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Brooklodge Mural X 3: Hearth and Home

The simple hearth of the small farm is the true center of our universe

Masanobu Fukuoka (Japaneses farmer and philosopher)

I’m reposting this blog from my old site in the vain hope of organizing all of my stuff properly!). A few years ago I was fortunate enough to be asked to do a few Murals (a painting executed directly on a wall) for the residences of brooklodge, Nursing home. The intent was to add some colour and familiarity to the walls for the residents. The themes were generally drawn from old rural Irish life. Such as this one in a communal room which i chose a setting of a typical cottage fireplace/kitchen found in most thatched cottages from before the 1960’s ish.

The Beginning

This was my largest mural yet measuring approximately 8ft X 9ft from floor to ceiling. I completed the it using acrylic and a range of brush sizes. starting as always by laying out my design light in pencil before blocking in the different objects loosely  in the  mid-tone of it’s main colour .

The objects were all Items common to a kitchen of the time, such as the sacred heart painting of Jesus Christ, a wooden crucifix,  A pair of Ceramic staffordshire dogs, a Tilley lamp, a spinning wheel,  and a butter churn to name but a few

It took a few days as i filled it in and tweaked the composition, building it up in washes/glazes to give each object its own blend of subtle colour. The final stage was working on the areas of shadow and highlight to give the image a pleasing sense of depth. I what to give the feeling you could sit in the chair and warm your feet beside the fire while waiting for the kettle to boil.

If your scouting for Ireland’s next top model, that’s me their doing my best model impersonation  to give you an idea of the size.

One of the murals was for the wall of the dinning room and it decided that an Irish dresser would best fit for the location.  Irish dressers were a common sight in many Kitchens of the past with the Irish Museum of country life describing them as “the most valued piece of domestic furniture in the Irish home, as it was the way in which the wealth and status of the household was displayed. The dresser gave the maximum storage space for the area it occupied, with storage for food, pots and butter making utensils. It was made from pine and was painted to give it a rich, attractive appearance”

I outlined the design on the wall to fill a space between two long vertical light and above a radiator. I began by blocking in the items, which included cups, plates, books, a teapot and a vase of flowers, after that it was simply a matter of adding depth by including shadow and highlights in three or four passes.

The second Mural was located in a residents room, I want to paint an image that was built around the interest of the occupant, which was a love of literature, in particular the English romantic classic of high social intrigue by authors like Jane Austen and Emily Bronte. I settled on a window motif overlooking a Landscaped garden, in  the style of the great English manor houses of that time period. I also included a woman enjoying the surrounding as she reads, and a inquisitive Owl looking back at the viewer. Owls were also a personal favourite of the room’s resident.

I kept a strong sense of perspective to give the mural a hint of the trompe l’oeil (which is art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions).

Like the other mural i began by blocking tin the major shapes in a mid tone, then added depth and definition by laying up shadow and highlights.  All the Murals were hand painted using Windsor and Newton Acrylic paints.
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Who sleeps in the Jeep?

As I get closer to the end of my Painting Marathon, that I dubbed “the Animal Alphabet project” twenty six Oil painted Illustrations, each of an animal representing a letter of the Alphabet (I saved, what little originality i had for when conceiving and designing each painting!) This I intent to become the Children’s book Bear with purple hair, more on that in the Future.
Having recorded lots of sessions of myself painting, I decided to edit some down into bite-size painting Journeys for your entertainment. This Video “Who sleep’s in the Jeep” covers the letter S. From the thumbnail you can probably figure out the answer, but as Ralph Waldo Emerson says “It’s the not the Destination, It’s the (3.30 Min) journey

let me know what you think and remember my friend, The World is what you make of it

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How to paint a Post office Mural

To celebrate the combining of my two Artistic Identities David Bog & D.P. O’ Malley under Umbrella of Fun Art I am reblogging this article i would two years about getting the opportunity to paint a Mural, (Above is a five Minute Video I put together about the process). enjoy.

