Paint a Shere Delight!

Have you ever been to the pretty Surrey Village of Shere? Its a quintessential English village that attracts thousands of visitors every year thanks to it's appearance in a number of film favourites. The church has featured in numerous films including Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason, The Wedding Date and The Holiday. In fact Shere has been a filming location for over 100 years! To find out more about Shere's on-screen appearances take a look at the following link - there's an amazing film from 1899 of the local fire brigade! https://www.sheredelight.com/films.html

I took this lovely photograph of Manor Cottage in Shere a couple of years ago. It's a beautiful timber-framed building which dates back to the Tudor period. It is actually one of many Tudor period cottages in the village ~ many of which remain much unchanged.

I think this tutorial is a great opportunity to learn how to paint a range of different architectural features and it is an excellent starting point if you have ever fancied painting your favourite building, landmark or even your own home.

To begin we will apply the pale base colours before adding any fine details. We will recreate the look of the timber frames and the intricate brickwork using a range of techniques. I will even guide you through several options on how to complete your bricks if masking fluid is not your thing!

We will build up the details working in layers until our cottage is complete. For the cottage surround I will show you how to create a beautiful soft-edged appearance which creates the illusion of the painting fading at the edges.

To complete the painting we will add a lovely cloudy sky using wet into wet techniques to create the light fluffy clouds.

To find out more about this tutorial take a quick look at the video below.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/d79f8e_8d20fb939b694ac4bac21e87065d1060/720p/mp4/file.mp4

This tutorial is one of the longer ones that are available as it is quite intricate in places, however I have given you some options which will help you to free up some time if needed! Although I have awarded it a 3 for time I have decided to award it a 2 for difficulty as many of the techniques are very accessible ~ if a little time consuming!

I hope you really enjoy painting this one and it perhaps inspires you to paint your own buildings. At the very least it might inspire you to take a trip to see the beautiful village of Shere. If you go, there's a lovely cafe called 'The Dabbling Duck' which is well worth a visit! Plus if you fancy a little retail therapy there are some beautiful independent shops which are hard to leave empty handed!

Happy Painting!