The blue hour, revisited

For three weeks I have been walking down to the marsh just after sunset, trying to catch the twenty minutes when everything turns the same cold blue. The reeds, the water and the sky stop being separate things. The only edges left are the ones made by the tide.

The problem with the blue hour is that it does not wait. By the time I have mixed a colour for the far bank, the far bank has changed. So I have stopped trying to paint it on the spot. I stand, I look, and I write colour names in a small notebook: slate with a little violet, the grey of a wet stone, ultramarine knocked back with burnt umber.

Painting from the list

Back in the studio the next morning I paint from the list rather than from a photograph. The words are less precise than a picture, which turns out to be useful. They leave room for memory to do some of the work, and memory is better than a camera at keeping the feeling of a place rather than its details.

The words are less precise than a picture, which turns out to be useful.

The painting on the easel now is the fourth attempt. The first three were too blue, as if I had decided the answer before I arrived. This one has more warmth under the surface, a thin layer of red earth that shows through where the brush skips. It feels closer to standing there.