Last night I shut the lights off at 8:30 pm and joined the global event of “Earth Hour” that was taking place. Thousands of people all over the world were turning their lights off for one hour, and I too was participating once again in this event. But little did I know that I was going to discover something very wondrous this time.
I decided to sketch for one hour under the lights of a few candles and savor how it felt to create under these circumstances of limited light. It was a simple set-up, nothing extravagant.
The set up was 4 candles, because I found that one candle wasn’t enough, then to proceed simply, since I really couldn’t see very well. I got my long, landscape style sketchbook and planned on using just pen and pencil, since real appreciation of color was difficult due to the dim light. I also set up a vase of dried out daffodils from last year, they seemed like made from paper, fragile and delicate.
It was a beautiful feeling, “creating under candlelight”, truly relaxing. The perception of shapes were dictated by shadows and translucencies, very dreamy indeed. I had to peer intensely so to focus and see a shape more clearly, my whole perception really changed dramatically, it was an awesome reality! Even the camera acted very differently with the touch of metallic gold paint that I decided to use in the end, it really captured it’s glow.
I have decided now to give myself this opportunity again,
…since it ended up being a magical, almost an unearthly Artist Date!
A candle loses nothing by lightning another candle. ~James Keller
Visit: http://www.slideshare.net/sandeepchhaya/candles-light-and-inspiration
Wow! What a great exercise in a perception shift! It is amazing how just a little change can add interest to the process of making art. Thanks for sharing this!
What a great idea! I’m going to have to take a little downtime and try that too – the results were wonderful!