Mussenden Temple is a place on the Antrim coast that I love to visit, so when I was asked to paint a little romantic version of it as a wedding gift I was thrilled to have another reason to go! I went on quite a dull day however so I’ve used some of the many sunsets I’ve photographed to liven up the colours and create a warmer, more colourful effect.
 |
| The finished painting, pastel on velour 12″x12″ |
 |
| Stage one and I’ve sketching in the temple on the yellow velour. This shade of surface creates and nice warm glow underneath my layers. |
 |
| Sunsets are the best skies to paint! I love the warm colours and this is making use of the lovely contrasts between the blues and oranges. |
 |
| Lovely warm grey tones as the base for the ocean. |
 |
| On quite a small scale so the detail in the temple itself is quite fiddly. I’m adding the darkest areas here first. |
 |
| My photo reference was a bit dull but I’m simply using those tones within the sky to create the light and shadow of the temple. Warm orange highlights where the sun hits, and cool blue for the shadow side. |
 |
| Lots of bricks on the bottom of the temple and I’m using lots of sharp edges of the Unison to do the finest of lines. |
 |
| Almost there! |
 |
| In it’s gorgeous frame from Art & Home. I decided on this frame before I painted the piece and took an off cut home to make sure I was using the right shades in the painting. |
 |
| To give you a sense of scale 🙂 |
I hope the couple who got married in this special place had a wonderful day. Congratulations to them and I hope this painting is a happy memory of their big day!