and the treasure in colour
Smooth Things Over
oil on canvas
20 × 14cm
I linger in my sketchbook, thinking and writing about colour shifts. Trying to describe in words and brushstrokes that moment when, without warning, sunlight shifts the scene.
Sun moves through dense cloud, pushed by a strong wind, and radiates onto a once-shaded part of your view, whether cityscape or field or sea or fruit bowl. The space is illuminated, its colour changed completely. But it remains in the same tone, in total harmony to what was right there.
It wakes me up, forces me to notice everything in front.
I love that moment just before movement. And with it, the object that’s being changed. Transience, an explosion of colour. It forces my paint palette to get richer. Less grey, more gold. A treasure for days when the light’s lost early.
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Sliding Water opens its doors this week for Artists, Makers, Friends. You’ll find work by a small collection of local makers selling in aid of York Art Gallery, staged by The Friends of York Art gallery. I have 6 works on the walls all following this feeling of shift and colour and revelation. Will you come?
I’ll be dropping into the gallery at various points but on Thursday 13th November at 2pm I’ll come to host a Meet the Artist session, for your questions and for conversations. We can talk about the colours that lift you and move you. You can book tickets here for that and for other artists too.
Palette: dirty rose, deep soil, acid yellow, lilac, midnight blue, rust
