Sarah Carrington

Sarah Carrington is a professional artist, based on the coast of Northern Ireland. Sarah studied at the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh College of Art graduating in 1999 with an MA in Fine Art. Her work focuses on landscape, coastline and weather, particularly of her surrounding area and of her homeland, Scotland.

Land, sea and sky are continually changing: they always appear different, never the same. The light and weather evolve constantly, describing and shaping the landscape and its appearance. Sarah paints and describes these landscapes using emulsion, oil, ink and a variety of mixed media, often incorporating gold leaf. Sarah regularly visit local beaches, as well as further afield, where she takes photographs, sketches and written notes, to record the experience. She gathers this research and returns to the studio to paint.

Using household emulsion, inks and acrylics, she starts to describe the drama of the view, and the shape of the clouds and the land. She initially applies the paint in layers using various brushes both wet and dry, forming the land in more detail, and by using chalks, pen and pencil over and within the wet paint. With paint markers and thick paint, she highlights waves and sea foam. After some time, Sarah then applies oil-based layers, using thinned oil paint and painting resin. She continues with mark-making, using pen, pencil and chalk, describing areas of the land, sea, spume and the direction of the rain falling in the sky. Finally, she applies some real gold leaf to the areas she wants to highlight, to describe where the sunlight touches the land and sea.