The Belugas are Watching

…as we write, draw, and blog.

Stone Bouquet

Posted on July 18, 2014 by The Belugas are Watching

It’s hard to visit a Wicklow beach without coming home with pockets full of stones! The colours and patterns are so lovely. Have close look at these groupings – click & scroll on for larger images – some of the pinks and oranges and blues are just stunning.

Oranges

The stone in the centre is its own rainbow

Greys. I use a lot of grey in my work – forever adding it to colours to tone them down.

Murky dark colours – good for sinister subjects!

Blues

Pinks, rose, amber, mauve,

And sometimes the shape is what catches your eye…

Streetcar Bouquet

Posted on July 15, 2014 by The Belugas are Watching

This bouquet of colour is all from one source – a streetcar in Brooklyn which has definitely reached the end of the line. As the paint peels and rust blooms its surface has become a beautiful abstract of grey-blues, pinks, mauves, with splashes of wine-stain red. If ever I want to paint poignancy, these will be the colours I reach for.

In one picture you’ll find a message, a declaration of love part scratched, part written into the paint. Is it the work of two hands? If so, which bit was written first – the half-hearted or the effusive? The resulting equivocation seems at one with the colours of this vehicle which once traversed the city and now sits decaying into an accidental art piece .