While I'm not making any money at my stall at the Tallaght Farmer's Market, I have been busy creatively.

Making and painting new clocks has been inspiring me to begin painting properly again. I liked my design on one of my recent clocks so much that I decided to do a similar design on a larger scale.

This week I was painting new clocks on small 8" x 8" bevelled canvases and two of the designs I did I liked better as actual paintings and couldn't bring myself to turn them into clocks.

As much as I like these paintings, I would like to do them on a larger scale. So, keep an eye out for new paintings soon!

It was a long day at the Tallaght Farmer's Market today. Although there is a lot of interest in the photos, paintings and clocks I'm selling, not many people (or any people to be truthful) are actually buying anything. I'm going to stick with it until the end of market season at least.

Although the Tallaght Photographic Society have stopped meeting for the summer, we still get together the odd week for a short trip to local places of interest to take photos. Last Tuesday evening about eight of us met up and went out to Dalkey/Killiney in South Dublin. We climbed Killiney Hill where we saw some rock climbers climbing around Dalkey quarry and an unequalled view of Dublin Bay. The view stretched from Howth Head in North Dublin to Dun Laoighre Harbour and Dalkey.

As the sun began to set we whipped out our cameras and began snapping away. Here are a few of the photo I took:

Dublin Bay, with Howth Head on the horizon (top right) and Dun Laoighre Harbour (middle foreground)

A couple of daring rock climbers at Dalkey Quarry

Sunset over Dublin

I'm looking forward to next week's trip... wherever that will be!!

I have just completed some new clocks for my new market stall. I've done six that I've cut from MDF and painted using acrylics. I've also painted some new designs on four small bevelled canvases.

One of the clocks I did on the bevelled canvases inspire me to paint the first proper painting I've done in a long time.

My new clocks and painting can be seen by clicking on Picture Gallery at www.deadend23.com

It's been a while since I've post a blog...

My comic A Murdering Spree is now available to buy at Dublin's Forbidden Planet...

...and I now have a stall at the Tallaght Farmer's Market. The market is a new market located outside the Tallaght Library near the Square Shopping Centre in Tallaght, Dublin.

I visited the market a couple of weeks ago to take photos and got talking to one of the administrators of the market. I told him that I was interested in art and that I made and painted my own clocks (see www.deadend23.com/clocks.html). He told me that they were interested in getting some local artist and crafts people into the market and asked if I would consider getting a stall at the market.

I knew that fellow Tallaght Photographic Society member John Holmes was also a painter and artist and asked him if was interested in doing the stall with me. John was very enthusiastic about it so this morning we arrived at the market with our work and set up our stall. I sold a couple of clocks but unfortuantely nothing else, despite a lot of interest in mine and John's work. Still it's early days... and I feel that if we stick it out for a while, we may still sell some more of our work.

Most of the stalls at the market are food stalls... but very good food! You can buy fresh fish, meat, fruit and veg, and bread and cakes. There are organic beef and lamb burgers served hot for lunch, crepes, tacos and noodle dishes.

For more information on the Tallaght Farmer's Market, here's the website address:
www.irishvillagemarkets.com/tallaght.html

It's well worth a visit!

I have had a few queries regarding faerie trees like the one featured in my comic A Murdering Spree. Faerie trees are trees that are inhabited by faeries, or are a link from our world to the world of the faeries.

Oak, ash, willow, blackthorn and hawthorn trees are among the trees associated with faeries.

The pictures above are of a faerie tree in Massey's Woods at the foot of the Dublin Mountains. As you can see, it's unlike any of the trees surrounding it. Some say that faerie trees grow into that twisted shape under the influence of faerie magic. The fact that there is leaves on the tree might suggest that the faeries associated with it are good faeries.

I'm not an expert on trees and I'm not sure what type of tree this is. I'm also not an expert on faeries... but I couldn't say for sure that they don't exist...

"Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;"

William Allingham

I'm off to the Giant's Causeway in Antrim tomorrow morning with some members of the Tallaght Photographic Society. We are staying in the Giant's Causway Hotel and coming home on Sunday.

I had been meaning to visit the Giant's Causeway at some point this year to take some photos, but I had only been thinking of a day trip. Thanks to Craig Fox of the TPS, who organised this trip, I'll now have a whole weekend to take as many photos as I can.

