Lancashire Street At Night

Stages of Painting Step By Step

Lancashire Street At Night

Stage 1

Colour Pencil Crayons

Very often my inspiration comes to me from the materials I use.

Recently, when tidying up my studio, I found a box full of old crayons and a piece of card stock which I must have prepared for some art project before because it was covered with a perfectly outlined grid.

I started sketching – a night scene in town, a street submerged in darkness with sudden flashes of light spread by a passing car…

Playing with these colour pencils gave me enormous joy and I was soon taken over by the medium.

I enjoyed making marks, spreading lines, creating texture, adding colour. I felt like each and every pencil stroke had its own expression, I allowed these strokes to have their own life.

Stage 2

Dripping Gloss Painting

But as my drawing developed I felt that it lacked some substance, it seemed too ‘flat’.

So I took an enamel paint, and with the help of a palette knife, I started dripping the paint onto the surface, adding blue, white and black runny, liquid lines.

I felt like with this activity I have achieved the aim of my painting:

I have released the power and depth of the night, I captured the contrast of blackness with the blinding headlights of passing by car,

There are so dazzling those lights, they spread around like fireworks on bonfire night. Their life if too short – after the car is gone, the lights are deemed out and everything is being swallowed back to the darkness…