Another entry in the St. Patrick's week special:

Dimensions: 20x15 (unframed)

Medium: Acrylic on illustration board

Status: For Sale $75

COMMENTS: The main competition at an Irish Feis is the dancing. Jigs, reels, hornpipes... the little girls (it's usually girls these days) who enter the competitions would be bouncing all around the field, practicing their steps and wearing bits and pieces of their costumes. When I was taking dancing lessons from the McNiff School of Dancing, the attire was very, very plain -- green or white dresses with a green or orange sash for the girls -- down to the knees, with knee socks -- and for the boys, plain green or orange kilts with a tweed jacket and sash. I didn't last very long at McNiff's though and by the time I was interested in Irish dancing again, costumes were much, much more elaborate, full of celtic design and flashy colors. Recently, I went to a concert and they had a performance by the young kids from a local dancing school and I wouldn't have recognized the costumes as Irish dancing costumes, if the girls hadn't still been wearing those ridiculous Shirley Temple curls. The colors and shortness of the costumes looked more like Las Vegas showgirls than Irish dancers. If that makes me sound old, well, so be it.

This painting was from when some of the costumes were still more like party dresses. The girls were finished with one competition and resting up before another.

Technorati Tags: St. Patrick's Day, Irish Dancing