Cat 51, Cat on a Blanket
Acrylic on canvas. 16" x 20".
I approached this painting with the thought of keeping it "soft", consciously staying away from hard edges. And promptly violated that by introducing a tiled floor in the foreground. I liked the tiles but they really didn't fit with my objective, so I scrubbed and scrapped most of the paint off, and added in the blanket. I like the contrast of the sharper blanket edge with the rest of the image softer.I've been thinking about my vision, having been recently diagnosed with pre-glaucoma stage symptoms, a condition inherited from my mother who has since gone blind. I'm noticing my paintings tend towards hard edges, maybe compensation for the world appearing a bit blurry?
I had terrible vision as a child. Being fairly well behaved through school, my seating assignments were towards the back of the classroom whereas the troublemakers were placed in the front where the teacher could keep a better eye on them. By age seven I recall puzzling over what the teacher was writing on the chalkboard at the front of the room- it was usually a pleasant blur. That's about the same time my grades in most subjects began to suffer noticeably. Mom used to constantly admonish me, "STOP SQUINTING!", but it wasn't until I was eleven that an official eye exam revealed that I couldn't make out details past a foot or so from my face.
This one I really like. The colors and the eyes are what hit me the most. I used to get the stop squinting comments from mom also. I think I also got glasses when I was about 11 to correct for astigmatism. For me things were more deformed than fuzzy. The moon looks like a rugby football shape to me without my glasses.
ReplyDeleteI never thought about it, but without corrective lenses shapes appear slightly distorted to me. What I really notice is the lack of definition between objects- they all blend together and are only distinguishable by color and value (relative darkness).
DeleteA beautiful paining - thank you for sharing it :-). BIG LIKE. I was blessed with good near and far sight but was to discover at 16 years of age that I am what is termed an "anomalous trichromat" and would not be an astronaut nor pilot! I was informed that the ratio of red : green : blue cones on the retina of a "colour normal" is 20:20:1 and that while I had all three systems my reds were significantly reduced! Half of those described as being red/green colour blind have all three colours systems the other half are missing one or the other. So for me greens and blues and their mixes are more vivid. I can be blinded by green but very rarely by red. I can never know what those with normal colour vision see but I know if I like or dislike a picture - the eyes and ears of this kitty are what grabbed me :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you for the nice compliment and the feedback- I find it helpful to hear why it appeals (or doesn't). Sometimes you get too close to something you are working on, and can't see it objectively anymore.
DeleteI find the color perception comment interesting and wonder how the reduction or lack of red receptors would impact this painting.
The only area where I used specifically red paint was in the ears. The rest of of the warm colors used were mixes of sienna, oranges and a yellow based quinacridone.