Church on the Beach

'Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days Challenge'

DAY 20

'Church on the Beach' study 

oil on board 8" x 8"

Went right down to the wire on this one!
JUST about had enough light in the twilight zone (yes, there really is such a thing) to take a JUST about good enough photo.
Sadly, it's not finished and for the first time in this challenge, I ran out of time but hopefully you can get the gist.

All I can say is thank God the lighter evenings are on their way. Which begs the question, why the heck didn't I do this challenge during the longest days? Nutter.....

The challenge for this one was three-fold-
1. To use a very limited palette - Payne's gray, raw umber, Naples yellow, raw sienna and a blob of something grey and mouldy-looking leftover from yesterday's painting.
2. Perspective too, raised it's ugly head...*howls like an injured animal* something I try to steer well clear of.
3. To keep things simple.

Speaking of perspective, as I trained as a ceramicist many moons ago when
folk thought the world was flat and the most popular mode of transport was a donkey, perspective didn't really come into the syllabus of throwing pots.
I don't think it's something that comes naturally, though maybe some artists just have a natural eye, which I clearly don't.

I bought a book on perspective last year. (I mean it was reduced to 25p in my local library book sale and I thought it would look good on my shelves.)
Dear god, I glazed over after 5 minutes, developed palpitations and had to retire to a darkened room with a stiff drink. Seriously, serious stuff that hurt my head - 'vanishing to 1, 2 and 3 points' 'imperfect infinite regression' (yup! it's real and I really DID regress into infinity), 'inclined planes' (Are we talking take-off or landing?) and - wait for it - 'confusing roof line'. Yeh, if I was a roof line I'd be confused, too.
I did actually try one of the suggested 'simple' exercises (NOT) of 'drawing a colonnade of columns receding towards a single vanishing point' (had to copy this sentence from the book.) 

Geeze! I had the headache from hell after 5 minutes, threw a tantrum, toys went out the pram and I might have blubbed a bit. (Read - a lot.)

It's written by a proper, proper living artist - John Raynes and boy do I love his paintings, a seriously talented artist I've admired for many years.

I wonder if he'd agree to giving me a lesson or two?
Hope he doesn't mind a rather irrational, over-emotional, easily-brought-to-tears female blubbing on his artist's smock now and then...

BTW anyone guess where this is?

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www.jujuandbubba.co.uk