My 'lost' Panda

There's a puzzle doing the rounds on Social Media at the moment (well it may have been going for some time, but I've only noticed it since returning home) that is relevant to most artists.

The puzzle consists of an awful lot of snowmen in various poses and with or without various adornments; along with one solitary panda. The task is to find the Panda. 

But of course the human brain fills in the gaps, so to a varying degree (that is the time taken by different people to find the single Panda), the brain makes the onlooker see only snowmen.  

This is worth remembering as an artist, as colours and patterns can be made up that the brain interprets as a single block of colour or primarily as a shading (or tone) of a single block of colour.  This idea works well with pastels, as the pastelist can hatch over two colours to create a third colour that the human eye interprets as a single effect, when in fact it's simply hatching.  The concept is not restricted to colour, it also applies to lines and shapes. These lines or shapes can be formed or extended as broken edges. This works with 'wet in wet' and 'wet to wet' techniques using watercolours.  These 'lost and found edges' will form a building or a corner edge of a building when no straight line has been run the whole length of that part of the painting. 

Of course there is a lot more that an artist can do with this 'making good' interpretation that is subconsciously achieved by the human brain.  This could be the forming of a 'black' colour by using several other darkening colours, that the brain picks up as shading and shadow, but the lovely colours used to form the dark area also become visible on further scrutiny by the observer.  The artist can also fool the brain into joining up lines when dealing with perspective, maybe by having detail in a boat in the foreground, some less detail in some boats further back, and then some occasional detail at the rear of the scene. Size, detail, and missing lines, all get formed automatically as we search for that 'Panda'. Happy painting and drawing folks! 

Seascape imaged

So this is how the seascape (shown in an earlier Blog Post) eventually ended up looking like when using Winsor and Newton professional quality Watercolours applied onto Sennelier Pastel Paper. The watercolor painting is approximatel 25cm high by 63cm long. It's our intention to mount the Artwork using White Mounting Board and to surround that with an Oak Frame ready to hang above the bed in our Guest Bedroom. 

The restricted space between the Dado Rail and the Bedroom Ceiling in that part of the room; is the reason for the deliberate narrowness of the image. Some of the colours were used for the Watercolour to compliment the color of items bought for the room make-over, now that the room has become vacant. 

As usual, I can't put myself under too much pressure when doing these sort of tasks. So the redecorating has already taken many weeks, instead of a day or two.  I've managed to fill the holes, and today I got around to eventually painting the ceiling.  I now have to build myself up to painting the walls.  We are thinking, take tomorrow out and instead do some art at 'MIND Aberystwyth' and go for a coffee, and then see how I feel on Wednesday.  If not Wednesday then Friday might be a DIY Day.  But Wifey understands that Friday could even turn out to be next week or the week after.  But in between all that DIY and pressure sort of stuff, I shall try to complete a Soft Pastel Drawing image of the same scene and using the same type and size of Pastel Paper. But I am enjoying using watercolours and I am already on the look out for some new Kolinsky Sable Art Brushes. I also intend to buy a sheet of watercolor paper, having today been told the difference between 'hot press' and 'cold press' paper.  I want to paint some butterfly's and I'm also keen to paint eight or ten leafs (in two rows, one above the other) without a background. Don't ask me why, because I simply don't know.  But there you have it, this is where the art direction is going at the moment. And before you know it, the art will probably be placed back inside a box (metaphorical not actual) and I shall move onto something else. Which of course is what we do when we need and use such defensive mechanisms.