During my two-month residency at Ballinglen, the domestic landscape of cottage number 5 became the center of my creative activities. I painted small watercolors in the bright, open living room where I kept a peat fire in the hearth and a vase of daffodils on the table. During daylight hours I gravitated to the rear window where I could observe the weather and light shifting across the fields. In the far distance stood the massive sea cliffs of Downpatrick Head where occasionally from my chair I was stunned to see great waves crash over the top.  Nightly, I looked out the front window to our little cul-de-sac of houses articulated by few streetlights, their forms merging with my lamplit interior in window reflection. "Study for Home: Ballinglen I," explores these tonal arrangements in black watercolor.  The choice of medium was functional as I planned to base a series of black and white intaglio prints on the drawings. While the suite of impressions never came to pass, this drawing remains one of two variations on this composition. A second, smaller watercolor, "Study for Home: Ballinglen II" is in my personal collection.        - Charles Ritchie