by Carmel Doherty | 26 Feb, 2023 | Uncategorized
Congratulations to everyone who took place in the Texaco Children’s Art Competition 2023 here at Ennis Art School. An incredible quantity of work was created to a very high level. Some of the students have been working on their submissions since last September and as you will see the standard is very high.
Texaco Children’s Art Competition
With an annual entry of over 20,000 paintings, the Texaco Children’s Art Competition is one that has touched the lives of virtually every family in Ireland at some time or another throughout its 64 year lifetime. In that respect alone, it is quite special.
The judging process is carried out by a panel of independent judges, each one a distinguished figure in the world of art in Ireland. Their work will be completed in April 2023 and the results of the 69th Texaco Children’s Art Competition will then be made available. All one hundred and twenty six artists will be notified individually by post and their winning artworks will aslo be showcased on this website.
There are 7 different devisions in the competition A 16-18, B – 14-15, C – 12-13, D 9-11, E 7-8, F,6, G – Special Needs.
Ennis Art School has won this competition twice, Laurie Hehir in 2019 in Category F, for her Blue Cow.
And Aidan Hehir in 2022 for his Self Portrait, playing computer games
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These are the enteries for 2023. Some of the students started their art work in September 2022, as soon as we returned from the Summer Break.
Alysha Casey Hanrahan, with portrait of Orla and JoJo, Age 17, Category A
Mahia Rahman, “Childhood Wonder” Age 17, Category A
Joe MacLear, Art Class on Saturday, Age 17, Category A
Eimear Fitzgerald, “Three in a Tub”, Age 15
Maire Czyaszak, Age 18, Category A
Adam Coote, Age 15, Day Dreaming
Sienna displaying her portrait of herself and her friend, Oils on Canvas
‘My Cousin” Haley Dixon, Age 14, Category B
“My sister Leana” Julia Swiatkovska, age 14, Category B
Sadie O’Brien, Age 14, Category B
Eoin Murphy, Age 13, Category C
Sarah Davis, Age 11, Category D
Lucy O’Connor. Age 12, Category C
Self Portrait of a young girl, Kyma Dillon , Age 8 , Category E
Saorlaith Ryan, Age 12, Category C
Gabija Mickeviciate, Self Portrait, Oils on Canvas
Nikola Paduch, Oils on Canvas, portrait of a friend
Aoibhe Gleeson, Age 10, Category D
Yivanna Price, Age 9, category D
John Tobin, Age 10, Category D
Laurie Hehir, Age 10, Category D
Sarah McDonald, Age 11, Category D
Mella McSweeney, Age 11, Category D
Ellie Ryan, Age 9, Category D
Alice Crean, Age 11, Category D
Riya Mahesh, Age 10, Category D
Hanna Dudek, Age 12, Category C
Lily O’Malley, Age 12, category C
Aidan Hehir, Waterfall, Poster paint on Paper
Lucy Malone, Oils on paper, Age 12, Category C
Sara McHugh, Tropical waterfall, poster Paint on paper, Age 7
Tara Mangan, Age 12, Category C.
Daire Markham, Age 11, Category D, Self Portrait, Oils on Paper
Fionn Coote, Age 9, category D, Poster paint on Paper, Mr Fox
Self Portrait
Ailbhe O’Loughlin, oils on paper, self portrait, Age 10, Category D
Younger Student Submissions
Random shots of the students displaying their work.
by Carmel Doherty | 30 Aug, 2022 | Uncategorized
Summer Art Camp at Ennis Art School 2022
Congratulations to all who participated in Ennis Art School Summer Art Camp 2022, great work created and we all had a lot of fun while creating the work. I try and take photographs of all the work, so hopefully a piece of everybody’s work is on exhibition in the following photographs.
The art camps are run for 5 days, each day we cover a different subject.
Day 1 – How to draw
How to look at form, how to break the drawing into shapes, how to create tone, how important tone is to a drawing. This area is extremely important as the student learns how to create a drawing first by breaking it into recognisable shapes, such as circles, ovals, curves, rectangles, etc. The next big area to the drawing is the importance of tone. What is tone, how to recognise the lack of tone in the drawing. The following are images of the work created by the students. At the beginning of each class the students are shown 10 images and they pick one image collectively that they would like to draw. These are the drawings that they created.
It is very important that the camps are mixed in age, ranging from 6 years of age up to 12 years of age. The students all work to their own age group and ability, so it does not make a difference if the student is 6 or 12.
As you can see we drew loads of cats, horses, dogs, birds and deer. The drawings were all created using chalk pastels.
Day 2 – Portraits
Portraits are very important as it teaches the students all about form and tone. It is the most important area in art education as it contains all the aspects in learning how to draw and paint.
Day 3 – Learning how to paint.
The students learn how to break down a painting into background, midground and foreground. They learn how to use different mediums to apply paint to create effects. They learn how to paint Landscapes, Seascapes, how to paint the figure, trees, rocks, rolling waves, grass, mountains etc. The students create their paintings using Poster Paint.
