Seán Ó Brógáin

https://www.facebook.com/events/247781898756671/ I have been asked to put on a small exhibition (15 or so paintings) as part of the Falcarragh "An Féile Na Sean bheairice". The work will be on shown from 27th June - 20th July. This will include a selection of artwork produced over the last number of years. Work delivered today...as with these things its hard not to be nervous of what the exhibit will look like and how the artwork will be received?

I did a wee bit of work at the beginning of the year for Circle Creative. This was a large format portrait of John De Courcy, the Norman Knight who built the original castle on Fergus' Rock (Carraig Fergus). I was sent a link today of the image today, so i have put it up here. But it is up on the wall now. The original figure was painted on canvas, but was then reproduced as full size metal cut out to be attached to a wall in the town of Carrickfergus. I had a friend who closely matched De Courcy's description, tall, lean, fair-haired, so i used him as the model (Yuri)...this was a relatively straight forward job and Circle Creative were a joy to work with. As an adjunct to this i also met the archaeologists doing work in the castle Rory O'Boyle from Queens University Archaeological Dept. who gave us some great insights into small artillery traintrack in the castle grounds, they where recording, but thats another story ;¬) Below are a few links: http://ww...

Well i spent an enjoyable afternoon at Prehen House, Derry yesterday, chatting and taking some photos. Oireash Historical services where doing a historical display based on the siege (18 April to 28 July 1689), known as Léigear Dhoire in Gaelic. So with nice weather, pleasant company, some tea and a chance to chat with Colin Peck (who has a very wry and droll sense of humour, which i found great fun) and his guests. Prehen House, is a Grade A listed Georgian building c. 1740 (it is well worth a visit) situated on the high ground overlooking the river Foyle on the waterside (east shore), from it you can understand why they chose here to build. Here's the Prehen House link: http://www.prehenhouse.com/ While there, I also got to see the present archaeological dig of the Prehen fort taking place at the back of the house. This is thought to be a bawn which has at least one flanker tower (gun loop extant and curved wall) c. 1600-50. The tower seems to have been converted into s...

Well i decided to head to Monea Castle in County Fermanagh, to see Claiomh today. They are doing a show today as part of the 4-5 week dig presently going on. So obviously due my own interest and work it was too good an opportunity to miss out on. Here's a link to the project. http://ulsterscotsarchaeologicalproject.blogspot.co.uk/ It was a lovely trip up there, had the 2 ejits with me as always (Molly and Aenghus, dogs BTW)) weather moderate (perfect for photos, the dogs and walking around) and the roads clear. Its a fair jaunt from home to Monea as one has to circumnavigate the Erne, so Ballybofey-Donegal town- Ballyshannon- Belleek-Ballygonelly-Monea (monay or is it moneeah?). When I arrived Claoimh had a traditional blacksmith in the field in front of the castle and nice weapons table and leather worker at the base of the castle walls, with an ever eager crowd wanting to know more! With the backdrop of the castle, it was a pretty evocative scene, archaeologists working in ...

Well, today was a good day, weather reasonable, i finally said bye bye to the "Ramillies 1706" project and got something nice in the post!!! Joy, joy, happy, happy! On Ramillies, i would say this was the most difficult and tricky of all the Osprey's i've done thus far and a few have been tricky let me tell ya! Trying to get refs for artefacts or armour and match up refs with the descriptions etc. But this was just a very tough book to do as the scale was big and the history of the battle somewhat confused and misunderstood i would hazard to say. but trying to truncate a massive battle into 3 images is always a tall order... The landscape around Ramillies and the other villages, is very undulating and rolling, one minute you see the church next you cant see it, due to hillocks and sunken roads etc. So it was tricky to convey some of this, even with photos, of which we took about 300ish and around 40 will be used, but its one of those fields of battle one should wal...

....just been working out some extra vignette drawings, sometimes its better to take your time than push out work, that when considered may not have the required umpf (that's my take anyway!) ...take a deep breath, allow the insightful processing to trump the logical process, although it can lead to procrastination aswell ;¬) When does insightful mental process become just procrastination??? Been putting Nicolas Benedict Robinson's workshop into action...so i will post some samples later, although its probably a stretch to expect myself to be able to produce the quality of oil painting Nicolas does, which took 3.5 years to learn with one day lecture ;¬) no pressure

did a great course at Kennedy's Art supplies in Dublin on Saturday under the direction of Nicholas Benedict Robinson. It was definitely worth doing, to re-acquaint myself wit the Atelier techniques and to get my head in the game again...if your in Ireland and want to learn classical painting techniques, these are the course to do..."always be prepared to learn and relearn your craft" heres a link: http://www.kennedyart.com/pgs/index.php/demos-a-wshops