How to paint a Post office

Firstly get the local heritage Committee to ask if you are was interested in doing a mural to spruce up an old Post Office building, Luckily such an opportunity arose for me and I jumped at the chance. Their were a couple of reasons, being from the area I had passed that building every day on my way to National school and remember when it was painted with a bike, postbox and figures before. This gave the derelict building a little sense of freshness and life, a feature noticeably lacking in the crumbling walls of it’s contemporaries. So my hope was to simply try and bring a little of that freshness and a hint of fun to the place. The second reason it appealed was the chance to break out my big brushes and work on a larger scale that i normal do while painting ‘sensibly-sized-scenic-scenarios’ in the studio.

After much deep thought and philosophical pondering on what to put on the Old post office, I pushed my creative brain to the edge and came up with painting a Pillar Postbox, if that wasn’t enough I decided to throw a Cat among the pigeons, by adding a ….Cat. I painted a Sign, you needed a Sign so people knew it was a post Office and you had to have a Bicycle for help in ferrying all of your parcel, you have to remember this was in a time before Amazon prime. Back in the Studio i cut out and painted up a few windows, I found it a lot more enjoyable dirtying up windows that cleaning them!. I had trouble painting up the doorway as this rather nice old fella just would not get out of the way, so I left him in it. He should be still there if he hasn’t sloped off up to Mellotte’s Bar for a cheeky half one. He never did tell me his name only saying he wasn’t fond of it, so hopefully the people of the village will christen him with a new one.

That’s how you paint a Post Office

David Bog (Also Known as D.P. O’ Malley)
P.S (Blatant Self Promotion) I also created a an enameled mug inspired the project available from my store here

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A Gorilla in a Villa, A Killer whale in jail and a Jaguar on a Sports Car

Hello, my friends. I have three more short sub 3 minute time-lapse behind the scenes videos of me creating my oil paintings for my Animal Alphabet project, And up coming children’s’ book.

First up is G is for the Gorilla, who houses his pet chinchilla, in a little Roman Villa, i lost my recording for first section of my painting and had to improvise!

Next up is K with another unusual premise K is for a Killer Whale, that was sent to jail, for pulling the police officer’s ponytail !!!!

The Final Video for this post is brought to you by the letter “J is for the Jaguar, with his Guitar, Playing songs on the roof of his sports car” . let we know which is your favourite. if you enjoyed them why not Subscribe, it FREE, it encourages me to keep putting up this videos as well as really helping out my small channel Thanks a Million-the world is what you make it!

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B,F and C- time-lapses (the Animal Alphabet Project)

F is for Fox -Animal Alphabet Project

Due to the current ‘stay at home’ situation (Future people: i’m writing this in 2020, just google it), i took the opportunity to start working on an Idea I have been mulling over for awhile, Painting twenty-six Fun Art portraits for my own Animal Alphabet. I converted the spare bedroom (they will be nobody visiting for the next few months, hopefully weeks!!) into my makeshift Home studio. Jerry-rigged my camera to the end of an umbrella that is jammed into a light stand, to record my painting process for your viewing pleasure

B is for….. (you have to watch the video to find out what B is for!). Is a time-lapse of my around five hours painting squished into three minutes

B is for Bear

F is for Fox who….. the Answer is revealed at the end of this time-lapse Video. The goal of the Animal Alphabet project is to produce a children’s book. I decided to lean into the more surreal setting and scenarios with each painting is an illustration of a playful rhyming description for that letter.

F is for the Fox

The Third one here”C is the Cow” is actually the first i filmed. It was a bit of a learning curve, figuring out when video edit software to use –Shotcut. Then how to use it to do what i wanted it to do! My three and a half minute video took all day to edit. Thankfully with my last video it only took and hour for each minute. So there is still room for improvement hope you enjoy the goal is always to have fun with Oil paint. Stay safe.
This is a link to my YouTube channel show you wish to subscribe and not miss out on the next batch of videos