Day 4 – The Serious Painting
On day four the students apply the techniques that they learned the day before and paint a canvas using these techniques. As you can see once more the subject matter can be seascapes, landscapes, dogs, horses or pandas, they choose.
Day 5 – Modelling Clay
This is the students favourite activity, modelling clay. We use air drying clay and the students pick what they want to learn how to model as a group.
by Carmel Doherty | 29 Jun, 2022 | Uncategorized
Once more congratulations to everyone who attended the Summer Term at Ennis Art School, again great work created.
Texaco Children’s Art Competition 2022.
The 68th TEXACO CHILDREN’S ART COMPETITION, received close to 20,000 enteries this year. The task of judging these entries was undertaken by a panel of five judges. The Final adjudication was carried out by Gary Granville, Professor Emeritus of Education at the National College of Art & Design and supporting him were a group of preliminary judges, each one a distinguished figure in the world of art in Ireland. Dr Denise Ferran, former President of the Royal Ulster Academy, Eoin Butler, visiting lecturer in Visual Arts, Sean Kissane, curator of IMMA, and Marie Connole, artist, teacher and previous Texaco winner.
This year was a phenomenal success for Ennis Art School. We had one first in Category E
Aidan Hehir won First Prize in Category E, for his self portrait. Congratulations Aidan
We had two Fourths in Category A.
Brian Coughlan and Mahia Rahman, congratulations to you both.
We had two Fourth’s in Category B.
Adam Coote and Eilish Strand, congratulations to you both
We had One Fourth in Category C
Daria Kufa, congratulations Daria.
We had One Fourth in Category D.
Ciara Dee, Congratulations Ciara.
We had 2 Special merits
Mashfika Nice – Category A and Saide O’Brien – Category C, congratulations to you both, great achievement. It gives me great pleasure teaching these young artists. I look at their work and I feel very proud.
Now for a look at what else was completed during the Summer term, we will start off with the older students and work our way down.
Self Portrait as a young girl by Mahia Rahman.
Again a big mix of portraits, the above is a portrait of Mahia as a young girl.
Saturday Classes – Advanced – 9am till 6pm, 4 classes in all.
Saturday from 9am till 6pm, is when I teach the advanced students. In these classes the emphasis is once more on Portraits, but we also do seascapes, landscapes and urban scapes, with a bit of clay thrown in at the end of term.
Wednesday from 4pm till 6pm, Advanced Mid-Week Class.
The Wednesday class is very much like the 4pm till 6pm class on Saturday. In this class the students start to paint portraits trying to attain realism and perspective. This is not that easy to attain, this term we took Harry Potter, Tom Holland and The Rock as our subject matter, the students had to try and get a likeness, seeing how their faces differ from others to try to attain this. Clay is always the last day of term as all students love modelling clay and it is very good for them to use both of their hands, using both sides of their brains.
Mid-Week Classes, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 4pm till 6pm
This are children’s classes and we do a bit of everything, portraits, how to do basic portraits. seascapes, how to paint a starter sea and rocks, how to turn a wave. Landscapes how to paint trees, mountains, rivers using perspective and layers. How to paint animals looking at shapes and tone. Finally for the last day they can model clay. Loads of great work created.
Adult Art Classes, Wednesday 10am till 12 noon.
We do a celection of work on Wednesday
The ladies decide what they want to paint and off we go, its all just good fun.
by Carmel Doherty | 24 Apr, 2022 | Uncategorized
Congratulations to all who participated at the Easter Art Camp, once more great work was created. These camps are suitable for children from 6 years of age to 12 years of age and run from 9am till 12 noon, Monday to Friday during the Halloween, Easter and Summer Holidays. If there is not an image of you and your work sorry, you must have run out the door without getting a photo taken.
Day One, Drawing tone and breaking the images into easy shapes.
We started off with a tonal black and white drawing of a dog. Tone is one of the most important aspects in all drawing and painting and it is incredibly important for the students to understand tone. Tone creates perspective in the drawing or painting, dark tones pushing the drawing in and the light tones bringing the drawing out. The students also learn how to break down the drawing into easy shapes, such as triangles, rectangles, circles and ovals.
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The next lesson was how to paint a deer and a squirrel in a landscape. There the students learned how to break the animals into shapes and how to break the landscape into Foreground, Mid ground, and Background. How to paint deciduous trees and grass with a fan brush
Day two – How to paint a Seascape with a rolling wave.
For this lesson the students learned how to paint a beginners Seascape, how to turn a wave, how to paint the sand and how to paint the sky.
Day three – How to paint a landscape with a Deer.
For this lesson the students learned how to create a disappearing point using a road as the subject. How to paint trees using a pallet knife and how to paint the trees using perspective. How to paint a sky using tone and how to paint grass and shrubs. Finally for the foreground how to paint a path and some students put in a Deer.
Day Four – How to paint a portrait of themselves.
The Portrait is the most important area in art, as it contains all aspects of painting and drawing, tone, perspective and form. I believe it is extremely important for students to learn how to create a portrait so this area is always included in any art camp that I run and in the weekly art classes.
