10 favorite things

1. TURPENOID NATURAL: I couldn't do without this brush cleaner. I'm not great at cleaning my brushes regularly but all I have to do is put disgusting and hard brushes to soak and then wash up with soap and water.
2. ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL: Another cleaning trick that helps keep the studio a little nicer. I keep a spray bottle of the stuff handy for cleaning the palette and anything else that needs it such as the phone, garbage can and even the wood floor.
3. LAVA SOAP: This is my go-to soap in the studio - great for hands, brushes and getting paint out of clothes.
4. VIEW TO THE NORTH FROM STUDIO: I think I can see Canada from the studio.
5. WIND-UP TOYS: These usually live on the model stand where they have lots of room to move around.
6. BOB THE BEAR: Bob guards the entrance to my studio - a mascot I inherited from my artist friend Sheila Rieman.
7. SUMMER NIGHTS ON THE LAKE: I can see part of the lake from my studio (along with Canada) but there is nothing better than watching the sunset from the boat.
8. CABINET FOR PAINT TUBES: I found this in a California equestrian center gift shop while teaching a workshop for Disney Imagineering. The drawers are a perfect size for holding paint tubes.
9. MOTION SENSOR GARBAGE CAN: All I have to do is get my hand near this thing and it opens automatically. Life is good.
10. NUTCRACKER & PAINT TUBE WRINGER: The nutcracker is perfect for opening a tube lid that's stuck and the wringer has been keeping my paint tubes under control for more years than I care to count.

Anderson posts - the really short versions

Wondering what you may have missed or interested in reminding yourself what you may have already read? Well, here it is – a very brief summary of previous posts. And a thought for the coming New Year – let’s all try for more poetry and music in our painting.

Myths and realities of creating a painting
Myth: There is a list of rules to follow. Most so-called rules are suggestions. They are not written in stone and what works for one person may not work for the next. Question everything.
Myth: Paint what you see. Kernel of truth and can be helpful. Unfortunately we don’t necessarily see everything and just because we see something doesn’t mean we should paint it. Question what you see and, for heaven’s sake, edit.
Myth: What we think we see is the whole truth. This is another seeing problem. If you want to see more information, you need to look for more information.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/08/myths-and-realities-of-creating-painting.html

Rendering vs. creating
Does the process of managing a painting interfere with the journey of creating a painting? Creating a painting is the selective and interpretive use of information. Embrace the opportunity of seeing a painting as an illusion or interpretation of reality instead of a re-creation.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/09/rendering-vs-creating.html

More myths and realities
One of the biggest myths is that painting is all about skill, a craft to be mastered with long and arduous study. The reality is painting is a combination of skill and creativity. Painting requires certain skill sets which can be learned with time and practice, but creative painting also requires that artists explore the boundaries of their perceptions.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/10/more-myths-and-realities.html

Is it a door or a doorway?
Ever forget what you went into a room for? Event boundaries are transition areas (such as walking through a door from one room to another) where the brain files away information in preparation for new information. I think too many hard edges, especially when starting a painting, create event boundaries and prevent artists from connecting the visual information into one coherent whole.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/10/is-it-door-or-doorway.html

The quack in the grass
Visual experience is more than our eyes sending signals of contrast and color to our brains. What we see is a combination of what we know and what we expect to see. It is our past and present, our memories and our sense of space and place.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-quack-in-grass.html

The problem with edges
Seeing is visual processing, not just image transmission. The problem with edges has to do with how the brain processes visual information. Our visual system is wired to see the most obvious changes and to filter out extraneous information not considered as necessary. We are more likely to see information that separates one object from another than we are to see the information that connects things.  Edges are not arbitrary, and edge variety is not just a device used by artists to suggest three dimensions. Edges, lost and found or hard and soft, define our three-dimensional reality.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-problem-with-edges.html

Garbage in, garbage out
Listening to someone talking on a cell phone is annoying. Why? Because it is difficult to process incomplete information and information that doesn’t make sense. We are wired to make sense of the world – to recognize patterns and organize information. Painting also requires pattern and organization, but organization doesn’t begin and end with the placement of objects. Finding patterns and organizing information in a painting is dependent on value, shapes, and color.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/12/garbage-in-garbage-out.html

