St. Mary's in West Sussex and East Lothian

Chichester gave me my first impression of West Sussex. The town centre is old and attractive, comprising of a lot of traditional market town architecture. I thought that this was a nice feature.

There is an inspiring Cathedral dating back many centuries. This photo is taken from the nearby gardens.



Chithurst monastery is two bus rides and about 20 miles away via Midhurst, It is a lovely rural area with heathland, forests and single track roads. The area has an abundance of ancient cottages and churches. St. Mary's is down the road from Chithurst monastery and is a fine example of a Norman Church built around 1080.

I was inspired to do a sketch painting of this church but it was a bit awkward because I had to do it crouching on my haunches.

Afterwards I remembered that this is the second time I have painted a church called St. Mary. The other one is in Haddington, East Lothian and brought me first prize in the East Linton exhibition 2010. Here is the link

http://www.triboy57.blogspot.com/search/label/St.%20Mary%27s%20Church









St. Mary's Church, Haddington

Quite pleased with the way today went. Decided to finish off a painting of St. Mary’s Church. It had been hanging around for quite a few weeks since I last had a go at it. As with most of my painting projects, there was a fair bit of experimentation to get the effects I wanted. A number of things had to come together. There is a very dark sky and a snow covered scene. There are also red/orange spotlights on the upper parts of the church which contrast nicely with the sombre colours of the scene. One of the big challenges was getting the proportions right in what for me is quite a big painting. I did it by dividing the water colour paper into quarters so that I could judge the relative distance and size of the different parts of the church; even so, it was quite a challenge. I used wet on wet for the sky and quite a lot of the church including the spotlights.
When I had finished I went along to IKEA and bought some mountings and frames. There weren’t any the right size for the St. Mary’s picture, so I got a cheap frame without any mounting. I was pleased to get a few frames and mountings for other paintings, which fit fine. Here is St. Mary’s Church.

Tonight I went for a run with the club and the Achilles survived, it’s still not right, but seems to be holding up… it’s great to be out running again.