My Journey as an Artist

I found these two drawings in a scrapbook I’d kept over the years. I have very little from the early days really, and there were no mobile phones then to casually record all those everyday memories.

The one on the right was inspired by Jaws, obviously — the book cover, that is. My brother had the book sitting on the bookshelf and I had a nice vermilion crayon begging to be used.

A sloppy two tone poster of Rory Gallagher and his Strat. I didn't know about stretching paper or taping it down before painting and so this poster was all crinkled and warped as a result. It was probably done on very light paper anyway. It hung on my bedroom wall for years.

I painted this in 1977, I was 16, and had left it on my desk along with a similar one I did of the band Rainbow. Unknown to me my sister took both of them down to a local community art competition and I won first prize. I was delighted. My prize though was a Parker pen - a kind of a posh pen - which I've kept at home to this day. It might have drawn just a bit too much attention in school. I painted these with Gouache which is an opaque kind of watercolour that I was dabbling with at the time.

In 4th & 5th Year in school I made some advertising posters for the Debating Society, usually lampooning teachers and staff.

The lettering came from a Letraset font book I was given by a friend of the family. Letraset was a dry-transfer lettering system widely used by graphic designers and architects before desktop publishing, and the book was essentially a reference catalogue of the available fonts and symbols. I became obsessed with trying to draw them out on paper.

I can remember struggling to draw the truck in the top-left poster. I didn’t understand perspective at this stage and I knew it looked wrong, but couldn’t understand why. In the bottom-left poster I borrowed an image of Idi Amin from a T-shirt that was around at the time.

One of my earliest coloured-pencil drawings. I was mad about Ritchie Blackmore and Deep Purple, and I remember hanging this drawing on the wall of our classroom. It was around this time that I took up guitar.

Art wasn’t offered as a subject in any of the schools I went to. I’m not sure why it wasn’t an option. It’s a pity, as it would probably have been the only subject where there was a real outlet for anything creative. It certainly would have been a wonderful break from Honours Maths, Chemistry, Latin and Physics!

I enrolled in some night classes and was lucky to have Liam Belton RHA as the tutor. I did two courses over two years, and I reckon I saved several years of fumbling in the dark trying to learn on my own.

Liam showed us the work of the masters and introduced us to things like chiaroscuro and composition, but also to really looking and using all the senses when painting. I remember him once telling us to go up to a tree, press your nose and face against it, smell it, feel it — as if to get to know it completely and intimately before painting it. Basically, a formula for approaching any nature subject.

He gave us homework assignments too. It was never a tea-and-biscuits social gathering. There are some people you come across in life with so much enthusiasm and passion for what they do that it’s infectious.

I used to do drawings of Native American subjects and celebrities for friends and colleagues. I remember doing pencil portraits from Barry Manilow and Bob Dylan album covers.

I used really sharp 2B pencils and developed my own style of cross-hatching — a very slow process!

I did this portrait of Cyril Regis, who sadly passed away some years ago, in his prime playing for West Bromwich Albion. I took on lots of different subjects in pencil, and I think it gave me a good grounding for my later work in watercolour and acrylics.

At this stage I was still terrified of using paint. Anything I tried seemed to turn out a bit of a disaster.

I experimented for a while with black and white Conté crayons, similar to pastels and charcoal. When I showed this one to my mother she thought it was good, then said, “Would you not put clothes on her?” :-)

I dabbled with charcoal sticks, chalk and coloured grounds for a while — very messy! But it was great to be experimenting with different media. I was also trying out gouache, watercolour and watercolour pencils around this time.

I had this coloured-pencil landscape at a framer’s when it was spotted by the owner of a newly established gallery nearby. He contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in showing it in his gallery.

To say I was chuffed would be an understatement! I can’t remember whether it sold, but I didn’t really care. I had a picture in a real art gallery — that was enough for me.

One of my first pencil commissions of a building. I used the building that stands there today as a starting point and tried to recreate how it had looked in the 1960s, using descriptions and memories from someone who had grown up there.

I started practising drawing figures from reference books, learning proportions and the relationships between different parts of the body — quite a difficult task, I found.

Often I’d look at my efforts and know something was off, but couldn’t quite figure out what! It still happens, which I think is a good thing. You never really stop learning — always chasing the gold at the end of the rainbow!

I tried coloured pencils as a way of making the transition from regular graphite drawing into colour, and it worked quite well. I used Swiss Caran d’Ache pencils and gradually built up quite a collection of them.

They also made a watercolour version of their pencils where you could brush water over the drawing, and the pencil strokes and shading would dissolve to create a watercolour effect.

