Straight from the moors in the centre of Ireland's most unsettling fictitious island, here are a couple of paintings for my laboriously and yet lovingly ongoing project, Terra Mecha.
I'm pretty pleased with the way these trees look. I'll probably continue to draw them that way. I had a bit of trouble with drawing pine trees in the past. Which was a big problem, considering my adoration of spooky trees. Yes, I could go on for hours about the merits of spooky trees.
I was looking today out the rear window of my house, looking down across the farden and over a field to my favourite spooky trees. There are three or four of them in a row, and there's nothing behind them so they are always silhouetted in a marvellously spooky way. It was sort of raining and that makes the atmosphere even better, I think. sometimes when I'm not feeling very inspired I just go down the garden to stand on the wall and gaze at them for a while. Invariably I get the urge to draw, paint, play music, whatever! There's something powerful about those trees, some kind of unearthly draw they have on me. Pulling me in, fascinating me and inviting me into other planes of existence. That's when I realise that in spite of most people's comments about this country, I have a lot to thank the irish countryside and weather for in terms of inspiration.
I wouldn't change it for the world!