Besides the Giant's Causeway there are many other places of interest along the Antrim coast. We will be visiting places like the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, Dunluce Castle and the Mermaid's Cave in Dunluce (I'm bringing along my seeing stone just in case). We may even take a trip across to Rathlin Island weather permitting.

I'm very excited about the trip and looking forward to it very much.
Needless to say I'll be posting my photos from the trip on this blog and my web site as soon as I can.

'Til then...

I'm happy enough with the results I got from my entries into the Tallaght Photographic Society's monthly competition for March.

The first photo (of Jack and Luke) recieved 17 marks out of 20, which wasn't too bad considering that the judge was not very generous with his marking. His comments were that while the photo had a nice mood about it and was nicely composed, when you followed the line from Jack to Luke, Luke was out of focus and this left the eye nowhere to go. A valid point, which I've taken on board.

The judge also the photo of the robin but thought that perhaps the bright foliage in the background was a little distracting. He awarded that 17/20 also.

It's these comments and criticisms from a judge that I value the monthly competitions for. They are often valuable tips that are worth remembering when composing and taking a photo.

Last November I joined a local camera club, the Tallaght Photographic Society (TPS).

As an amateur photographer I am still trying to get to grips with my camera and how to get the best pictures from it. By joining the TPS I have met many other photographers of different skill levels and through our weekly meetings I've picked up many invaluable tips and pieces of advice.

We meet on Tuesdays, and on the second last Tuesday of each month we enter a monthly in house competition. We submit a couple of photos and then the following week a guest judge comes in to give us his verdict on our work! We also get marked out of 20 for our efforts. But it's the judge's feedback that I like to hear. Through his or her comments, I can learn how to improve my photos, by adjusting exposure levels, or cropping the photo for a better compositiion etc.

So far I haven't done too badly... For January I got 19/20 and 17/20 for the two photos I entered. For February I got 19/20 and 16/20. The points get added together for a league table and so far I have accumalated 71 points.

Last Tuesday was the entry night for March, and tonight, is judgement night.

Jack and Luke

Robin, Marley Park

These are the photos I've entered for March. The first one is of my sons, and was taken at Newtown Cove, near Tramore, Co. Waterford a few years ago. I took the photo of the robin last summer in Marley Park, Dublin.

I don't know who'll be judging tonight, but fingers crossed, I'll get some helpful comments and decent points!

In April 1997, myself and a few friends went for a weekend break to Killykeen Forest Park in Co. Cavan.

We had planned some activities like drinking, playing card games, fishing, drinking, walking in the woods, cycling and drinking. Another thing we planned was to scare ourselves silly by reading horror stories to each other.

We had each written a short horror story before the weekend, and on one night, when we were suitably drunk, we read the stories aloud. I gotta say... the stories were all very good. But one stood out among the others. My friend, Marie Perry, had written a short poem called A Murdering Spree. She set it in the forest park on our weekend and had featured all the people who had gone on the weekend. A Murdering Spree was very funny, and we all laughed at the way each of us was murdered in the poem, and marvelled at Marie's skill at making it all rhyme!

I had been drawing comics for fun for a few years, and had often thought of adapting Marie's poem as a comic.

Marie tragically died from cancer on October 13, 2008, so I then decided to finally turn her poem into a comic in her memory.

I began sketching and pencilling it last December, and after a few stops and starts, I finally finished it. I have to admit, it's the best artwork for a comic I have drawn to date, and I'm quite proud of how it turned out.

My one regret is that Marie is not around to read it and give me her feedback. She had such a great sense of humour and wit, that I'm sure she would have loved it.

A Murdering Spree is available to read on my Web site, www.deadend23.com

This morning, I drove to Tallaght's Tymon Park in the hope to find something interesting to photograph.

The weather was very gusty, but quite bright and sunny. I immediately headed for the lakes and found a variety of ducks, geese and swans that were willing to pose for some photos.

The star of the day for me though, was a heron, who perched on a branch overhanging the lake so he could spot fish. I got some really nice photos of him.

Overall I took 725 photos and deleted almost 300 of them once I viewed them on my computer. While I am pleased with much of what's left, there are really only about a dozen that I really like.