Top Hat In Bloom

Due to missing images this blogpost has been reposted with updates. You can now read this at this link. 

Kurt Cobain

(February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994)

If he were alive today he would be celebrating his 43rd birthday. Unfortunately on April 8, 1994 Kurt Cobain was found dead after committing suicide by shooting himself at his home in Seattle. While not a huge fan of the singer and his band Nirvana, I did enjoy their sound and I witnessed the impact it had on people such as my younger brother in the early nineties.

Kurt Cobain and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth

Dublin, 1991

One concert I recall hearing about while living back in Ireland was their support gig to Sonic Youth at the 'Top Hat' venue in Dublin on 21 August 1991. I recall this gig as I was more a fan of Sonic Youth at the time, and it was a concert I really wanted to be at, but I just couldn't get a ticket. This concert at the Top Hat was held just one month before Kurt Cobain's band Nirvana released their biggest album called Nevermind and it was the first time Irish fans got to hear their biggest ever hit Smells Like Teen Spirit. That moment must have been really special I reckon.

Here's an advert for that concert which

I kept from a magazine at the time.

(looks like the magazine printed the wrong date!)

Nirvana played support to Sonic Youth at a gig the previous night in Sir Henry's Pub, Cork before heading to Dublin.

Here's an audio clip of their song 'About a Girl' from that gig.

Read also..

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2007/08/21/smells-like-top-hat-spirit/

You can receive my blogposts direct to your email or facebook profile by pressing the follow button at NetworkedBlogs  and you are welcome to visit my art page on Facebook by clicking the 'Like' button under my signature below.

- Alan 

                     

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'Mount Errigal'

Mount Errigal

2009, acrylic on canvas (70cm x 50cm)

This is a painting I made in 2009. It features a well-known landmark in Ireland called Mount Errigal. It was painted on stretched-canvas using a mixture of 'Daler-Rowney System 3' and 'Winsor & Newton' acrylic paints. It's difficult to describe the style I painted it in. It's a style which I started back in 2005. I suppose the closest description I can relate to it is Neo-Pointillism.

This beautiful mountain is located near the small town of Gweedore, in a mainly Irish-speaking area of County Donegal. Of course most people can speak English there also.

I can speak and understand some Irish myself, but I still have a little trouble figuring out the Irish language spolen in the north-west of Ireland. This is so because of the three main Irish dialect areas in Ireland. Ulster in the North, Connaught in the West and Munster in the South. These are known as the Gaeltacht regions. I learned my piece of Irish in the West, or Connemara as it is better known. It sounds totally different! I didn't enjoy learning the Irish language, but in a way I'm glad I did. It was the teaching methods which I could dispute. I was thought by the Christian Brothers, who were thorough in their teachings to say the least.

My painting of Mount Errigal was a special commission for a woman in Scotland. Her parents were originally from this area of Ireland.

Here's a short video clip of how the painting was constructed. I painted it at my home in Finland from a photograph.

'Mount Errigal' was a picture I really enjoyed painting and I was totally satisfied with the result! It was hard to see the painting leave, but I know it's in caring hands now on a wall in Scotland.

This painting was recently voted

Favorite Landscape of 2009

on art website Fine Art America.

Click here for more details

Prints of the painting are available from here

I received this photo of my painting from it's owner, who had it nicely double-framed recently. It must be about one metre wide with 

this new frame. Excellent!

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You can receive my blogposts direct to your email or facebook profile by pressing the follow button at NetworkedBlogs  and you are welcome to visit my art page on Facebook by clicking the 'Like' button under my signature below.

- Alan 

                     

My Blog - The Restart.

This blog actually started a long time ago but I just lost interest. I reckon I was just unfamiliar and not aware of how a blog actually works and what it’s purpose is. This was before I had set up any website or even put my art for sale online. I reckon it was a time when the average digital camera had a picture quality of 3 megapixels. It was also around the time I was introduced to Facebook. My knowledge of anything relating to computers and internet media was limited.

My old blog was merely an extension of my CV. I never spend much time on my computer when I first started this blog, in fact some of the letters on my keyboard are stuck due to possible paint spillage, or was it orange juice, I can't remember! I would spend most of my time painting nearby, sometimes forgetting to wash the paint off my hands before using my computer.

But why restart this blog now you may ask.
Well, having spent some time in recent months working my own website and keeping my other weblinks up-to-date, and not forgetting the odd few minutes on Facebook, I thought it might be a good idea to restart my blog as a kind of topical diary. It might give an insight into the way my brain thinks and perhaps show you those little things which inspire me to paint the way I do. Or it may on the other hand confuse you completely. But either way I hope this blog will contain something of interest for you to read or look at.

The Snow Tree on Fine Art America