A Christmas story
A true story about a horse sculpture, a Christmas tree, two deer, and the magic of Christmas.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-christmas-story.html

Why naming the “thing” can be a problem
Vision is a process, not a picture. When we name the thing, we are compromising the integrity of the visual information. We are more likely to see what we think we know and what we expect to see. We are less likely to see specific and accurate visual attributes, such as shape, color, value, and edges.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-naming-thing-can-be-problem.html

Everything you need to know about painting
A workshop handout I have been using for many years - short and easy to remember.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/01/everything-you-need-to-know-about.html

Anderson workshop – a short version
An insightful and humorous poem written about one of my workshops.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/03/anderson-workshop-in-brief.html

Something about color
Isaac Newton separated sunlight into wavelengths of light with a prism and demonstrated color is a property of light. The wavelength of visible light has a pattern of color ranging from violet to red. The colors do not jump around at random. Just as value has a pattern, so does color. Color temperature (warmer-cooler colors) is a relative value, never an absolute value, and color can change with changes in light. Identifying the light source as either warmer or cooler will simplify the visual information and help the painter observe and mix colors.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/03/something-about-color.html

Do you see blue like I see blue?
It is quite likely we don’t see color the same. Experiments have shown that if we have a name for a color, we may see it in a different way. Naming and seeing are connected and what we see changes according to whether or not the language centers of the brain are activated.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/05/do-you-see-blue-like-i-see-blue.html

Disney meets Sorolla
A brief explanation of color temperature and how to see warmer-cooler colors.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/07/disney-meets-sorolla.html

The creativity crisis
American creativity scores are declining. Recent research shows how children have become “less perceptive and less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things.” The ability to find abstractions, unseen patterns and alternative meanings is dependent on using both convergent and divergent thinking. Unfortunately, it is easier and more comfortable to deal with what we already know (and think we see).
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-creativity-crisis.html

Four ridiculously simple ways to improve your painting
Stop and look. Stand comfortably with a good view and remember to step back. Squint! And don’t forget to mind your brushes.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/10/four-ridiculously-simply-ways-to.html

Color constancy and why some of the science is wrong
Color constancy is a feature of color perception that ensures the color of an object will remain relatively constant under varying illumination. Some neuroscientists claim we are incapable of bypassing this basic function of visual processing. It is apparent, however, that artists have learned to evaluate color information in a way that can more accurately process the quality and type of the light and perceive the ensuing changes in the colors of objects and shadows.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2015/12/color-constancy-and-why-some-of-science.html

Where’s all the art and other interesting stuff
Most museums consider archiving, storage, and conservation to be their primary purpose. Only a tiny fraction of art is actually available for people to view and enjoy. Also, do people who grow up in the arctic see better in the dark? Well, yes, so read this to find out how and why. Let’s also explore nature’s fractal patterns and discuss “how real is reality?”
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/01/wheres-all-art-and-other-interesting.html

Intuition is just another form of pattern recognition
Intuition is not magic. It is not some mystical sixth sense. And it is not the opposite of rational thinking. Intuition is pattern recognition outside the normal range of conscious thought. We have a tendency to favor language based, rational thought and relegate intuition to the hinterlands of unexplained phenomena. In painting, if we insist on describing objects by name, we are more likely to favor fidelity to perceived realism and not to interpretation. In order to foster a different path of pattern recognition, it’s necessary to describe the information in a new way.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/07/intuition-is-just-another-form-of.html

Do facts matter or is truth just another possibility?
Why do we accept dogma for truth and is there value in trying to understand new information? Our color primary system of red, blue and yellow predates modern scientific color theory. The more accurate primaries for subtractive color are magenta, cyan, and yellow. This might not be important for many painters, but for anyone using a limited palette, the updated primary colors make far more sense and allows for a wider range of color mixtures. And on another note, let’s explore our misleading world map and other misperceptions such as the fact you really are not life-size when viewing yourself in a mirror.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/09/do-facts-matter-or-is-truth-just.html

A win for visual truth
Interesting that shortly after I wrote the previous post about the inaccuracies of our world map, I came across an article about a designer who created a solution to this problem: triangles. Hajime Narukawa was able to preserve the proportions of water and land by dividing the globe into triangles, projecting them onto a tetrahedron and then unfolding the tetrahedron into a rectangle.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-win-for-visual-truth.html

