Archway Into St Michael’s & All Saints Church, Hartlip

Another bit of plein air painting and this time it’s my local church in Hartlip.

Just like last time, it’s in the key of purple cool, made up of transparent yellow, French ultramarine and quinacridone magenta.  I wanted the ultramarine for its granulation properties and the magenta cr that purple tree.

There’s a great archway leading from the churchyard into some orchards, so I sat in orchard and found a view in which the church was framed by the archway.  This is a great composition for a photo  or for a film but not for a painting unless the artist can decide whether the church or the archway is the star.  I went for both and ended up with a painting that doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing.

I went for my (recent) usual approach of graduated washed for the church and the archway but somehow they don’t seem as energetic as they have done in other paintings.  I dropped in some salt and some drops of water in an attempt to make the archway look old; this has worked well in a couple of places but would have been better all over the archway.

I didn’t have a plan for the foreground this side of the archway, so ended up throwing down random colour and trying to inject some energy with some sharp upward strokes.  I also added some spattering with my three primaries. Overall the foreground is probably OK but maybe some spattering with opaques might have been better.

The sky was already looking good (ultramarine and magenta is a winner) but looks even better now after some yellow spatters ended up in the sky and had to be brushed into it.

The bit I’m least happy with is the middle ground: the church, the trees and the grounds.  They’re all in too dark a value for a start, not contrasting enough against the archway.  And none of the colours are really right.

I thought this was of my worst paintings for a while.  But then I sold it when the paint was barely dry to one of the ladies in the village.  She told me she’s already familiar with my work from seeing my portrait of Clive still on display at the MB Farms farm shop.  Anyway, the proceeds of this sale were all passed straight on to the church itself.  That seems like the right thing to do with a church painting.