The first image above was a study of solid shapes and how the shadow sides might be rendered. The second was an exercise based on one of Gaudi’s creations, using just three coloured pencils — essentially a lesson in mixing the three primary colours through hatching to create all the colours needed for the scene. The last is a coloured-pencil landscape from the West of Ireland.

A commissioned pencil portrait of the poet and historian Eamonn Mac Thomáis from way back. He was often on TV and radio, regaling people with curious stories and the history of Dublin city.

At the time I was working on pen-and-ink scenes of Dublin landmarks and streets, and I used to put a short history on the back of each frame. I met him once in Trinity College and he gave me some great pointers on where to source historical records.

One I used a lot was Gilberts History of Dublin. There were only a handful of editions knocking around Dublin, and I found one in Pearse Street Library. Because of its value you couldn’t actually borrow it — they would bring it to your reading desk and take it back when you were finished.

I did a correspondence course in cartooning — today's equivalent of an online course — which I found really interesting. It was the first time I’d received proper feedback on my drawing and colouring.

The assignments could be challenging and involved a lot of creative thinking and imagination.

The “homework” was sent off to some address in England, and in due course I’d get an envelope back with critique and suggestions, but plenty of encouragement too.

This was another character I was dabbling with — Winston, a grumpy, conservative old pensioner. A little bit like Mr Magoo, maybe.

I was trying to think up situations to put him in and gradually develop his character and personality.

Here I was trying to develop a castaway character called Lone Lee for a series of cartoon sketches I had written. It was good practice for learning simple anatomy and proportions.

Did you know most cartoon figures have only three fingers and a thumb?

I discovered the joys of an architect’s Rapidograph pen and black ink, and did a series of sketches with it, coloured with Caran d’Ache pencils and sometimes coloured ink.

I later used the same technique when I started drawing scenes of Dublin city, adding light watercolour washes. I’d first sketch everything in pencil, go over the lines in ink, then erase the pencil.

I started dabbling with perspective and vanishing points, which helped me understand buildings and landscapes — especially useful in later years when I began painting the streets and buildings of Dublin city.

I did a lot of sketches like this using two- and three-point perspective, sometimes introducing a light source, such as a candle, to understand how the shadows should fall.

It was also good practice when I began using photographs as reference, because a camera can distort perspective. The vanishing points are often outside the picture area you’re actually working on, so you have to learn to judge and correct things by eye.

I finally took the plunge and decided to explore watercolour, moving away from pencil, charcoal and coloured pencils. I was learning from books and the odd TV programme.

Watercolour is a tricky medium to work with, but when you watch an accomplished artist create a piece, it can be a thing of wonder.

I think the painting above was one of my very first attempts at the medium, and it is completely overworked and scrubbed! Watercolour was frustrating at first and seemed like a step backwards. I still had so much to learn at this stage.

I used to take family breaks down in Connemara, near Clifden, and I loved the landscapes and views around that whole area. I came across some prints by an English painter named John Dixon, whose work depicted the West of Ireland landscape and its people.

I bought four of them, and they became an inspiration for me to start painting the West of Ireland and to tackle figures in the landscape too. I later returned to similar subjects in acrylics and oils, but watercolour is a wonderful medium for capturing things like stonework and old weathered wood.

I enrolled in a 20-week evening watercolour course at the NCAD Dublin city centre annex. I learned quite a bit there, and it gave me a real focus for improving, as I had already booked a place at the Merrion Square outdoor art exhibition for when I finished.

I had come across the art on the railings at Merrion Square completely by accident, and I went on to spend the next 18 years exhibiting there every Sunday. It was quite daunting at first, surrounded by so many accomplished artists working in all kinds of styles and media, but I was going to learn to swim in the deep end.

It was a great place to learn from other artists and to get feedback — from my peers as well as the public.

I remember my first sale. A lady asked how much one of my small paintings was and I said £60. She asked about the one beside it — same size, same subject, same price. I thought maybe £60 was too much, so I said £50.

She replied, “Great, I’ll take the two of them!”

I was trying a slightly different approach here. Instead of using larger washes of colour, I made individual brush marks beside and on top of one another, layering and drying the work in between. It created a more impressionistic effect and gave the illusion of texture.

I think it worked well, although it wasn’t really a practical method for every subject.

An early watercolour of a sailboat in rough seas. Sailboats became a real subject of interest for me. I didn’t sail myself, but I loved painting them — they could be wonderfully dramatic subjects.

I went on to paint quite a few more after I moved into acrylics and oils.

For a few years my job was based in Dublin city centre, and there I discovered the joys of the ILAC Library, just off Henry Street. Not only did I learn to use Windows 3.1, but the library held a treasure trove of art books of all kinds.

I found myself exposed to lots of different artists, styles and techniques, and tried out some really interesting approaches.

