UNLOCKING
THE LIGHT IN LOCKDOWN
8thMay2020 All the paintings shown are in oil, either on canvas or panel
On
March
10th,
thanks to the Covid 19 pandemic, a draconian lockdown was imposed on
Italy. I
realised that this presented a precious opportunity to slow down,
assess values and focus.
I
would like to share some of my thoughts and observations, and present
some of my paintings done in the last 7 weeks of lockdown.
The
radiation from the sun is the earth’s source of energy. It is in
everyone’s lives and strongly affects our moods. Every day the
sunlight is a little different from the day before as the seasons
roll by. I have focused on studying the sun’s light and how it
interacts with air, water and objects, rather than the objects
themselves – in reality it’s a subject that has always fascinated
me.
Italy
is a country where there are many hours of sunshine, and I am
fortunate to live in Pietrasanta, North of Pisa, Tuscany, about a
third of the way down “the boot” of Italy and on the West coast
facing towards the island of Corsica. The winters are mild and the
summers hot and long. This North-South strip of fertile flatland
between the mountains and the sea has a particularly special light -
so I’ve heard marble carvers say. They should know, they’ve been
carving the white Carrara marble from these mountains since Roman
times.
I
live on the top 4th
floor
of a block of flats that is surrounded by low houses with gardens.
Behind me rise the foothills of the Apuan Alps. In front, across the
plain of houses, industry and fields, my view stretches westward to
the Mediterranean Sea. The sun rises behind the mountains, casting a
long shadow across the plain, which shortens as the sun moves
overhead following its daily path to setting over the sea. ( See
painting no.13, Moonset over Massa).
As
winter turns to Spring the sun appears to slide to a different
setting point Northwards on the horizon marking the end of each day,
and by mid summer it sets behind the Northen Italian coastal
mountains.
 |
| Drawing showing the position of the block of flats in relation to the mountains, sea and daily roation of the sun. |
The
lockdown period allowed me a liberty to choose my working times so
that I could study the effects of sunlight at specific moments of the
day. Fortunately the weather was clear for many days in a row during
the second half of March and into April.
It
is always a challenge to create the illusion of light using only oil
pigments on canvas. Selecting the right time and managing it is an
even greater challenge. Some painters like to paint around midday
because the shadows change less at that time of day than at either
end of the day. Others like to capture the very fleeting and
beautiful sky colours at dawn or the end of the day when there is
really only a 10 to 15 minute window of time before it all changes
completely.
Since
the sun is always moving any drawing started including a cast shadow
will not be accurate after half an hour. But not only the shadow
shapes change, but also all the values of the colour and tone will be
altered. A scene that had a certain attractive relationships of
colours and reflected lights can just lose it’s visual buzz after
30 minutes. So it is important to know when the moment that you want
to record happens and know how long it lasts.
A
word here about photography. Of course the camera is a great tool to
fix a moment in time, but the image is seen through a lens that
strongly distorts the drawing and perspective. Further, the
digitally-recording camera interprets the scene, inevitably
distorting the intensity of colours and exaggerating the black and
white balance. When these facts are taken into account the camera is
a useful additional tool to help remember the conditions at the
chosen time slot, but in no way does it replace observation by eye.
Claude Monet,
the French impressionist painter managed to paint many scenes that
probably only lasted 20 mins, by having a canvas ready for each time
slot he selected, often working on many different paintings over
hours. He would repeat this for days, praying the weather did not
change, and so managed to put in all the hours necessary to finish
the canvas. This is the reason why northern painters like to come
south to paint, benefitting from the more constant Mediterranean
climate.
 |
| 1. BALCONY - 21 x 18cm |
1.
In the first week of lockdown, I think like everyone I felt a
prisoner in my own home. This first painting represents the fears in
that initial period. It is painted in the morning and shows the
corner of my little balcony with the railings creating a barrier to
the outside world beyond. The real challenge in this painting was to
find the value and colour of the yellow wall in shadow, As anyone who
has painted lemons knows, making yellow look dark without making a
muddy mess is very tricky since the colour ( hue) of yellow is, by
its nature lighter in tone than any other colour. As soon as other
pigments are added yellow often no longer looks yellow!
When
we all started to realise that the lockdown would continue for many
weeks, I felt a different way of being had to be found. No longer
would I endlessly clean and organise the safe little refuge of my
flat and devote all my attention to following the latest tally of
coronavirus deaths, instead I would value this gift of time.
Setting
a goal that was achievable and adopting a daily routine all helped
reduce the level of anxiety I was feeling then. I set myself the task
of painting the sunset every evening in order to understand how I
could capture some of that beauty with my oil paints. | ||
| 2. SUNSET WITH HAZE - 15 x 28cm |
2.
