Miss Spiral eye in Charcoal

Miss Spiral Eye, just finished this strange lady ♥♥♥ in charcoal, she's 70 x 50cm on fabriano 300gsm drawing paper.

#studiotime #drawing #myfanwynia #bigeyes #charcoal #kawaii #kawaiigirl #finished

Day 2 Charcoal work early March 2017

Day 2, the mood has softened, still working on her. Charcoal moods.

#studiotime #drawing #myfanwynia #bigeyes #charcoal #wip #bigeyes

Day 1 new charcoal drawing late Febuary 2017

Started this charcoal drawing today, curious to know her better. 💓

#studiotime #charcoal #drawing #myfanwynia #bigeyes

Recent Charcoal Work Febuary 2017

After being away in New York for a month over Christmas it has taken me a while to get back into the studio, I wanted to start my creative year off by returning to my most beloved medium which for me is charcoal, I love the work ability of drawing in charcoal nothing sorts my mental clutter out as much as moving charcoal dust around on a sheet of good drawing paper. I recently bought a block of Fabriano 300gsm its big just larger than A1 size at 50 x 70cm, I have a lot of organizational stuff happening right now as I will be doing a bit of art and decor for Species a Gothic festival that happens on our land in Co. Leitrim, this will be its 3rd year and it's a lot of work! With promotion, planning, and a huge amount of emails. To try and conjurer my inner goth and get into the head frame for the task ahead I drew this gothy lady, here is a photo of the finished artwork and also below is a little video 3 stage time lapse I made of the process:

Three Stage Time-lapse:

Before Christmas I spent a bulk of my studio time making new canvas supports, these were marbled canvas stretched over board and coated with the most divinely coarse clear gesso from liquitex, amazing surface for charcoal work! I have not forgotten about these large 4 x 4ft canvases, I dearly look forward to begin the charcoal work on these and see how the images will evolve around the swirly psychedelic marbled design. These new and spontaneous charcoal drawings, that I will be making over the next while are helping me get back into my flow before I bring my new ideas to the canvas I spent so much time prepping. Feels good to update here! hope to keep up the momentum over the coming weeks 💗

Tattoo of my artwork

Isn't this beautiful, sent from one of my followers on facebook -  the lovely Jessica Ann Marrs rocking some of my artwork on her new tattoo, feeling really honored thank you 💖 💖 💖 !

Winter Market at the Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim

I will be hosting a stall again this year at the Dock arts center in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim. I will be bringing some new crafts, ceramic frames, some new jewellery pieces and Christmas watercolours. Do pop by and say hello :) the market will be taking place over the first weekend of December on the 3rd and 4th. Here is the details:

 

Get all of your Christmas Presents & Holiday Decorations in a Toasty Festive Atmosphere!

In perfect time for Christmas shopping we will host our traditional Winter Market at the Dock featuring an exciting mix of local fine art and design, affordable artisan crafts, delicious cuisine, mulled wine and more. Our stall holders are local artists, crafters and makers so you can shop with a clear conscience and support local business and the arts at the same time.

The Market will take place on Saturday the 3rd of December from 10 am - 5 pm and Sunday 4th of December from 12 - 5 pm.

Music will echo through the lobby on both days with a festive choir singing holiday tunes on Saturday afternoon and the Leitrim Light Orchestra playing on Sunday. There will also be pop-up workshops and winter wonderland treats.

Here are links to some of the talented stall holders we will have with us this year:

Venus Soaps

Geraldine Beirne Textile Artist

Loki & Splink
www.pookadubh.com

Massage Chair Session with Lucy Lynch

Margot Quinn Art
https://www.instagram.com/mqartist/

Carrick On Shannon Men's Shed

Leitrim Flowers

The Twisted Oak Arts Collective

Harriet Myfanwy Nia Tahany
www.myfanwynia.com

Úna Bhán Traditional Craft Shop
http://www.unabhan.ie/the-craft-shop/

Bohemian Gifts

Felt Crafts

Against the Grain Wood Craft
www.againstthegrainwoodcraft.ie

Hazelrocks

Gerry Boland
http://www.obrien.ie/gerry-boland

To Have & To Hold

A Touch of Magic
https://www.facebook.com/atouchofmagicgifts

Greene way Designs by Moya Greene

Lily's Cottage Crafts

Quirky Bits
https://www.facebook.com/groups/734611339975943

Face Paining with Veronica Kelly (proceeds go to the Hope Foundation)
http://www.hopefoundation.ie/

