This task was to explore the phenomenon of pareidolia - seeing faces in patterns and inanimate objects. I often see faces in quite abstract things like wood, clouds. I see them distinctly for a few seconds, and as soon as my gaze drifts they are gone just as easily.
I decided to try and replicate this by creating some random patterns. The first was using a grey fine-liner, and the second was using watercolour in swirls, splatters and random marks. For both, I tried to be as random as possible and closed my eyes for the most part. I was trying to not let any subconscious bias take over. Once I had the two sheets, I spent time gazing at them, looking for where my brain saw patterns. As I saw faces or figures, I captured them using a black fine-liner.
The exercise text also referenced the work of Keith Larsen [1] and Justin Sutcliffe [2], who both capture the ability of things to look like faces. Justin's work is photographic in nature, so doesn't involve embellishment, just careful observation and composition:
(Both images © Justin Sutcliffe. Used under educational fair use policy)
I have been trying to record moments when I had my own moments of pareidolia. There were two photos that I had taken which seemed to fit best in the photographic format:
In comparison, Keith Larsen's work is much more embellished, and his illustrations are more depictive of what he sees in his mind's eye:
(Both images © Keith Larsen. Used under educational fair use policy)
So, for the rest of the photos that I had taken, I decided to do my own Larsen-esque illustrations:
I actually really enjoyed doing this exercise. I could see how some of these characters could be developed more, and in our household, we particularly liked the Christmas Pudding Octopus! I'm now looking forward to the Assignment and seeing how to take this notion forward more. I noticed on Keith Larsen's Instagram page that he sometimes uses video or animation, so I am pondering how I might be able to experiment in that direction too.
References
Larsen, K. (2019). Keith Larsen (@thefaceswithinplaces) on Instagram. [online] Instagram.com. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/thefaceswithinplaces/.
Sutcliffe, J. (2019). 'things are people too'. [online] Pixelrights. Available at: https://www.justinsutcliffe.com/albums/pdhQuc/things-are-people-too.
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