Light

Meadow in June

June brings with it the longest day and we are blessed with abundant light. I am noticing how rapidly everything is growing on my allotment right now, including the weeds! All that golden energy turning into a bounty of food for our family. Light is so fundamental to our existence. It was the first thing God created and is an enduring symbol of the life that flows towards us.

I find it fascinating the way that light changes how we perceive things. It sets the atmosphere with colour and tone. I remember a walk I once took in the rain, and as I returned home the sun came out. The artist in me was curious enough to do the whole walk again, just to see how the light caught the wet branches and created pools of glowing, glistening magic surrounded by sharp shadows. It was interesting to me to note that in direct sunlight the things that caught my eye were completely different from before in the diffused light. The whole environment seemed transformed. My linocut “Forest and Ferns” was inspired by a photograph I took on that walk.

I studied colour for a while with New York artist Ben Cowan, and one of the exercises he gave me was to paint a white still life. It’s the hardest thing I ever painted! Looking from one area to the next the light and colours seemed to change relative to one another. But I muddled through. In the end I found my colours, and the warm tones of the direct light looked so beautiful against the blues and purples in the shadows. There was no white left on that canvas.

I am now good with colour, but I choose to work mostly in black and white. It began as an exercise in stripping away and simplifying the image so that I could learn to master composition. I found making thumbnail studies of master works in pencil a helpful way to see how the artist composed the bare bones of an image before fleshing it out with colour. Black and white linocuts take it a step further and strip away tone as well. It is a delightful challenge to convey form by exploring texture.

Light or dark.

Highlight or shadow.

Visible or obscured.

All we can see is what light gives us, and this month it gives generously.