Kingsclere Library - Commission

Kingsclere Library, Line and wash

Our village library has closed.


It is due to reopen as a community library next week.

This means that the staff are moving on. The volunteer group who are taking the library over from Hampshire County Council arranged a lovely "Goodbye and Thank You" party for the departing librarians this afternoon. And I was very pleased to have been asked to paint a picture of the library for the senior librarian - who has been working at this library for an impressive 24 years. 

My family and I attended the party, and helped to eat the delicious spread of biscuits and cakes - notably a celebratory cake shaped like a book, which the librarians seemed (quite understandably) very reluctant to cut...

---------

Followers of this blog may recall a similar painting that I made of the Village Club. The library occupies one end of the Village Club building and I was commissioned to paint both pictures by the same lady. It was her idea to include a bike outside the entrance (yes, it's my venerable mountain bike), and the figure walking towards the library more or less suggested herself. Which is odd, really, as she doesn't exist; I couldn't find a suitable reference, so I made her up.

Any resemblances to the artist are entirely accidental.

There was a dedication (in the same style) associated with this painting as well, and Overton Gallery once again supplied the mount and frame.