Parliament at Night
You are looking down at the Houses of Parliament from the London Eye. The time is 4:20 on a January afternoon. The light is fading as the sun sets and colours the sky with fireworks of pale blue and purple. A display like you saw at New Years Eve, a few weeks before. The darkness of the night is taking over but this is not a black night, far from it. The colours are dark, yes, but dark bottle greens and browns, deep reds and blues all textured with fine white stars or frantic scribbles of colour.
The Houses of Parliament are sketched out with a distinct lack of detail. Speakers house a few white lines and scribble. Only the towers and the frontage overlooking the Thames have any definition. The light on the terrace making these familiar stone walls glow yellow, orange and red. The Lights of the lamp post themselves are a line of white dots.
The river below is dark and hard to see. Reflected lights from Parliament shimmer down, hinted at in the rippling waters below. On Westminster Bridge in the foreground, you can barely make out the cars and people heading on their journeys.
Elizabeth Tower, with its clock marking the time, hides in the bottom right. Big Ben within, ready to chime the hours.
Golden lights shine on the intricately carved stone walls, details are hinted at but lost in the darkness and much is lost in the shadows. Battersea Power Station lurks in the background and Westminster Cathedral is hiding somewhere in that darkness too.
Can you make it out?
Finally, I’ll leave you with that sky. Sometimes, often times, in my paintings things work out far better than I was expecting and this was one of those times.
