The Process Behind My Oil Paintings
28 May 2026 · 6 min read
People often ask what actually happens between standing on a windswept Atlantic headland with a sketchbook and unveiling a finished oil painting in the studio. The honest answer is — a great deal of slow, deliberate work, most of it invisible in the final piece.
Every painting begins outside. I sketch in graphite and small oil studies en plein air with the Drumlin Plein Air Painters, gathering colour notes, weather, and the particular quality of Irish light on a given afternoon. These field studies are the seed of everything that follows.
Back in the studio in Carrickmacross, I work up a tonal underpainting in raw umber on linen or fine cotton canvas. This stage is purely about structure — establishing the big shapes, the horizon, the weight of sky against water. Nothing decorative; everything load-bearing.
Colour arrives in layers. I work fat-over-lean, letting each pass dry between sessions so glazes sit cleanly rather than muddy. The early layers are scrubbed and broad; the final ones are delicate — a knife edge of light on a wave crest, the bloom of pink in a dusk sky.
A painting is finished when nothing more can be added without taking something away. That moment is quiet, never dramatic — just a feeling that the canvas is now holding its own weight.
