Well as you can see it was quite a beautiful start to the day, but not one that promised any great amount of chance to get out and do some work in the open. In fact as the day has gone on the wind and the rain has set in so once again I have spent most of the day drawing in the studio. The photo is taken over a field just by the studio and looks out over Enniscorthy to the hills and then towards the coast beyond. This probably isn’t the best photo I’ve taken this week, but I have got some good ones so far, I will have to spend some serious time soon editing them all, I may find that I have a new photography portfolio by the time I get back to Manchester if nothing else.

As I have said I have been mainly drawing this last few days whilst the weather has been grim. I have also made the point of how fundamental I believe drawing to be to an artists practice; however it should be remembered that not all drawings are done with a pencil on paper. In 2010 I exhibited some work at the Finnish Academy of Fine Art in Helsinki, it was a great experience, the main piece I showed there was a situation-specific installation, which I will probably go into in-depth at a future date. I also showed some small situation-specific drawings along side it. There were a form of mechanical drawing if you will, made out of a carpenters wood working tool called a profile gauge. The reason these were situation-specific is that I found them on sale in a shop in Manchester, but they were made in Finland. I then made drawings of the Manchester sky-line, profiles, with them and returned these drawings to Finland for exhibition.

The image above is The Cathedral and Deansgate, and I show it here not only in relation to my comments on drawing but also because one of the commissions I am working on is of a very similar piece which again I may show on here as it progresses. I also thought it was rather nice to show to such contrasting landscape image together.