THE TEMPLE BAR, DUBLIN, IRELAND

Temple Bar Painting and History

"Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland"

Oil on canvas using palette knife

20x20 with 3"inch sides

Painting was inspiring to paint, due to colors and having been there.

With using a palette knife, I was able to get the impressionist look of an old painting.

If you have not been to Dublin, it is truly a culture place to be at night as well during the day.

Temple Bar is located in the heart of Dublin city on the south side of the River Liffey.

It is bordered by Dame Street to the south, Fishamble Street to the west Westmoreland Street to the east and the River Liffey to the north. It's a very central place to base yourself if you're here to

 sight-see, shop or socialise, as there are lots of Dublin hotels located here.

Temple Bar is one of the oldest and most loved parts of Dublin city. It's medieval character is instantly recognisable with lots of narrow cobbles streets and old world style lampposts. It's not sure how the area got it's name, but maybe it was down to a gentleman named Sir William Temple who was said to have developed the area in the 17th century.

Today, the Temple Bar area is one of the city's cultural hotspots with many Irish Cultural Institutions located here like the Irish Photography centre, the Irish Film Institute, the Temple Bar Music Centre and the Gaiety School of Acting to name a few.

If you'd like all this on your doorstep, then choose Dublin hotels which are located in Temple Bar. Three star hotels located in Temple Bar include the Paramount Hotel, the Parliament Hotel, the Fleet Street Hotel, the Aston Hotel and the Temple Bar Hotel.

You could also stay int he River House Hotel or if you're after five star Luxury, then stay at the exclusive Westin Hotel which is just steps from Temple Bar.

PAINTING WITH A PALETTE KNIFE

The Palette Knife

Painting with a knife is a bit like putting butter or jam on bread and produces quite a different result to a brush. Painting knives are excellent for producing textured, impasto work and sweeping areas of flat color as well as tiny shapes of color.

Although there is a difference between a painting knife and a palette knife, many people use the terms interchangeably. The main difference is, that it's not a brush that you're using to paint with.

Strictly speaking, a palette knife is a long, straight blade or spatula that is used for mixing paints and scraping a palette clean, not for applying paint onto a canvas. A palette knife can be made from metal, plastic, or wood and will either be completely straight or have a slightly cranked (bent) handle.

Painting knives have the advantage of palette knives of coming in a range of sizes, more angular shapes, and with sharper points. Plus the larger crank in the handle means there's less chance of accidentally rubbing your knuckles into wet paint.

Different shaped painting knives obviously produce different effects. For example, a short blade produces angular strokes while a long blade makes it easy to put down sweeps of color. A painting knife with a rounded blade means you're unlikely to ever accidentally scrape a hole into a canvas, but a you won't be able to scratch into the paint as effectively for sgraffito effects.

The Cliffs of Moher painting was done with a palette knife, very little brush work was done on the painting.

The Temple Bar painting was also painted with a palette knife as well.
Most of my paintings have an undercoat done with a brush, using very lean oil base paint. Enough to cover the canvas where color is needed.

After painting has dried, then the palette knife us used to create the painting from that point forward to finish the painting. Very little brush work is needed. Palette knife painting is thick and takes a lot of paint. The painting will then look like an impressionist painting. Lots of texture.  I think this is one of my favorite ways to paint an oil painting. 

DOUBLE BOGEY AND IT'S HISTORY

"Double Bogey"

 The "Double Bogey" painting was a great experience to paint, due to the love of golf.  This is one of my favorite sports, truly a “Gentleman's Game”
                             The painting is of the 16th hole on Bandon Dunes in Oregon. Painting is Oil on canvas and is 20x40 with 1.5 inch on sides unframed. Painting is framed in a beautiful wood floating frame to complement the painting.

I grew up on a golf course during my high school years. Other than golfing, I used to find the golf balls in the ruff and would sell them in front of the pro-shop for 25 cents each. A beautiful way to make extra money as a kid during the summer for my collage fund.

 Double Bogey was named by one of my art buyers of the original” Hare & Hounds” oil painting. Kevin loves the game and spotted my process of the painting in stages on my artist facebook page.  He said, that looks like a “Double Bogey”, so that stuck with the painting…. Thank you Kevin !!!!

Anyone who has ever played this course can relate to that term “double bogey” or any tough course.

I have to admit, this was not an easy painting to paint, due to a lot of green, and wanting to keep the depth in the painting.  I did not want the painting to look like a photograph, so keeping that feeling was very important to me.

