'Cathedral Porch'

This is another painting from last year.
I had been exploring the back-streets of Leicester with my camera, looking for possible motifs to paint.
It was a wet and grey Sunday afternoon, and having just visited a German Expressionists exhibition at the city art gallery and museum, with all its vibrant colour, I was finding little that inspired me. So I headed over to the cathedral, in the belief that the eclesiastical architecture would surely fire my imagination.
Unfortunately I found it clad in scaffolding and plastic sheeting...it was having a facelift.
I was just about to give up hope when I spotted the railings outside the rear entrance porch. Closer examination revealed the wonderful arcading on the inside ceiling. Now to get both the railings and the ceiling into one composition required me laying on my back in the rain and aiming the camera at a very strange angle. It did however provide me with an unusual perspective. The resulting photograph was as grey as the day, but a little imagination delivered this :


Cathedral Porch (19x22") Acrylic painted on 140lb watercolour paper
I.