Ruth's World

So this is where the magic happens! Ok, so it may not be magical in your opinion but for me, it's my favourite place to be; my studio.  Well, it was actually my mother's little sittingroom in what was her grannyflat on the side of my house.  I've just stuck a desk in there; a pressie from my hubby for my birthday last year, and a heater for the cold days.  I would spend all day in there if I could but unfortunately, real life takes precedence, so I just nip in and out whenever I have a free moment and at weekends.  I like to just sit in there and do nothing sometimes too, just reminisce.

I set out on a mission recently to research my third cousin, Fergus O'Ryan to find out more about him. I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was he famous for his beautiful oil and watercolour paintings, he was also not so widely known as an illustrator. I set about tracking down some of his work and was thrilled to have been able to get my hands on some first edition copies of the books he designed covers for, and lent his talents to illustrating.  He also designed two irish postal stamps ( see details here ) One of his more notable commercial works was his cover design and illustrations for Patricia Lynch's Tales of Irish Enchantment in 1952. Here's my first edition copy. I'm a happy puppy! I haven't read it yet, but I will.

Some more books I've managed to get my hands on are The Big Sycamore by Joseph Brady, 1958 (First Edition), In Monavalla by Joseph Brady, 1963 and Legends of Killarney by Donal O'Cahill.  Fergus O'Ryan designed the book covers and now I own copies of them, Yahoo! A spooky observation; my grandmother lived in a place called Sycamore Avenue.

I also managed to track down and buy two 'An Tostal' stamps that Fergus O'Ryan designed to mark the spring cultural festival held in Ireland at the time.    View an Tostal at:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_T%C3%B3stal My collection is growing slowly but the icing on the cake would be to own one of his oil paintings.  They make a lot of money these days so I'll just have to wait and hope I win the lotto!