Orange

I went to Tate Britain on Saturday. I stayed there for five hours, the longest I've ever been in a gallery. I went to see the Auerbachs, because they were there, and enjoyed the big cityscapes most of all. I stood in font of this one for ages.

'Mornington Crescent'. Frank Auerbach, 1991

Glasses on, glasses off, craning in, stepping back. About four foot square, so big enough to fill your field of vision. I enjoyed the structure, the thick buttery oil paint, the bravura brush strokes, the confident roughness. Above all it was, as ever, the colour that held me, especially the orange.

In the gift shop they had a set of coloured pencils, with a booklet, 'The Psychology of Colour', each pencil stamped with a word in gold. On the orange pencil, the word 'VITALITY'.