Colour and nightlight

I've been talking about nightlight  and still yearn to make more night light drawings, but drawing at night is difficult if you don't have your head torch… Towards the end of 2017, while in London, I made a few evening drawings before going to a drawing session at the Mall. The cold, the fading light and just standing outside in the dark didn't have much to recommend it.  But I was still mezmorized by the light and the colour, so took a few pictures to remind me, with the hope of using them to trigger a memory to paint from later.

A few times a week I promise myself that I will get in a car and draw with my head torch. It's still just been too busy, so to date it's a wish not yet realised. Yesterday I found the images I'd taken on my phone and did some quick studies in my Silent Traveller in London altered book, to see where that idea went. 

Keeping on the theme of light and lack of it, this afternoon I went to Carol's to draw David.  Carol has a studio at the end of her garden and the light was a beautiful pink while it lasted. I thought about James Bland and his red ear and looked for the highest and lowest key colours. I didn't erase anything and feel the resulting drawing (above) shows that struggle a bit.

As the session wore on the light disappeared.  At one point we really only had a silhouette of David to work from. I was working in charcoal, trying to establish the darks and the darkers. Then we switched the light on .  The drawing is about the tension of light, colour and value, (and I think I lost).