Pastel Society of Ireland Workshop in Carlow

This weekend was my second visit to Carlow. For some amazing reason I was invited back by the Pastel Society of Ireland to tutor another workshop at the Askea Parish Community Centre. I have to be honest, the first time round I wasn’t exactly sure where Carlow was – somewhere just south of the border – I thought – never realising it was a four hour drive from Belfast into the heart of Ireland! Members of the workshop had also travelled far and wide from other corners of Ireland – Roberta from Co Antrim, Kay from Co Down, Sheila from Cork, Annabel, Mary and Lisa from Meath. Oh dear I’ve just had to google Meath to see exactly where that is (note to self – brush up on Irish geography)!! Attracta, Molly and Noreen were locals and made us all feel very welcome with great tips on where to dine in the evening.

 The theme of the weekend was incorporating figures into paintings and we started the weekend with a short discussion on the various reasons for doing so e.g. straightforward portraiture, narrative painting, adding to the mood/atmosphere, creating scale, abstracting the figure etc

Below is a slideshow of the artists and their work – please remember most of the work is still in progress.

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 I managed to get a quick look at the award-winning Visual Centre for Contemporary Arts in Carlow. Unfortunately we arrived too late to see the gallery but I can thoroughly recommend Lennons@Visual restaurant where we had a delicious meal.