected from my landscape photographs and selecting ones that I wfeel will make good Mono drawings and paintings.
This evening I have just finished the above Charcoal and Pastel landscape, its drawn on A2 paper but framed for A3 dimensions. This is a good size from drawing as I feel I can work freely with this size, letting the charcoal move openly. It lets me stand up above by drawing board and move the Charcoal and Pastels with fully movement of my arms.
Just like with my last post I plan next to work the same landscape view in Acrylic paints working with cool grey tones to capture the feeling of a cold grey day, just like the day that I captured the original black and white image on.
Art Project – Kilkenny winter landscape – Photo,Drawing and Acrylic painting.
January Forst
County Kilkenny
Irish Landscape Photography
Nigel Borrington 2019
Kilkenny winters Landscape project Jan 2019
This is the complete set of images including the original photograph, then the Charcoal and Pencil drawing and Acrylic painting on canvas, from the set of county Kilkenny landscape in winter photos captured last week and that I have spent most of this week working on.
This is only the first set of images and I have a lot more work to do yet to produce final drawings and painting of both this single photo and then the full set of other images I want to use. I am happy with the results so far as this is the first none digital art work that I have worked on for a while.
The main thing at the moment is that I am enjoying the process very much, its taken a while to get my art desk setup again and to get all the materials in place but now this is done I can just get working and start having some fun getting creative.
county kilkenny landscape art
The view from Ballycuddihy
Charcoal and Graphite on paper
nigel borrington 2019
This drawing uses Charcoal and Graphite pencils on paper to produce what I hope is a moody image of a winters morning over the local Kilkenny landscape.
County Kilkenny in Winter
Acrylic on Canvas
Nigel Borrington 2019
This Painting was produced using greys mixed from Acrylic (Cerulean blue, Crimson, Yellow Ocha and titanuim white)to produces grades of Greys, some cool and some warmer.
I hope that this helps to set a feeling of winter in my local Kilkenny landscape, on what was a very cold and frosty morning in mid January 2019.
Berlin from the river Spree
Berlin
from the river spree nigel borrington 2019
Selecting images for an drawing and painting portfolio
Over the next few weeks any images I post on my blog will relate to a selection process I am making for producing some art work. I want to go through my blog photos posted since 2011 and select images that could related to both pencil/ink and Charcoal drawings along with images the will make good subjects for Painting in Acrylic/oil paints. I also have many images that I never posted here, as when I get my camera into the landscape I try to almost exhaust the location as much as possible by taking many images.
With this image of Berlin from the river Spree, I felt it would make a great subject for Charcoal, Pencil and Pen and ink work.
This is a process I have wanted to do for sometime, as it will help me get focused on the art work I want to produce during 2019…..
