Talisker Distillery, Isle of Skye, Scotland. Whisky Burn Chapter 2: MULL, SKYE & CENTRAL HIGHLANDS

Ardbeg Distillery, Islay, Scotland. Whiskey Burn Chapter2: ISLAY & JURA

Laphroaig Distillery, Islay, Scotland. Whisky Burn Chapter 2: ISLAY & JURA

Isle of Jura Distillery, Jura, Scotland. Whiskey Burn Chapter: ISLAY & JURA

Painted from the beach at Balbriggan with a view of the Mountains of Mourne sweeping down to the sea, just as they are supposed to do. Minutes after I finished the painting, the mountains disappeared behind an approaching sea mist.

This was painted while waiting for a tour of Dingle distillery from the pier at Ventry, which is why it looks like I was painting the sea shore from a boat.  

This painting was done from the proposed site of the distillery still house on Cape Clear island off the coast of West Cork. The view was made famous by the Thomas Davis poem Carbery's Hundred Isles (The summer sun is falling soft on Carbery's hundred isles ...), but I only counted about a dozen, and wouldn't have had time to paint them all anyway. 

The weather was fine when I started painting this, and although it only took me a half an hour or so, it was pouring by the time I finished up, as can be seen by the raindrops on the painting. Fortunately with oils, a quick shake remedies that.

The first painting of my Irish trip, after a visit to Powerscourt distillery. The painting has a whisky tie-in, in that the the River Vartry that rises beneath the Great Sugar Loaf has supplied water to the distilleries and breweries of Dublin for hundreds of years.