This painting life . . .

It was all about painting – plein and simple – this weekend in Wexford with artists from all over Ireland and further afield attending Art in the Open, Europe’s largest ‘plein air’ painting festival. Over 100 artists took to the streets of Enniscorthy and Wexford to create an exhibition of images which did not exist before Friday and which is now hanging at the Greenacres Gallery, Selskar Square, Wexford until Saturday August 13th.

As well as the open event and subsequent exhibition, the festival – which is run by members of the South East Plein Air group – also consisted of paint-outs, quick draws, demonstrations and workshops. Here, six of the artists who took part in the weekend’s activities speak to ‘The Irish Times’ about their passion for painting and the works which they created over the weekend.

MICHAEL McGUIRE,originally from Kerry but living in Wexford, is one of the organisers of the Wexford Art in the Open festival. He took up painting full-time after taking early retirement four years ago.

What do you take from painting?"It's not relaxation. You ask any artist – it's serious. Every painting is a challenge and you never really know whether it's going to work or not . . . Usually in the course of a painting, it might be a little happy accident like a person walks by and suddenly comes up with something that you hadn't quite intended. So you'll tweak it a little bit when you're painting. For me painting is number one. Everything else is secondary."

What medium do you use and why?"I love painting water so I always use oils."

ELAINE HURST

is a full-time painter from the Shenadoah Valley in Virginia in the US and came to Ireland for the first time for the festival.

What do you take from painting?"I know that you never really learn everything. It's a journey. It's one of these ongoing learning processes and not just the technical processes, not just how you mix paint and the colours and everything but how you see things . . . So it's an ongoing thing."

Tell me about this painting."It's oil on a linen panel. It's from Enniscorthy. I found this wonderful street which was very steep and was looking up. I love painting from a different perspective. . . not just straight on. And I love the play of light and the colours – all the shop colours are different and that's just wonderful."

JOHN DINAN

from Mayo is a professional painter and is running workshops and demonstrations at this year’s festival

What do you take from painting?"I'm always intrigued by people saying it's very relaxing. It's a very concentrated process for me but there's a marvellous feeling of relaxation once you finish."

Tell me about this painting. "It was a quick draw so I had to paint them within two hours. There were 12 of them but I decided to paint four or five so I just zoomed in and focussed on them. That creates big shapes in the picture which look good."

What medium do you use and why?"Usually oil on canvas because you can get nice control of edges and the tones stay the same. With acrylics the tones get much lighter when the paint dries."

KARINA DROGOWSKA

from Poland is living in Dublin where she works as a graphic designer.

What do you take from painting?"I think this is in my blood. I was always near artists. My father was an artist and he studied architecture as well so I was always involved somehow. I really enjoy it. I cannot say that it is really always relaxing because I think it's hard work. It's not just a hobby, you always want to be better but I think it's part of me. I can do many things but I always come back to painting."

Tell me about this painting."I like the colours. I went over the bridge to Fairybank and I saw the colours. The colours are a little bit plastic – you have the boxes here for fish – orange and green and blue – it's not very typical."

DAVID DIAZfrom Annapolis, Maryland in the US, is a professional painter and has come to the Wexford festival the past two years.

What do you take from painting?"I have painted since I was a kid in elementary school so it was a kind of natural move, with a few digressions, into other things . . . it's always been art.

Tell me about this particular painting."I loved the crane – the tension between crane and the church. . . there are certain dynamics between the two vertical features."

What medium do you use?"Oil is my main medium. About 10 or 15 per cent of the time I use pastels also. . . Oils are very tactile. They're thick, they're creamy. You can get a rich feel to your surface, I like surface texture."

MARY HARRISONis a teacher from Sligo but living in Galway

What do you take from painting?"I've always loved to paint since I was in secondary school. I didn't paint for years but then took it back up again. It's complete relaxation. Everything else disappears – it's you interacting with the subject you're painting. I just get lost in it."

Tell me about this painting."These men on the boat were working away welding and stuff and, as I was painting the boat and saw the men, I thought, 'this is the thing that strikes me about Wexford, it's a big ship place.' So I wanted to put that in, that sense of people going about their own work."

What medium do you use and why?"I use oil because I love the texture and I love the potential of it."