For the past year in between other projects I’ve been working on a series of paintings of lighthouses in Northern Ireland. I finished the collection about a month ago and today the final painting has just been framed.
I haven’t seen any 4 of the framed paintings together yet, and i really look forward to that – but I feel a real sense of satisfaction that they’re completed now.
The project has been fun. The first painting was based on a reference photo taken by the client himself, but the other three used my reference photos. Each of the lighthouses has a personal connection to the client who commissioned them (which i love) but on top of that there are stories behind the expeditions we made so we could go photograph them – on one (to the Haulbowline Lighthouse, our engine failing in the middle of a shipping lane in Carlingford Lough and needing to be towed to shore; on another (to St John’s Point), it was us who answered a mayday call and successfully rescued a sea swimmer caught in a current.
As always the paintings are in pastel. They will hang together, one in landscape at 100 x 70cm; the other three in portrait orientation at 50 x 70cm. Eventually I’ll post them all hanging in their new home.
And finally, just because it makes me happy to watch it, here’s some footage of cormorants as we returned from photographing County Down lighthouses. Hope you enjoy…
Julie Wilson Art 