This is the first painting I ever did, on 7th August 2005. That day we went to a funeral and, as many of us feel, life seemed more precious after seeing another one gone forever.
We drove home under a perfect, cloudless, sky, and every field seemed to be full of golden wheat. The colours looked that bit clearer, and the sun that bit brighter. I thought how beautiful this part of Wexford was, and how I had never seen a painting of it. So, I decided to paint it myself.
When I got home, I went upstairs and turned the spare bedroom upside down until I found a set of acrylic paints that my Mum, I think, had given me for Christmas quite a few years ago. Luckily, they were still OK, although there was a good plug of dried paint in the tops of some of them. I remembered from art at school that paper wrinkles when you paint on it. To stop this happening, I stuck three pieces of paper to some laminate flooring which I had left over from a DIY job. At this stage it never occurred to me to produce a finished painting, I just wanted to get the paints out and dabble. I didn't even attempt to put the paper on straight.
When the glue dried a huge cloud had brewed up, with a lovely silver lining. Perfect, I thought. This was something nice and simple to paint, to get the hang of it until I felt confident enough to paint the wheat fields. I started painting, and this is the result, after framing.