Painting Ticknock in the Dublin Mountains

On a Sunday afternoon I headed up to Ticknock in the Dublin Mountains for a plein air painting session.

Ticknock is one of those places that feels surprisingly rural considering how close it is to the city. Within minutes of leaving the car park the landscape opens up, with sweeping views across the valley and all the way toward Dublin.

Finding the scene

When I arrived I spent some time simply walking and looking.

One of the things plein air painting teaches you is that not every view makes a strong painting. The landscape is full of possibilities, but the challenge is finding the moment where light, shape and atmosphere come together.

What caught my attention here was the band of sunlight moving across the valley, framed by the darker hillside on the left.

Starting the painting

I began by laying in the large shapes of the hillside, valley and sky.

At this stage I’m mainly looking for the overall pattern of light and dark rather than details. The goal is to capture the structure of the landscape quickly before the light changes.

In the mountains, the weather can shift rapidly, so decisions have to be made early.

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Holding onto the light

As I worked, clouds drifted across the sun and the light moved across the fields below.

This is one of the challenges of painting outdoors. The scene is constantly changing, so you have to decide which moment you want to hold onto.

In this case it was the patch of sunlight in the valley, which became the focal point of the painting.

The distant city remains soft and understated — more of an atmosphere than a detailed subject.

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Painting outdoors

Painting outdoors always slows me down in the best possible way.

When you stand in one place for an hour or two with a brush in your hand, you begin to notice things you might otherwise miss — subtle shifts in colour, the direction of the wind in the trees, and the way light moves across the land.

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The finished painting

By the end of the session the temperature had dropped and the light was fading, which usually means it’s time to stop.

Plein air paintings are rarely about perfection. They’re more like a record of a moment — the weather, the light and the experience of standing in that place while the painting came together.

This one captures a quiet afternoon in the Dublin Mountains, looking out across the valley toward the city.

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Framed and ready for a home

Once back in the studio the painting was framed, ready for its next home.

Many of my paintings begin outdoors like this before eventually finding their way onto someone’s wall. Each one holds a small memory of the place where it was painted.

Ticknock is certainly a place I’ll return to again.