HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE ART OF CAESURA!! Cue the confetti-poppers, my weekly blog is FIVE YEARS OLD!! That's half a decade of posts every single Friday right here on The Art of Caesura! And what a year it's been. With these birthday celebrations, I don't want to dwell on the negative, but I will just acknowledge that this has - without a shadow of a doubt - been the hardest year of my life. And not just because of the pandemic, but that certainly exacerbated everything. So it's with some degree of pride that I managed to keep painting and posting despite it all. Your support, through comments and just tuning in, has been especially wonderful this year.  Five years is quite a long time to do anything. It's longer than I've been in my current career, it's over three times the length of time that my daughter has been alive, it's longer than I've been married, it's longer than most university / college degrees...that tenacity is another source of pri...

As I was going over the Cork and Kerry mountains... Whiskey in the Jar - Traditional. Hello one and all and welcome back to The Art of Caesura! Today we're going to leave Middle-Earth behind and enter a land...that really resembles Middle-Earth actually!  A couple of months ago, while my parents were over visiting, my dad and I went on an epic adventure through places with equally epic sounding names: the Black Valley and the Gap of Dunloe - The Irish do know how to name things...I mean, even one of the major political parties - Fianna Fáil (pronounced FEE-na FALL) translates to "Soldiers of Destiny" I'm not making this stuff up! So, to set the appropriate tone, get this song blasting in the background as you follow us on our adventure! Anyway, we set off from a lay-by on the famous Ring of Kerry, a few kilometres before you get to  Derrycunnihy Church on the River Galway .  We set off early enough and were greeted by a bright rainbow ...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE ART OF CAESURA!! Three years old! THREE YEARS OLD!! Can you believe it!? Well maybe you can, but I can barely believe it. When I started this little blog three years ago, I didn't know how long I'd be able to keep the weekly pace up, but here we are, 159 posts later and still going strong!! I have all of you to thank for it. I know it sounds cliché  but being several hours from my nearest hobby centre, you guys are my community, and it's your views and comments that help encourage me to keep striving in my hobby. This is always my favourite post of the year, and I hope you enjoy it too! I love it because it gives us a chance to pause (a caesura within The Caesura), look back over all we've accomplished this past year, and gaze to the fun that lies ahead! Let's start with a fancy visual look at the blog: But what does it all mean? Well, compared to last year, we've diversified a bit. I mentioned last year th...