The painting above is one example. I used masking fluid to protect parts of the paper, which left me free to pour watercolour washes over the remaining areas and move the drawing board in different directions. There was very little actual brushwork involved, and it was remarkably difficult to make a complete mess of it!

It was a technique that only really suited certain subjects, but I learned a lot from experimenting with it. I must have read nearly every art book in that section of the library.

See the limited-edition print of Deer in a Snowy Wicklow Landscape.

Another example of the Dublin buildings I loved painting. By this stage I had developed a process of building the painting up in layers and allowing each one to dry completely before moving on.

I had become confident enough in the process that I could trust it would all come together in the end.

With watercolours, you quickly discover that a hairdryer can be your best friend!

See the limited-edition print of University Church, Stephen's Green, Dublin here.

This is an example of how I was treating my Dublin paintings in watercolour before acrylics gradually began to take over — very detailed, with a meticulous and measured approach to laying down the colour.

There wasn’t much leeway for mistakes, but with enough practice I gained the confidence to trust that I wouldn’t mess it up.

In my earliest watercolours I used to leave the sky until last because I thought it was the trickiest part. By the time I got to it, I was so terrified of ruining everything I had done that I would barely tickle the paper with an almost transparent wash of paint!

See the limited-edition print of Connolly Train Station, Dublin here.

I started selling work through a gallery in Blackrock, Co. Dublin, and it opened up that whole coastline as subject material. By then I was no longer afraid of painting skies, and there was a ready-made audience in the gallery for those coastal scenes.

I would scout locations and viewpoints around Sandymount, Seapoint, Dun Laoghaire, Sandycove, Dalkey and Killiney. The south Dublin coast offered so much subject matter — inlets, coves, rocky formations and, of course, all the boats.

I still paint many of those places in acrylics and oils today.

The image on top was a preliminary watercolour sketch for an American firm that had commissioned me to paint a London scene. It was my first major overseas commission — and well paid!

I flew to London for the weekend and spent three days walking around photographing all the main landmarks and famous sites. I remember the weather being gorgeous, and David Blaine was hanging in his glass box beside Tower Bridge at the time.

The image underneath is the finished painting I completed for the commission.

See the limited-edition print of Houses of Parliament, London watercolour.

I’m pretty sure this was one of the last watercolours I painted before acrylics gradually took over. I had become a little burned out with watercolour and felt the quality of my work was beginning to drop, so I found myself increasingly turning to acrylics instead.

It took a lot of trial and error, but eventually they began to work for me.

One of the biggest hurdles was that with watercolour I always had the lifeline of my original drawing remaining visible throughout the process. With acrylics, it disappears beneath the first layer of paint!

See the limited-edition print of this Sandymount painting.

This was only my second painting in acrylics, at a time when I was still mainly working in watercolour. A hastily set up still life with objects I found around the house. From what I remember I think the flowers were fake!

A comparison of two paintings of daffodils — one in watercolour and one in acrylic. The difference in vibrancy, texture, opacity and visible brushwork was night and day.

I remember how exciting it was to start getting to grips with this new medium. I ended up wanting to repaint everything I had previously done in watercolour — and pretty much anything else I could find!

For quite a few years I painted a lot of floral subjects, and daisies became one of my favourites. They appeared in all sorts of landscapes and close-up scenes.

I had painted them before in watercolour, but nothing seemed to capture their vibrancy and character quite like acrylics. They were a joy to paint.

Poppies were another favourite, and they were very popular sellers too.

I loved the freedom of painting these landscapes and using the vibrant acrylic colours. I mostly worked from whatever was in my head, using only a few photographs of poppies for reference, so I had the freedom to create the rest of the scene however I wanted.

I tried my hand at painting all sorts of subjects over the next few years — people, animals, boats, trains, flowers, still lifes, landscapes, seascapes, pubs and horses.

At first I approached each subject in a slightly different style, but over time the various strands began to coalesce organically — like tributaries flowing into one big river — and the beginnings of a more cohesive style started to emerge.

I didn’t notice it happening at the time. I only realised it years later.

I decided to go off the beaten track for a while, get away from more traditional still-life painting and try something much bolder.

It was great fun, although I found it surprisingly difficult to break free from the habits and thought processes of traditional painting and simply let things happen — almost like trying to paint like a child again.

This is one of perhaps a dozen paintings I did in this style at the time.

I experimented here with adding lots of texture and combining wet and dry-brush techniques.

I first applied a coat of gesso and then sprinkled a thin layer of sand onto it while it was still wet. Gesso is basically a thick white primer, and the sand created the rough surface you can see in the finished painting.

I had to use mostly old brushes because the grit wore them down very quickly — but I loved the effect!

See the limited-edition print of Irish Cottage.

