An Early Church - 6

On to the closing stages of the church build.

To get the effect of Roman pantiles I spread a thick layer of liquid nails over the roofs and used an old comb to create the rows. It's best to give the comb a quick, straight downward stroke to avoid any deviation, and I've more or less achieved that here. The area around the porch had to be done using a cocktail stick, but it seems to merge with the rest pretty well. The putty-like consistency of the liquid nails allows it to be worked for some time before it hardens, which is useful if things need to be corrected.

I forgot to take a photo of the roof on the rounded apse. This I had to work by hand with the cocktail stick, being careful to run the lines down from the apex so they formed elongated isosceles triangles. It took a couple of tries before I was satisfied with it.

The dried liquid nails, along with annoying fingernail-shaped speck of plastic that appeared out of nowhere.

The ridge-line is made of two lengths of mini-dowel, with a bit of liquid nails smeared along its length to glue it down and meld it with the tiling.

View from the front showing the rows.

The same treatment was given to the walls, but with a much thinner spread. When dried it looks like daub or plaster.

Once the liquid nails on the roofs dried thoroughly I gave it its first coat of paint. I used a terracotta acrylic craft paint with a drop of Future floor polish to help it flow, along with a single drop of red ink. I wanted a hotter shade than the standard terracotta, aiming to tone it down to a more realistic shade as painting progressed. I found from making previous Roman period buildings that the terracotta paint used straight out of the bottle doesn't look quite right.

A fairly thin coat of terracotta mixed with an equal amount of mid brown went on next, worked well into the grooves.

Once the roofs had dried I painted the walls. The builders of early churches followed Roman practice and either built in stone of the lightest colour or painted the walls white - there's archaeological evidence of lime or whitewash being used on church walls of the period - so they attracted the eye and stood out from the run of the mill structures around them. This enhanced the glory of the Christian religion and provided a ready landmark for pilgrims and worshipers travelling across country.

Now I could make the building all white but two things mitigate against it. One, I think given the British climate of the time (warmer and wetter) weathering would tone down the brightness. Two, I didn't want it to look too much like a Mediterranean building. I went with acrylic antique white - a parchment-like shade - with a drop of black to tone it down a little for a weathered effect.

The final touches on the roof comprised a wet-brush of terracotta with a little orange mixed in to highlight the ridges of the tiles, working along the line of the tiles rather than across since this avoids any blobs of paint building up on the sides of the ridges. I may apply a last wash of sepia ink for weathering. We'll see.

Just below the building is the beginnings of the main door. Again, archaeological evidence suggests the builders of these early churches followed Roman practice and painted the doors, possibly with different coloured insets. I'm using the rounded end of a tongue-depressor splint (I found an unused box of these in a local Goodwill charity shop!). I opted for turquoise, since fragments of wood painted this colour were found during excavation of a Romano-British church in Colchester (I think it was Colchester - brain fart/insufficient coffee!)

I also touched up the archway with white gloss enamel to make it stand out more from the background wall colour.

And for the final touch, the main door is now in place. I went with antique white panels with Pompeii red inserts. The porch door I painted a plain wood colour.

Father Superfluous and his wife Senovara take the air outside their new church.

A final grainy shot of the entire village with its new church, taken before my camera batteries died.