With brushes and an easel at the ready, the search is on to find twelve artists to celebrate our fine city in paint.

The Hostry Festival is launching its first ever Paint Out Norwich project, and it is inviting artists to apply to be a part of the open air arts event.

Norwich Market, Norwich Castle, the city's two cathedrals, Pull's Ferry and Elm Hill are among the landmarks picked to be the subjects, and now organisers are eager to hear from artists who would like to get involved.

The artists selected will spend a total of 12 hours over two days creating art in full view of the public, and the finished results will be displayed in an exhibition that will be part of the 2014 Hostry Festival in the autumn.

The artist whose work most impresses the exhibition's judges - who will include artist Colin Self - will also be awarded a £1,000 prize, plus there will be a special People's Choice award voted for by the public.

The new art event follows on from the 2013 Hostry Festival's My Norfolk exhibition which celebrated the county in visual art.

James Colman, from the Hostry Festival curating team, said: 'For last year's Hostry Festival exhibition we did a call to artists and had a reasonably conventional exhibition within the Hostry. This year we thought it would be a good move to take the visual arts into the streets of Norwich.

'It's all about getting people excited about visual arts and the festival because there are lots of great things going on.'

He said he hoped Paint Out Norwich would become an annual event and that this year's project would inspire new ways of looking at Norwich's landmarks.

'For the first year we thought it would be a popular move to create paintings inspired by the great landmarks of Norwich and see what people come up with,' he said.

'There will be different interpretations and we are interested in new and novel ways of looking at our great landmarks.'

Two artists will be picked to work in each of the six areas of the city, and there is the possibilty of a seventh location being added closer to the start of Paint Out Norwich.

Mr Colman said the festival was looking for artists with a high level of professionalism and who were comfortable working in front of an audience and creating work in a short timescale.

The chosen artists will take part in the first Paint Out Norwich on Wednesday, October 22 and Thursday, October 23, and the paintings will be exhibited at Norwich Cathedral's Hostry throughout the 2014 Hostry Festival.

There will be a gala launch night at the Hostry on October 23 at 7pm where an auction of some the work will take place.

The artist who wins the judges' prize will be awarded £1,000, while second prize will be £500, and third prize will be £250 plus an arts hamper. The People's Choice award will be announced on the last day of the festival.

The Hostry Festival curating team are James Colman, Will Buckley, Mike King, Theodora Lecrinier, and the Reverend Dr Peter Doll.

• Artists can apply to take part in Paint Out Norwich from Monday by submitting their biographies and examples of work to the curating team by Monday, June 2. Entries should be emailed to paintoutnorwich@hostryfestival.org

Rules and regulations for submissions will be available from Monday at the Hostry Festival website www.hostryfestival.org

Paint Out Norwich sponsorship opportunities for businesses are also available. For more details email enquires@hostryfestival.org

Any volunteers who would like to help with the build-up and running of Paint Out Norwich should also email enquires@hostryfestival.org

• Do you have a story about the arts in Norwich? Email arts correspondent Emma Knights at emma.knights@archant.co.uk