On The Easel
Eamonn 2026
Mixed media on panel mounted on hand-decorated back panel and framed. The portrait panel is 38 x 29cm, the decorated panel is 48 x 39cm.
Studio Notes
With every portrait, I keep what I call "studio notes" - a short record of my thinking as the painting takes shape. Some of the motifs I reached for, and why. What a particular pattern or colour meant to the person sitting for me. And often the stories that surfaced while we talked, the half-forgotten details a painting has a way of bringing back.
It's worth saying what the notes are not. They aren't a key. The painting isn't a puzzle I've encoded for you to solve, and the notes aren't the answer at the back of the book. The meaning is in the picture, felt whether or not you can name every element in it.
What they really are is an aide-memoire. Paintings outlive conversations. The person who commissions a portrait knows if a certain object, or colour, or pattern is meaningful - but their grandchildren may not. The studio notes are designed to travel with the painting, so that whoever keeps it has, if they want it, a record of why some of those elements are there.
The portrait above is Eamonn's. You may remember it from a few months ago. This is how the image finished up. It is now living in its proper home on the west coast of Ireland. If you'd like to see how the studio notes work in practice, Eamonn's studio notes are here.