Color: fact, fiction and perception
Another attempt to try and break down color information and explain color temperature.  This is difficult since how we see color is dependent on science, perception and psychology.  Important: The illustration of the wavelengths of light is not a scale of color temperature. How we interpret colors as warmer or cooler is not based on science, but on perception and psychology. Color temperature is never an absolute value, as in warm or cool, but always comparative, e.g. warmer, cooler. The sun is not really yellow and our perception of color as a circular, continuous spectrum is just that – a perception.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/11/color-fact-fiction-and-perception.html

Lunch with the Mad Hatter
A friend’s very insightful and hilarious rendition of a particularly challenging portrait commission.
http://carolynandersonartist.blogspot.com/2016/11/lunch-with-mad-hatter.html

The myth of mastery

“I’m still afflicted with the malady of research. I don’t like what I do, and I paint it out, and paint it out again. I hope that this mania will come to an end. . . I’m involved in lots of things and not one of them is finished. I wipe out, I start over, I think the year will go by without one canvas . . . I want to find what I am looking for before giving up. Let me look, I have gone too deeply into the series of experiments to give up without regret . . ."
Pierre-August Renoir      

Art is not an endgame. There are no goal posts. Art is a journey. The myth of mastery implies knowledge and craft with a beginning and an end. The idea of mastery places too much emphasis on craft and not enough emphasis on creativity and expression.

Art is nothing if not an exploration of life and living – how we think, how we feel and how we see. Art is not just what we see in front of us. It is not just the present, but a reflection of what came before and what is yet to come. A painting of a tree in winter bears witness to a season, but it is just as much a testament to the brilliant fall color that was, and the new life the coming spring will bring. Art is a reflection of the past and present and a promise for the future. It is what we have learned, what we can learn and the possibility of learning more.

Art is a reflection of life and life is not static. While we may want the world to be linear and absolute, it is, in fact, arbitrary and complex. Our need to order and categorize is more likely to be based on a desire for control than on a want to understand.
  
The image of a painting has to live and breathe. It needs to imply possibility, wonder and awe. It needs to foster reflection and self-reflection. Art is an inspiration, not just a career. There are no answers, only more solutions.

“If I know what I shall find, I do not want to find it.

 Uncertainty is the salt of life.”

 Erwin Chargaff, Heraclitean Fire

In order to better understand art as a journey, we need to acknowledge and understand the pattern of art throughout history. The history of art is a testament to change. This record of change is one of perception, not just change in technique and skill. The Greeks said that to marvel is the beginning of knowledge and where we cease to marvel we may be in danger of ceasing to know.

The great art historian Ernst Gombrich wrote extensively on the pattern of change in art through the centuries.He noted how the Egyptians did not render in three dimensions but instead relied on what they knew rather than what they saw. "Greek and Roman art breathed life into these schematic forms; medieval art used them in turn for telling the sacred story, Chinese art for contemplation. Neither was urging the artist to ‘paint what he saw’. This idea dawned only during the age of the Renaissance . . . but every generation discovered that there were still . . . strongholds of conventions which made artists apply forms they had learned rather than paint what they really saw. 

The Impressionists "proposed to make a clean sweep of all these conventions . . ." They challenged the rules of academic painting and claimed their paintings were more 'scientifically accurate.' As Gombrich pointed out, however, their claim was only partly true. He wrote, "We have come to realize more and more that we can never neatly separate what we see from what we know."

“In fact, as soon as we start to take a pencil and draw, the whole idea of surrendering passively to what is called our sense impressions becomes really an absurdity. If we look out of the window we can see the view in a thousand different ways. Which of them is our sense impression? "It is not the ‘innocent eye’. . . that can achieve this match but only the inquiring mind that knows how to probe the ambiguities of vision.” (Art and Illusion, E.H. Gombrich)

Good art is not done by how an artist sees,

 but by how an artist chooses to see.

If we lose the drive to question and explore, not just what we do, but how we do it, then we run the risk of becoming secondhand hacks only capable of copying someone else’s idea of art.