Day Five – Clay Modelling
The students love Clay modelling, and I believe it is a great way for the students to learn form.
The Summer Art Camps will be running all of July and for the two mid weeks in August. Please contact me for more information at 086 8207370.
by Carmel Doherty | 24 Apr, 2022 | Uncategorized
Easter Art Term at Ennis Art School
Once again, loads of very creative work created during the Easter Term, congratulations to all who participated. I am attaching some images of the work created, if you are not included it is because you ran off before I had a chance to photograph you with your work. I teach Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 4pm till 6pm, all of these classes are mixed children’s classes ranging from 6 years of age up to 12 years of age. The Wednesday class from 4pm till 6pm is the advanced mid-week class, this is created for students who understand the basics of drawing and painting and are ready to advance on to the next level.
I teach art all day on Saturday from 9am till 6pm, these classes are all advanced classes, here the students learn how to draw and paint more complex art works. There are four Saturday classes, each class is a different level, the 4pm till 6pm is the first level, the 9am till 11am class is the second level, the 11;15 to 1;15 the next level and the 1;30 to 3;30 class the most advanced class, again you will see the difference in the level of technique when I post up the images.
Lets start with the mid-week classes. At the beginning of each class the students are given a selection of images and it is up to them to choose which image that they would like to learn how to paint and draw. As you can see animals are a favourite, but I do include landscapes, how to draw trees, grass, mountains, rivers, houses and once the students learn how to properly draw a human figure, they are also included. The students use their fingers a lot to paint, but I also teach them how to paint with Fan brushes, great for painting leaves on trees and grass, Pallet Knives, great for painting rocks, mountains and the trunks of trees, Flat Brushes and small brushes.
Portraits are one of the areas always included in the term, for if a student can paint a portrait they will have no problem painting any seascape, landscape of urban scape, as the portrait contains all aspects of drawing and painting, including perspective and tone.
Clay, last week of the term.
Saturday Class – Advanced
As you can see the technique is much more advanced than the mid-week classes. The students are encouraged to work in A2 Sketch Pads, so as they can start creating a portfolio, which is very useful when seeing how their work advances through the classes and keeping a record on the proper way to draw portraits, landscapes and seascapes. The last day of each term, the term lasting 6 weeks, is a Clay Day where the students model clay. All the students love modelling clay and I believe that it is very useful for the students to learn how to model clay as it teaches them form.
Saturday Advanced class 1:30 to 3:30
The 1:30 to 3:30 class on Saturday is the most advanced class. In this class the students are extremely competent in all forms of painting, drawing and modelling. In this class the students pick what they want to paint themselves, so they are all working individually, creating their own work. The following are examples of the work created.
by Carmel Doherty | 28 Feb, 2022 | Uncategorized
Spring Term 2022 – at Ennis Art School.
A lot of work was created this Spring Term, with all of the students trying to get a piece ready for The Texaco Children’s Art Competition. A lot of effort was put into how to create a good Portrait. Portraiture is the Gold Cup of Art, why so you may ask, it is because it has everything. It has foreshortening, tone, perspective, form, everything has to be perfect and if it is not, it is very obvious that it is incorrect. I include portraiture into all of the groups, the young children only do portraits once every term, the older children and teenagers were doing portraits for all 7 weeks. As the portrait had to be broken down into sections, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, skin tone, hair, thats just the beginning. Then there is perspective, but that is not included until the students get to grips with all aspects of non perspective portraits. Everything in art is about practice, practice and more practice, if the students want to become better they have to practice.
The following two Portraits were submitted to The Texaco Children’s Art Competition in the highest category, they are 17 and 16 years of age and I must say that their portraits are fabulous.
As the students become extremely good at creating portraits, I encourage them to take on more ambitious works, to start introducing creativity and start looking how their portrait can be gallery worthy.
Now it is not that I do not think that the other students work is not equally as fabulous, they are terrific for their age groups, the students work extremely hard on their portraits and the proof is with a bit of hard work, concentration and determination, a great portrait can be achieved, no matter what age you are.
Now for the other areas, the more fun stuff.
A lot of animals were painted, the students get a choice of a selection of images that they can learn how to paint. I do not mind what we paint in the art class, dogs, pigs, horses, birds, trees, seascapes, people, town scapes. It makes no difference to me as the students are constantly learning how to use colour, tone, how to break the painting down into shapes, how to use perspective and disappearing points. There are many benefits of painting for children including sensory development, colour learning, fine motor development, exercising creativity, being able to express emotions and building self esteem. Painting is also a great activity to help teach concepts like shapes and form in a fun and engaging way.
Finally Clay.
The students love modelling clay, from the very young to the very old.
Clay is one medium that promotes creativity. It is especially beneficial to young people – it helps promote self-confidence, encourages self-expression and develops problem-solving skills. Makes the students look at the form of the animal, how many legs has the animal, where are its ears positioned, on the top or side of the head, where is the tail positioned. How do you create eyes, nose, ears and mouth. How do you create hair. Probably one of the most important creative process when modelling clay how do you make your clay model personal to you.
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