WATERCOLOUR PAINTING OF CHURCH OF SAINT GEORGE (VILLAGE GDINJ, ISLAND HVAR)

Today I'll share with you a new painting of mine. The subject of this painting is a church of saint George in Gdinj. This church dates back to the sixteen century and it is build in the Renaissance-Baroque style. It is often called the old church by the residents of Gdinj village (located on island Hvar). There is another church in Gdinj village, the one we call the new church, a fact that sometimes makes me giggle because 'the new church' is more than a hundred years old, just not quite old as this one. I'm afraid that sometimes in Croatia we take history for granted, just because we're surrounded by so much of it. I suppose this is true for other European countries as well. It is easy to get spoiled when you're surrounded by so many historical buildings and I feel we Europeans sometimes take them for granted. Being a  history lover, I tend to take notice of historical buildings but it often happens that I miss out on something. It is impossible to keep track of every historical sight and monument, but we can try.:)

 The church of saint George is one of the most significant churches in Gdinj village. It is currently being restored. This painting was a gift for my grandmother and I used one of her vintage postcards.  So, I did use a reference to paint this one. The reference photograph is (as you perhaps can guess from the image bellow) a historical black and white photograph. I had to rely on my imagination to fill in the colours. Not a difficult task, as I do know this area very well. At present day, the area around this church looks slightly different but it wasn't hard imagining the colours. I could also questioned my grandmother to make sure I got all the details right. All in all, I'm happy I thought of painting this church. What better gift for a resident of this village than a painting of its most valuable building? I've actually never been inside this church, but only because it was closed for year (waiting for the restoration). I did see it from the outside many a times and I do look forward seeing it from the inside (once it gets restored). I saw paintings of the inside painted by Tatjana Radovanić. so I have a general idea of what it looks like. In any case, I really enjoyed painting this beautiful historical church dating back to sixteen century.

PAINTING WITH WATERCOLOURS PENCILS- THE CHURCH OF SAINT GEORGE

If you remember this post, then you will know that earlier this month I visited island Hvar again. This time I spend the majority of time with my grandmother in her main home. I managed to get some painting done as well. You had the chance to see some of those paintings here. Like those paintings, this painting of church of saint George was painted with watercolour pencils. The process was the same. I started by sketching the church. So, basically this art started as a drawing and ended up as a painting, giving it a bit of mixed media feel. When I finished the drawing, I liked it so much I wasn't sure I wanted to apply water to it, but I decided to risk it and I'm glad I did. The final painting turned out lovely and I'm pretty happy with it. Working with watercolour pencils has been an interesting experience so far. 

I'm also going to share some photographs of my grandmother's and our neighbour's home. I just love this kind of architecture. Stone houses are always so beautiful and historical ones especially so. Gdinj village is quite unique in the sense that it is composed of many smaller villages. At the present, only two of those smaller villages are inhabited: Visoka and Dugi Dolac. My grandmother lives in Visoka. Most tourists that stay in Gdinj stay in its bays where most of the apartments are available for rent in the summer. In the village itself, there aren't any houses available for rent here (there is a hostel, though) but I have a feeling that might change some day. Not everyone likes to vacation in the immediate vicinity of the sea, some people like the peace and quiet you can find in these island villages that are located a bit further away from the sea. As I explained, the bays are actually also part of Gdinj village, but when I speak of the village I mostly mean the part of it that is a bit away from the sea, not the bays themselves.  The thing is that I love this part of the village as well. You may expect more posts about it.  I'll also link up a few of my older posts about Gdinj so you can have a look right now if you don't feel like waiting:

GDINJ VILLAGE AND DIY NECKLACE

THE PAINTING OF GDINJ AND THE OUTFIT OF THE DAY

GDINJ, ISLAND HVAR 

GDINJ VILLAGE (VISOKA), ISLAND HVAR, CROATIA

A lovely family of skylarks made their nest under the terrace of my grandmother's home. There is even one more family of skylarks inside of her home. Skylarks are unique in the sense they actually like the company of humans and will build their homes close to them. Do you like skylarks? Speaking of adorable animals, I also took a photograph of a neighbour's tomcat, he really is a doll. I used to have a tomcat that looked a lot like him when I was a kid, I brought it to Hvar from Split. I wonder whether it is possible that he might be one of its descendants. You never know. 

This painting isn't available for sale as it was a gift, but you can find prints (and other stuff) in my Redbubble shop.  Thank you for reading and visiting!