History of the Bandon Dunes Golf Course

Decades ago, another guy fell in love with the game of golf. That wouldn’t have made for much of a story, except this wasn’t just any guy. Mike Keiser had achieved great success in business and had the resources to pursue his passion. He traveled to the birthplace of the game to absorb the traditions and heritage of the last 500 years of golf and to play in the elements where the game was invented. He was so inspired that he decided to build a golf course on Lake Michigan, a nine-hole course that would eventually become the highest ranked in the U.S.

Over the years, he played many of the world’s best courses, most of which were private clubs, and became committed to the principle that every golfer should have the opportunity to play great courses. It was then that he decided to build his own vision of what golf should be.

He discovered the ideal property in the sand dunes near Bandon, Oregon, and then made three important decisions. First, he hired friend and confidant Howard McKee to develop a land plan and work with City and County officials to move the vision forward. Second, he retained KemperSports to manage the construction phase and to assume overall management of the project when completed. Third, he hired an untested young Scotsman, David McLay Kidd, the son of the legendary head agronomist at Gleneagles in Scotland, to design the first course. David spent 18 hours a day studying the land in order to fulfill Mike’s vision of a true links experience. Bandon Dunes opened in 1999 to unprecedented reviews and remains one of the finest links courses in the nation.

The first course alone put Bandon Dunes on the map of favorite American golf destinations, but Mike wasn’t finished. He retained the services of Tom Doak, noted minimalist golf course architect and one of the world’s foremost authorities on links golf, to work the dunes just north of Bandon Dunes to create Pacific Dunes. Opened in 2001, the course has consistently ranked among the very best courses in the U.S.

His vision not yet complete, Mike then turned to renowned architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to design the third course, Bandon Trails. Opened in 2005, the course offers a journey through the same kind of land where the game of golf was born. Starting on massive sand dunes, working through open meadows to an upland coastal forest, then finishing again in the dunes, the course was the perfect complement to Bandon and Pacific Dunes.

The fourth course opened in June 2010, and it came from special inspiration. Of all the incredible tracks around the world Mike has had the opportunity to play, his favorite remains National Golf Links on Long Island. Designed by Charles Blair Macdonald, the course opened in 1911 and ushered in the Golden Age of Golf Architecture in the U.S. One question burned inside Mike Keiser: What would his favorite golf course architect have done with the pristine land at Bandon Dunes? Mike asked Tom Doak and Jim Urbina to return, this time to work the sand north of Pacific Dunes and design a course in the tradition of C.B. Macdonald’s masterpiece at National Golf Links.

As Bandon Dunes continues to grow, so does Mike’s vision of offering golf as it was meant to be.

What is a oil out on an oil painting!

Oiling Out a Oil Painting

For some reason oiling out is under emphasized or has been forgotten by many art instructors. Yet it is critical in creating conservation works of art.

Oiling out is the process of applying and rubbing in a thin coat of drying oil (linseed oil) or painting medium to an oil painting. This is done after the surface of the oil painting is sufficiently dry that the oil or medium can be applied without disturbing it. Excess oil can be wiped off afterwards. This saturates the color, restores the sunken areas of the painting and helps isolate the color layer from the final protective varnish.

Oil paintings should always be oiled out when completed and are waiting for sufficient drying before a final protective varnish is applied.

The painting may require more than one oiling out depending on how much the painting has sunk. Oiling out should continue until there are no sunken areas after the painting has dried for several days. Oiling out can also be done between painting sessions to restore sunken areas. However, the painting should always be oiled out when completed and prior to varnishing.

Oil paintings may appear to sink or become dull in areas as they dry because:

.....Oil is absorbed out of the upper paint layers into the lower layers or the ground on the painting support. This leaves the upper surface short of oil and microscopic rough. Generally this occurs when the lower layers are more oil absorbent than the upper.

....The oil surface can also become microscopic rough as a result of vaporization of the volatiles in the panting medium leaving pinholes to the deeper layers.

The color appears dull as a result of the difference in light reflection from the rough surface. Oiling out restores the unified reflection surface to the painting. In addition it seals any upper surface pin holes thus when a finial protective varnish is applied it will not contact the color layer allowing it to be removed when necessary for conservation or cleaning.

Even if the painting is not varnished it should be oiled out. This will unify the upper layer and seal the lower color layer from environmental contaminates. The rough surface in the sunken areas will also attract dirt if the painting is not oiled out.