Aodhán makes art

Visual artist and photographer based in Ireland. 30+, he/him, FtM, ace, happily married, non-theist eclectic warlock. Macabre lover, empires hater. Art tag | Photography tag | Reblogs Art Insta | Photo Insta

[aodhan-art]

I have a strange relationship with my art right now. I am now feeling as I have drifted apart from my artist self? As if the comparative easiness with which the words come seduced me away from the toil and martyrdom that making lines was? Is making lines supposed to be martyrdom at all?

I've wanted it all my life. I can now have it. But do I want it anymore?

Though maybe it's just my brain going into survival mode on this final stretch. No martyrdom except that which is absolutely necessary.

[aodhan-art]

A woman in a Galway shawl and a king

[aodhan-art]

[aodhan-art]

A Quest in the Spider Forest - Little Brother

[aodhan-art]

Little tragedies (commemorative votives from St. Brigid's Well in Kildare).

It's very interesting, actually, how this tradition, historically centered on various aspects of life, rebirth and fertility, shifted to commemoration in very recent times. Judging by an eyewitness account, commemorative votives and cenotaphs were very rare there as recently as in 2022; let's just say things have changed in that department. A lot.

[aodhan-art]

The Waiting Room / Good with Children

A companion piece to Memento Mori here

[aodhan-art]

There is due to the water of Loch Lein a greeting from afar, as it is free from sorrow beyond all, in beauty and endless glory. (Verse 49, The Metrical Dindshenchas)

[aodhan-art]

[aodhan-art]

'I ain't afraid of no ghost. I'm just getting annoyed and pretend I can't hear them'

[aodhan-art]

Expressions practice time with Captain Alan Moran, @sorrows-hand's and mine rapparee OC! From left to right, top to bottom:

cuteness and concentration

the last thing many a secondary character sees

infuriatingly conveying (obviously fake) innocence - Captain's missing tooth and broken nose betray that he had thus sufficiently infuriated people more than once

bored and disgusted (for REASONS)

Hide the Pain No More Harold

"Remember Limerick!" (the Irish Brigade's battle cry invoking the Siege of Limerick)

[aodhan-art]

The things that can't be seen

[aodhan-art]

The things that can be seen

[aodhan-art]

I was a bit overwhelmed with life, so very belatedly posting about the fact that I made it to the finals of fionnfolklore.org art competition!

I chose The Battle of Ventry, specifically the moment when Bodb gets lectured on the Tuatha Dé Danann and Milesian nobility having intermarried to the point of becoming a mixed population long ago, as well as on himself being the absolutely worst grandfather to Oisín.

[aodhan-art]

Lenaboy Castle (formerly St. Anne's orphanage for girls) outbuildings. The story of the place is as horrific as it could possibly be.

[aodhan-art]

#irishmythtober Day 5: Dobhar-chú

Aka the Loughrea otter-fox, this particular creature was being reported in local newspapers and eyewitness accounts as recently as in the 1930s, earning a £50 bounty on its head from the county hunt club for shamelessly eating and maiming cattle, dogs, and the beloved, well-behaved swan Old Tom who had resided at the lake for 30+ years (before this thing broke out of some sídhe lab or whatever and went on a rampage).

It hurt to draw the poor guy but I had to. I tried to be considerate with it. Give me a hundred of Aengus Ógs, bog bodies, scheming Tuatha Dé Danann kings and enchanted talking heads over one poor dead bird, that's what I say.

[aodhan-art]

I was afraid I'd have to skip this day of the challenge because of work and studies and stuff, but the prompts are. Just. Too. Good.

The girl on the picture is a very specific one-of-a-kind mermaid-like character known as Lí Ban, born as one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Her father Eochaid got on the bad side of Aengus Óg (yes, THAT Aengus Óg), and, long story short, everyone in their síd but Lí Ban was drowned. It is said in the Annals of the Four Masters that she survived underwater for a year thanks to an air pocket, after which she was transformed into a half-human half-salmon creature (along with her pet dog, who became an otter). She's spent 300 years in that state after finally being captured by monks, interviewed, welcomed and baptised, upon which she opted for an immediate natural death with a guarantee of salvation instead of another 300 years of existence.

In many folk traditons mermaids and merfolk are none other but restless souls of the dead. Of course Irish merrow are a different story, but since Lí Ban was not exactly a merrow but an ex-human, my head canon is that no, she did not survive after the air pocket ran out, and that the story of her baptism and (second) death is not some standard 'Christianity vs Pagan nature' morality tale but a story of a soul choosing to be finally laid to rest instead of more centuries of lonely un-life.

She's known as St Muirgen in Early Irish martyrologies by the way (feast day January 27 btw), so yeah. There's an official undead mermaid Tuatha Dé Danann Irish saint.

[aodhan-art]

#irishmythtober Day 3 - Knots

Probably not the knots that everyone would expect (because I can't properly draw them!) but the knots of Cú Chulainn's belt with which he tied himself to a standing stone in the battle of Mag Muirthemne so that he could die standing upright and facing his foes. Aided Chon Culainn in the Book of Leinster has it that the victors were so afraid of Cú Chulainn in death as well as in life that they only dared to approach the body after a raven sat on it and got ready to feed.

(I keep pushing my limits with brushes that really imitate ink lol)