Painting Donegal

My name is Liz Doyle and I came to Donegal with my husband Malachy for the first time about 20 years ago to visit my brother in-law, Gregoir O'Duill, in Gortahork. Malachy first came here from Whitehead, County Antrim about 40 years ago when he came to Irish College in Ranafast. I did some of my earliest paintings in Greg's place in Gortahork during the fortnight we borrowed his little cottage to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary about 10 years ago. I was entranced with the fabulous view of the blue flat topped mountain 'Muckish' in the distance, usually topped by a matching flat cloud, and the contrast with the vigorous, red splashed fuscia bushes just outside the window. And later I painted a looser, more abstract painting from the back of the house, with crooked fence posts on the horizon, and the dark slash of turf cutting scarring the land under the pale mist. Both these paintings are now in Greg's house in Dublin, one in his study (he's a poet) and the other above his fireplace.

We moved here to Cruit Island, Kincasslagh just over 5 years ago. We were living in mid Wales. We were looking at a wee scrap of a box of a house on Arranmor with the idea of having a tiny holiday retreat - but we saw this old 2 story stone farmhouse and fell in love with it. We sold up in Wales very quickly and moved here permanently. It took us a long time and a lot of heartache to get the house how we wanted it, for we both wanted to work from home. Malachy writes children's books and we needed more light as well as more space. While some of the most disruptive work was going on we rented a holiday house just 2 fields away. I used to climb across the 3 stiles I built to come and chat with the builders every day. It was from that little holiday home that we saw a fabulous sunset in July 2010. It was about 11 at night and we dashed up the hill to get a better view and then piled into the car and along to Tra Derg to see the flood of colour on the long red sand beach.

This painting is an impression of that sunset. 

To see more of my work please visit me on facebook or send me an email and I will send you some photos:liz-doyle@live.com, liz.doyle.96@facebook.com