Christmas Watercolours

Working on some vintage inspired wintery watercolours on marbled paper, getting ready for local Christmas craft fairs and some new craft ideas.

Detail of winter forest animals watercolour

Christmas tree painted on marbled paper

New Ceramic Frames Work in Progress

Making some ceramic frames, I will be firing these next week and then hand painting them, then resin setting art prints in the centre. Looking forward to see how these will look, hoping to have some of these new pieces done for my stall at this years Winter Market at the Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon on the 3rd and 4th of December. Stay tuned for more progress photos of these.

New Resin work

New resin work on these decoden pendant backs the front of these has a tiny print of my art set into clear glittery resin, having fun with these. Hoping to have these new jewellery pieces ready for the Winter Market at the Dock in carrick-on-shannon, Co. Leitrim this 3rd-4th of December where I will be hosting a stall of my recent arts and crafts ✂🎨🎄

 

Living Off The Grid in Leitrim

Towards the end of October we had The Irish Times visit our home and studio to do a little lifestyle piece about living off-grid, here is a rare glimpse of my home life here in Co. Leitrim where I live in Ireland with my family. We live off-grid which means we are independent from the electrical power grid and self sufficiently generate all our power.

Life's a Carousel

I have been working on a new body of work titled Life's a Carousel, the theme being carousel animals and the Celtic year representing the main eight Luna festivals the Celtic year beginning with the festival of Samhain more conmanly known as Halloween, which will soon be upon us.

This time of year is the Celtic New Year and is always a time of reflection, looking forward and letting old emotions from the year die away. Symbolically it is often represented by fire as it is traditional to have bonfires at this festival.

The Celtic year is often drawn as a circle divided into eight equal parts. I have always been drawn to the aesthetic of the carousel with its grand and whimsical carved horses and lights I have been wanting to use the theme for a new body of work for some time now, knowing I also wanted each Carousel animal to represent some kind of emotive driven iconography. I have chosen the Celtic year as I feel the two themes will blend well, given the motion of the carousel turning as correlating to the motion of death, regeneration and new birth the wheel of the Celtic year embodies. The scope for an emotive personality in the character and imagery these new works can contain will be my focus exploring the personality of the seasonal festival and its attributes.

I'm currently working on sketches for new paintings exploring ideas and imagery around these themes not all of these will make the cut and much editing will be done before I commit to my final imagery for the new work.

I will be combining the marbled canvas I have been working on as a starting place for this new mixed media work. I like the introduction of this spontaneous element to painting, I feel the marbling imagery brings a fluid and motion to the work which echos a sentiment of pictorial metaphysical narrative spaces.

 Samhain imagery with a goat a witch and her broom.

Imbolc (May-day) imagery represented by frog

 Marbling onto raw un-primed canvas and them coated with clear gesso with fine marble dust, to give a smooth surface with a gritty tooth for working onto.

Experiment with Gouache on Marbled Paper

I recently got a set of gouache paint, I remember using them at school when I was 15, they are very like watercolours only they apply much flatter, perhaps they have more body of pigment.

I was interested to try them out on the marbled paper I have been making and see how they cover the surface. On using them I suddenly felt like the technical possibilities of water colour had increased, they blend smoothly like, and have the coverage of oil paint without the oily sheen, tonally soft unlike watercolour which looks often transparent or inky, I think by combining gouache with watercolour the possibilities for contrast of  texture is elevated with the introduction of areas of true flat powdery colour.

Here is the little experimental piece I did combining the two water based paints.