While skill and knowledge are important in any endeavor, the idea of mastery in art implies a skill set to be acquired and a path to be followed. For many this path becomes one of fidelity to the latest vagaries of the art market and the most popular trend in art. The parameters of acceptability narrow and the range of expression becomes limited. Too many artists get lured into the idea of picture-making and neglect the search for creativity and expression. When we choose the path of conformity and ignore our personal search for visual meaning, we negate the very idea of what art is and what art can be.

I am reminded of the struggles of so many artists who worked long and hard, not to master a skill set, but in a  personal search for visual expression.

Claude Monet wrote, “I’m hard at it, working stubbornly on a series of different effects (grain stacks), but at this time of year the sun sets so fast that it’s impossible to keep up with it… I’m getting so slow at my work it makes me despair, but the further I get, the more I see that a lot of work has to be done in order to render what I’m looking for: ‘instaneity’, the ‘envelope’, above all, the same light spread over everything, and more than ever I’m disgusted by easy things that come in one go.”  

Claude Monet 

Lunch with the Mad Hatter

A friend and fellow artist (who will remain anonymous for obvious reasons) agreed to let me share the following texts about a particularly challenging painting commission. The insights, observations and comments turned this misadventure into a hilarious ride through the dark side of portrait painting. And for the record, no, I do not paint commissions. See postscript for why not.

Monday, March 14

Well, here’s how my lady painting turned out. Most of the family members are happy. I think it could be better/looser/more interesting, but I have no idea how to balance that with the family’s wishes. Not even sure where I could take it at this point, so, I’m done. The Grand Dame of the family has not weighed in. I don’t really care though.

Now I’m going to go read “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.”

Tuesday, March 15

Well, woke up to a list of things that the Grand Dame of the family wants me to change in the painting. Wider neck, add more wrinkles . . . (seriously??) . . .  lower the eyebrows . . . They are actually higher and even more arched, but I just eliminated them a bit and left the rest to the imagination. Sigh. I worked on it all day because one daughter has driven over from out of state and I’ve got a command invitation to the home of the person in the painting tomorrow. Not that the daughter loves the work, but she wants me to watch her and get a good understanding of her facial expressions. Shit, I don’t have time for this. This is a good likeness. Her children, siblings, nieces, nephews, grandchildren and friends far and wide saw the painting on FB, with no indication of who it was, everyone recognized her instantly.

To top it off, when the daughter called to tell me to be at the lady’s home at 2 p.m. it was like an inquisition. “What does your husband do? Where did you grow up” What did your father do?” I wondered if she was going to tell me to bring my tax returns for the last 10 years. I was a bit evasive . . . none of that is her damned business. Sheesh.

I give up. Someone hand me a white flag to wave! I can’t get any closer to a likeness unless I add more harsh lines and shadows.

So I’m hoping tomorrow is better. But tomorrow I must attend the inquisition, so . . . who knows how that will be. I think the old gal and I are both being yanked around by a bunch of surly siblings. I’ll try to be kind, for the sake of the older lady, but I may not stay long. As I understand it, the old gal is in a tizzy that I’m coming over. Insists on having her hair done, but is concerned that her pin curls will be wound too tight. I think it’s her offspring that are wound too tight!

Wednesday, March 16 – 10:14 a.m.

They want me to paint 10 more “just like it” for the children and grandchildren.

Now they want me to leave the wet painting at a family member’s house so the extended family, kids and grandkids can see it. It told them it has cadmium in it . . . so that’s a no.

Word to the wise: Never do commissions!!

2:13 p.m.

Inquisition over. Now just need to paint new nose, eyes, mouth. Daughter wants the features to be momma’s as they were when the daughter was little. Daughter also said, “We all just love that photo we gave you to paint from, except we think she looks tired so her face isn’t animated” My challenge is to paint the momma as her many offspring imagine her. The mother, subject of painting, was an absolute delight. Loved her!

9:58 p.m.

Sooooooo, I just got a message from the daughter. She has sent me a bunch of photos and wants me to paint the right eye from one photo, the left eye from another photo, the nose from yet another one AND wants me to put the mouth together with the bits and pieces of several mouths in several photos. All of the photos are taken in different lighting, from different angles and from different decades. I have done my best, with PLENTY of words in my sentences, to explain that it isn’t possible to arrive at one cohesive facial expression this way. H.O.L.Y. C.O.W. this gal is nuts. It is absolutely comical at this point.

