A GROUP of students from Treloar College in Alton are among 21 artists whose designs have been commissioned for a project honouring novelist Jane Austen.

Called Sitting with Jane, the project will comprise 25 bookbenches designed and painted by professional artists and incorporating their personal interpretation of a Jane Austen theme.

A ‘Wild in Art’ project, run in partnership with Destination Basingstoke, which promotes the town surrounding areas, the benches will be place on a ingtrail link locations important to Jane Austen.

It will come through Alton High Street, where a bench, designed and painted by the Treloar College team, will be on display from mid June to the end of August.

Visitors will search for benches on the trail using a promotional map or a mobile phone app.

A Treloar College spokesperson said: “The students are thrilled to have been selected to paint one of the benches. As a group they came up with a design; each student worked individually on separate aspects. The final design is a digital amalgamation of each individual effort.”

The artists’ designs will be painted onto a template, that acts as a 3D canvas – making the finished piece, not only a work of art, but an attractive piece of street furniture that will be accessible for all to gaze at and sit on to contemplate the landscape.

Sitting with Jane will form part of a worldwide celebration of Jane Austen’s life, and the Jane Austen 200 – A life in Hampshire event, spearheaded by Hampshire Cultural Trust.