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July 2023

- The 'Green Villa' by night -

When painting en plein air, I am also attracted by the race against time. But whether I win the race is always uncertain, especially when I paint in the dark. At night, after all, not only are all the cats grey, but so are all colours. So I reduce them to the essentials and place them well separated from each other in the watercolour box. For a painting in large format and with a village view as motif, the use of thick brushes increases my chances of success – and the good preparation that all the buildings, even the distant ones, are already familiar to me.

The 'Green Villa' in Odeceixe is a good example of such a memorable night shift. I remember very clearly how I stand ready to start at the terrace balustrade and take another deep breath. With the first stroke of the brush, time is running out – and it is finite. At first it's a matter of orientation, classification and allocation. The eyes get used to the darkness, quickly learn to be content with the soft light of the street lamp. With almost sleepwalking automaticity, I place colour strokes and areas of colour on the paper, trying to find an appropriate form of expression and my pace. I need determination and at the same time deliberation, calmness in speed, relaxation in tension. The thick brushes suck up more water, the paper becomes damp. Unlike during the day, however, the air is cool and the colours dry only slowly. That's why I don't work from the centre outwards as usual, but at different points in the painting to prevent the colours from flowing into each other unintentionally. Sometimes I wait until the damp shimmering on the paper has disappeared. I stretch myself, I lean back. It is now well past midnight, slowly all sounds fade and disappear altogether as time passes. Silence lies like a blanket over the village, the whole landscape. No engines, no voices. Only the surf with its rhythmic thunder accompanies me softly and gently from far away.

Everything and everyone sleeps towards the morning. The moon continues quietly on its path, veils of clouds flit across the twinkling stars. I no longer feel that painting is a race, I no longer have a sense of the time. Only for the moment and the picture that slowly forms itself stroke by stroke, surface by surface on the paper. I let go of all thoughts, let myself fall, am oblivious as if at play – until the first cockcrow, loud and shrill, cuts through the velvety silence of the night. The day is near. Already more wake-up calls answer from the distance. But my picture is not yet finished, the depth of the sky, the darkness itself, the shadows in the bluish blackness are missing. The first hint of dawn dispels the night magic, the final sprint begins. I am on the home stretch. Every minute, every brushstroke counts. Holding my breath, my hand quickly and decisively guides the brush from the water pot to the paint box and then to the paper. I am now highly concentrated and tense, my heartbeat racing. Every cockcrow drives me on. There are still gaps on the paper, I have to fill them. Quick, quicker, the last metres...

And then there it is, the grey morning glow, covering all the colours of the night all at once. I put the brush aside. The picture is finished, it remains as it is. Am I satisfied? Yes. Do I like it? And how. I won the race against time with this difficult motif – and that makes me happy to this day.

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