My husband wins the prize for the best remark! “SEND HER A PAINTING OF MRS. POTATO HEAD!!!” he said as he rolled on freaking floor laughing.

Now, more wine. I deserve it.

Thursday, March 17

Other than a lot of “fraudulent” stuff on the painting, and the fact that it is so stinking over-rendered, I’m having a hard time figuring out how to bring the likeness to what they want. They want something that doesn’t look like her – they each want their romanticized notion of the never-aging mother . . . but an image that they recognize as “just like” what each sees in the photo. Yet none of them see the same thing.

I must have fallen down the rabbit hole. Preparing for lunch with the Mad Hatter.

She finally sent me a thumbs up and a smiley face. Maybe the odyssey has ended. Maybe it’s tea time for Alice.

Saturday, March 19

BTW, the people I’m doing this painting for want all the brothers, sisters and spouses to have an appointment to “preview and critique”. Shoot me now.

Finished. They can have it or not, but I’m moving on to more interesting work.

Sunday, March 20

Interesting. I’m getting FB friend requests from ALL of the extended family members of the “portrait lady’. Feeling creeped upon! I think they are wanting to the see the painting and my FB page isn’t public - only friends can see it.

Monday, March 21

Well, this morning I got an email from the family. They are thinking that they would rather have the charcoal drawing that I did earlier. When they first saw it, they hated it because it had been drawn from a photo that no one liked. Now that they are not crazy about the painting, they have come to like the drawing. I know it is just because they’ve kind of camped with that image for a while and are accustomed to it.  It’s on newsprint and I’m worried it won’t hold up.

Sheesh . . . family just sent another photo reference. I am so done.

Monday, April 5

I heard from the Grand Dame and the Brassy Little Sister. They think they “might” like the painting if I repaint the face in different shades and put the mouth back like I had it in the first place. (This makes me want to choose really novel different shades, just sayin’.)

There are so many layers on that painting that it begs to be considered sculpture at this point. Really . . . the burn pile might be the best answer. I could start over . . . but I won’t. Maybe I died and this is purgatory.

Postscript: The family finally decided they loved, loved the painting and purchased both the painting and the drawing. This was definitely a win for persistence and endurance on the artist’s part.

The reason I don’t paint commissions: The answer is fairly straight-forward and also explains one of the main differences between fine art and illustration.  Painting commissions (and illustrations) are controlled by someone else’s expectations and requirements – not the artist’s. I have a hard enough time trying to avoid regurgitating someone else’ idea of what a painting is or should be. I do, however, respect and admire those artists who take on the challenge.

Color: fact, fiction and perception

John Singer Sargent painting using cooler light and warmer shadow.

Richard Schmid, in his book “Alla Prima”, described colors as “slippery devils with a logic all their own.”  He also warned us to be “wary of quaint beliefs, fears and expedient little rules.”
  
There is so much information and misinformation regarding color in painting, it’s difficult to decide what is important and what is not, but let’s give it a try.

First, to see color we need light. Light is a physical entity. Color is a perception. 

Seeing color is a response created by the brain interpreting light waves that hit our eyes. Our eyes have three types of cones, often referred to as red, green and blue. A more accurate description describes the cones’ responses to the wavelengths of light – short, medium and long wavelengths.

Here is an illustration of the wavelengths of visible light. Red has the longest wavelength and violet has the shortest wavelength. Note: This is NOT a scale of color temperature. Do not confuse wavelength with color temperature. We can, however, recognize how one color can turn into another by the change in wavelength. This is important.

The cones in our eyes are used to process color and luminosity during daylight conditions. Rods are used only in low light conditions. When it is dark we don’t actually see color since the cones are not active in low-light conditions. The exception is at the intersection of light and dark (e.g. dusk) when rods and cones can be active at the same time. At this brief time we see colors differently than during daylight. We do not see different colors but what we do see seems to be more saturated. This difference in color perception is probably because of a change in luminosity due to the activation of the rods.

Our inclination to associate some colors as warmer or cooler than other colors is not a scientific explanation of temperature. 

