About Anna Marie

Anna Marie at work in Saoirse Studio 2008

With acrylics, I like the colours to ooze like syrup over the surface, where they are moved around and dragged.  With this medium, tool making has become an important part of my work as well as a selection of brushes and palette knives that enable me to spread the paint in a particular way with quite individual results.  When working with acrylics I am particularly enthusiastic about the mountains for their steadfastness, shape, colour and the relative lightness and darkness of tones.  They are mainly scenes of the mountains in the west of Ireland, the sparkle of the mountain and the mountain stream and the ever-changing birch tree.

Transparent watercolour is a medium I have worked with for years until I turned sixty years, when I decided I wanted to try other mediums like above for instance.  Transparent Watercolour is ideal for capturing the fleeting effects of light and colour for flower and woodland paintings.

I always say that an artist’s palette reflects on his of her personality.  Painting is my way of communicating my ideas, emotions and my visual experiences.  When I take a flower in my hand and hold it – everything else is gone from my mind – it’s my world for that moment.  My conscious state at that moment, or perhaps the instant of realisation in the working, determines how I will dramatise or simplify the painting.  With a lot of emphasis on colour and a certain element of drama, I like to feel that it will communicate good qualities to the viewer who wishes to read them.