Drawings & Sketches - Collecting Colour

Sometimes there isn’t a lot of time to draw but sometimes I do want to collect the colours of a particular place so I do just that.

When I've used solely a black and white palette helped me realise the power of monotones as well as helped me appreciate and understand the use of colour.

Before training in fine art I trained in creative textiles. I was extraordinarily fortunate to attend colour lectures given by Sydney Harry, co-founder of the Colour Museum in Bradford. Sydney not only taught the science of colour, his enthusiasm for the subject was such that I would leave the lectures almost floating and with new perspective for the colour in my surroundings.

Later at Sir John Cass School of Art, Hertford University and Winchester School of Art, I continued studying the theory and practise of colour.

I experienced the most extraordinary coincidence of my life in relationship to a particular book on colour I was seeking. I’d read part of Josef Albers’ ‘Interaction of Color’ and was keen to add the book to my collection, not least that it was often unavailable at the library. I was disappointed to discover the book was out of print, so searched for a secondhand copy without success. I continued the search over time and on a regular basis.

After another unfruitful attempt to find the book in Charing Cross Road's many second-hand bookshops I crossed the road towards Leicester Square. It started to pour with rain, I was about to step off the pavement when I looked down at something being carried down the gutter by the sudden gush of water. It was a book I recognized the cover, picked it up I saw it was the book I had been searching for,  I felt goose bumps the size of golf-balls at the weirdness of the situation. 

I looked around to see if I could find whoever the book belonged to, but there was no candidate. I still have the book and inside, on a post it note, I wrote the story of how it came into my possession. I remember thinking at the time that I should be careful what I wished for and often wondered if there was a breech in a parallel world where another me had passed the book through!