This was actually painted on the 12th
day
of the Italian Lockdown and there existed a considerable haze which
the sun slid behind before actually reaching the horizon. Whether the
haze was due to polluting particles that evening or extra moisture I
could not judge, but the days that followed were remarkable for the
clarity of the air.
 | ||
| 3. TO THE RIGHT OF THE SUN - 29 x19cm |
 | |
| 4. TEN MINUTES BEFORE SUNSET - 21 X 21cm |
4.
Perhaps the duck-egg green is more easily seen in this painting of
the sun about 10 minutes from sunset where I had to keep the values
of the sky darker than they actually were so that I could paint in
the ball of the sun. Due to the strength of the sunlight there was a
halo of scattered light around the sun, a colour corona, and it is
warm in colours since it is reflecting the light source.
 |
| 5. FROM THE HILL - 18 x 25cm |
5.
Here the corona is visible again from a higher (imaginary) viewpoint
in the hills behind my house. Probably about 40 minutes from sunset
with an atmosphere exceptionally pollution-free and void of the usual
plane vapour trails.
 |
| 6. BONFIRE AT SUNSET - 18 x 27cm |
6.
Here I chose to depict that precious moment when the last red orb of
sun reduces to a pinpoint of light and is extinguished. Someone had
lit an evening bonfire.
 |
| 7. SUNSET OVER PORTO VENERE - 21 x 21cm |
 |
| 8. TWO HOURS BEFORE SUNDOWN - 30 x 20cm |
8.
The corona effect started to interest me not least because it is the
virus’s namesake. I was seeing them everywhere. They are sometimes
called lens flare. A corona appears wherever there is a strong source
of light, and can be around reflected light too so long as it is
strong. This sketch was made about 2 hours before sundown and the
glare from the sunshine reflecting off the sea created a warm glow on
the distant landscape.
 |
| 9. THE 7:30 TRAIN - 20 x 30 |
9.
At around 7:30 every evening a passenger train passed through my
field of vision and the carriages reflected glints of sunlight. The
corona glow was particularly strong at that hour and little glints of
strong lights were everywhere, on the gutterings, the aerials and the
shiny-leaved magnolia tree, the top of which I could just include in
the near foreground.
 |
| 10. FIRST SPRING GREENS STUDY - 12 x 25cm |
10.
In the third week of April the trees were growing their delicate
spring foliage. Without the noise of traffic the bird song was so
lovely to enjoy while I painted. A very quick sketch shows that the
poplars in that moment seem to be the most transparent of all the
trees .
 |
| 11. SPRING GREENS - 21 x 21cm |
11.
The first spring greens and glinting aerials.
 |
| 12. MOONSET STUDY - 13 x 18cm |
12.
Around the 8th
of
April there was a supermoon, larger and brighter due to its nearness
to the earth, and easily visible due to the particle-free skies and
no rain clouds. I got up early to check it out and couldn’t resist
trying to capture the layers of pearlescent colours in the dawn sky.
As the moon set the sun rose, and the shadow of the mountains behind
me shortened over the plain below. I used this shadow/light contrast
and the previous day’s sketch to make a small painting the next
day, where I took “artist’s licence” and replaced the moon
above the town of Massa.
 |
| 13. MOONSET OVER MASSA - 21 x 21cm |
13.
Moonset over Massa.
 | |
| 14. SUN'S RAYS OVER PORTO VENERE - 9 x 29cm |
14.
Sun’s rays over Porto Venere.
 |
| 15. DOG WALK - 21 x 21cm |
15.
During lockdown I could watch from above the activities of the owners
of the surrounding gardens. Husbands were out trimming hedges and
mowing lawns which had sprouted untidily with the warmer weather. By
the end of seven weeks the garden hedges were casting tight geometrical
shadows along with the architecture. Dogs could not believe their
luck with so many walks because this was one of the
few permitted ways to leave the home. It was important to
accurately pin down the time of this morning painting (10:45am),
since the cast shadows were moving all the time.
 |
| 16. PORTRAIT WITH SUN'S CORONA - 17.5 Xx17.5cm |
16.
My lockdown obsession with all things corona, was gratified on the
16th
April
by a real sun corona. The slight haze in the atmosphere caused this
circular rainbow to be visible around the sun. It can happen around
the moon too when the conditions are right. So by blocking the sun
with my head I was able to take a photo of the corona, giving me a
surely undeserved, but fun halo!
On
a deeper level, painting the portrait made me aware of my rumbling
psychological uncertainty about what may lie ahead for the human
species.
In
this period of intense focus and with the freedom to stick to a daily
routine organised solely around my quirky working times, I have
learnt much. Most of which has been about understanding the illusion
of light and to experiment and apply ideas in pigments, all which has
given me valuable feedback and stimulus for future work.
Although
my beloved direct contact with wild nature was curtailed, my faith in
the healing and nourishing quality of the appreciation of all things
beautiful was once again confirmed.