In April 2006 I went into Grafton Street to take some reference photographs for paintings. At that stage I was mainly painting daylight city scenes.

I was happily snapping away when it started to rain. I thought the day was ruined and the whole trip had been a waste of time, but I kept taking photographs anyway.

I still have the sequence of pictures showing people walking along the street and, one by one, fishing umbrellas out of their bags until the final photographs became a sea of umbrellas.

When I got home and looked through them, I decided to try painting one of the rainy scenes instead of the usual daylight view. The painting on the left is quite possibly one of the first attempts to come from that series of photographs.

From there I went on to paint countless rainy scenes and umbrellas, and the style gradually evolved over the following years into much of the work I create today.

You can see more of my Grafton Street paintings and prints here.

These four paintings span only a few years, but there is already quite a difference between them.

I found myself constantly experimenting and discovering things during the painting process. With these rainy scenes I had very little photographic reference to work from, so I tried anything and everything. It gave me tremendous freedom to be as creative as I wanted.

Reference photographs were useful for getting the basic drawing of a street or building, but after that I found myself inventing most of the scene rather than being restricted by what was actually there.

I remember another artist asking me about the bottom-left painting. At the time I often painted streaks of sky, shadow and light running down through the canvas. He pointed out that everyone seemed to be wearing trousers, as if they were all men!

I hadn’t really thought about it before. From then on I started introducing dresses and different clothing, as in the College Green painting beside it. That small observation helped trigger another change in approach, and the work gradually became a little less abstract.

In my landscape paintings I rarely went for the grand widescreen view — the rolling Irish countryside, the hills of Tuscany or the lavender fields of Provence. I usually wanted some kind of focal point: something distinctive that gave the viewer somewhere to look.

My early cityscapes often featured crowds of people, trying to capture a general atmosphere or mood. Somewhere along the way I began introducing a couple as the main point of interest, and it seemed to make the scene more personal.

Some of the inspiration for this came from acting and filmmaking classes I did with director Terry McMahon. They opened my eyes to storytelling, psychology, narrative and the power of film — thinking a little outside the box.

I began to realise that many of those ideas could be applied to painting and composition too.

Yes, I call it the Dogbox — it’s way too small, cluttered and claustrophobic! It was built around 2005 and I expected it to be much bigger. But then you start accumulating things.

I got a nice second-hand table at the start, then found it was too big, so I cut it in half. A few months later I cut it in half again! But the studio is in the back garden, so at least it’s very handy for the commute.

Eventually I got a 24-hour lock-up to store the things I don’t need in a hurry. The easel is a really heavy Meeden one that had been used for displays in the Powerscourt Townhouse in Dublin and was being thrown out. It would have been worth hundreds of euro at the time. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!

In the photo I’m working on a commissioned painting of the Mercantile. I spent quite a while getting the lettering right. It doesn’t exist on the building anymore, as the Council objected to it and it eventually had to be painted over.

I did a dog portrait for someone whose pet had passed away some time before, and it had such an emotional effect on the recipient that it got me thinking about trying a few more.

One Christmas I painted three square canvases of our own dog, Timmy — there’s a picture of him in the section before this — for my kids, one each with a different coloured background.

Since then I’ve painted quite a few for family and friends, as well as some commissioned ones. There seems to be quite a market for pet portraits.

I have to say that although they seemed quite daunting at first, I really enjoyed painting them and they were all very well received. I looked at some tutorials online and on YouTube for pointers on how to approach them, but in the end I found I could only really paint them my own way — and I’ve been pleased with the results.

I revisited this view of the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin in 2025, and the two paintings really illustrate how my style and approach changed organically over those thirteen years.

The more recent version places greater emphasis on the architecture and is perhaps a little more photographic than the older painting, although the choice of colours seems remarkably similar.

I often look back at older paintings and notice things I’ve inadvertently left behind along the way. Sometimes I find myself thinking that perhaps I should bring some of those things back into my current work.

Over the years, as my painting improved, I was often asked to create personalised paintings for clients. I take them on when they’re not too far outside my comfort zone and I feel I can create something I’ll be happy with.

It’s a very special endeavour. As I while away the hours painting, I find myself wondering about the people and places involved. It sparks my own memories and sentiments too, and I often find myself daydreaming — and talking to myself — through the process.

The handover and reveal at the end is a real privilege, especially when you see how much the painting means to the recipient. If you’ve ever watched the reveals on The Repair Shop, it can be very similar.

Above are a few of the paintings currently taking shape in the studio. I'm hoping to have them ready for Art Source Art Fair next month.  They are large 40'x30' stretched canvasses and hope to have them ready to display along with my prints 

I’m always experimenting and refining things as I go, so this feels like a fitting place to leave the story for now — still very much in progress.