夜归（彩墨）

夜已深。三两归人举着火把回家。

我小时候家乡那儿没有电，差不多在我国小二年级那时才开始“牵电线”。在这之后的两年左右，我邻居他们大家也都“牵”了，那时好像也没有电表（？），计费是看你家有几盏电灯，由灯泡数来计费，很神奇吧。

我们有一个住在大堀溪旁的亲戚，他们很多年以后才牵电线。在这之前，他们由新坡街上回家，经过我家时，都会去稻草堆那儿“抽”一些干稻梗做成火把，然后五六个大人、小孩各举着一支火把回家──是我童年永不褪色的记忆。

此图，一开始我们试着以火炬为中心画出一个有光影的圆，后来兴味来了，再加几个“光圈”，使光影层层堆叠，最后剩下上弦月那里最漆深的黑。

没有机纽，随心之所向，画到哪里算哪里，画画的快慰就是这样。

Returning in the Evening/ink and color painting

Night has already fallen. Small groups of people carrying torches are returning home.

Our area had no power during my childhood, and people didn’t begin installing power until around the time I entered second grade. All my neighbors installed power within two years of this. I don’t think there were any power meters in those days, and the way they calculated your power fees was by how many light bulbs your household had. Using number of light bulbs to calculate power charges seems almost miraculous.

We have some relatives living by Daku Creek who didn’t get electricity until many years later. Before that, they would go home via Xinpo Street, and would pull some dry rice stalks from the haystack at our house to serve as torches. Afterwards, the five or six adults and children would go home, each holding a torch in his or her hand. This is one of the indelible memories of my childhood.

When I made this painting, I first painted a circular aura of light around each torch. Afterwards, I thought it would be more interesting to add several haloes, which created overlapping rings of light. I finally added the pitch black around the crescent moon.

This illustrates the pleasure of painting. I paint as I like with complete freedom, and paint as much or as little as I want. ＠

点阅【徐明义画集】系列文章。

责任编辑：昌英