The distinction between warmer and cooler colors is based on a perceptual and psychological tendency to associate heat with warmth. We consider red, yellow and orange to be warmer than green, blue and violet. Color temperature is not an absolute value, as in warm or cool. It is a comparative value  of warmer or cooler (as compared to). So if you want to know if a red is warmer or cooler, to which red are you referring, and exactly what are you comparing it to? Alizarin is cooler than cadmium red, but it is warmer than ultramarine blue.

If you are looking for the science of color temperature, you will end up in a rabbit hole of contradictions. The Kelvin scale (used to measure the temperature of color based on black-body radiation) shows red to be the coolest color and blue to be the hottest color. Kelvins are, however, useful in astronomy, photography and studio lighting. This leads me to the next bit of interesting information . . .

The sun is not yellow. Actually our sun is white light, a mixture of all colors.

drawing from The Secret Language of Color

When the sun is low in the sky, it may appear yellow, orange, or red. But that is only because its short-wavelength colors (green, blue, violet) are scattered out by the Earth's atmosphere and only the reds, yellows, and oranges get to our eyes. The reason I mention this is the pervasive belief among some artists that yellow is the "warmest" color. The most obvious reason for this is our perception of the sun as yellow. Now, granted, this is a perception, and painting is all about perceptions, but the problem with this assumption leads to another rabbit hole of contradictions regarding the color temperatures of greens, blues and violets.

The pattern of color we see is red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. One color becomes another. We perceive color as a continuous spectrum, not as something with a beginning and an end (implying opposition), but as part of a whole. It is misleading to assign absolute values to these colors that exist in harmony with one another. When mixing color I consider red warmer than yellow and consequently, ultramarine blue as warmer than cerulean or thalo blue. In turn, green would be warmer than cerulean, but cooler than yellow. Following this pattern allows a pretty straight forward approach to mixing pigments - lighter, darker, warmer, cooler. One color will easily transition to another. It is not difficult to see the pattern of connection.   Ultimately, this is all about recognizing patterns and making comparisons. Color temperature is not an intrinsic property of pigment. It is the perception of one color as compared to another.

Color does not jump around randomly. Light determines our perception of color. Warmer light has cooler shadows. Cooler light has warmer shadows. The color we see changes as the light changes. Our perception of color can change according to what is next to or surrounding the color. Color can be elusive, ambiguous and sometimes bold. Find the pattern, design the connections, and pay attention to the subtlety of change.

Painting by Joaquin Sorolla - note the difference in color from one side of bench to other side.

for more information about our sun
The Yellow Sun Paradox by Stephen R. Wilk

A win for visual truth

In my last post, “Do facts matter or is truth just another possibility?”, I pointed out how clinging to an outdated color primary system isn’t doing us any favors. I also wrote about the inaccuracy of the world map we are most familiar with. The latest news on the technology and design front is a new design of a more accurate map. Here is the article from WIRED magazine.


This Weird Globe-Folding Map Isn’t Perfect, But It’s Close
by Liz Stinson, WIRED, November 4, 206
https://www.wired.com/2016/11/weird-globe-folding-map-isnt-perfect-close/

Creating a proportional map of the world is tricky because the world is a sphere and a map is flat. That creates visual distortions, which explains why Mercator projections shrink Africa and super-size Greenland. Designer Hajime Narukawa found a clever solution to this problem: triangles.

Narukawa’s AuthaGraph World Map, which recently won the grand prize in Japan’s biggest design competition, retains the proportions of the continents and oceans—so much so that you can fold it into a three-dimensional globe. Like magic! He achieved this by dividing the globe into 96 triangles and projecting them onto a tetrahedron, preserving the proportions of water and land. Then he unfolded the tetrahedron into a rectangle, where the 96 sections created a map resembling the surface of the original globe, only flat.


The general shapes of the continents are consistent with more familiar maps, but their orientation is not. On the AuthaGraph Map, continents curve upward like a smile. Africa and the Americas look like they swapped places. And longitude and latitude are no longer a tidy grid. But  all maps require tradeoffs. You want an equal area map? Prepare for distortion. You want a Mercator? You’re living a lie. The AuthaGraph isn’t perfect—the creators concede that it needs “a further step to increase a number of subdivision for improving its accuracy to be officially called an area-equal map” the project creators write on their website—but it’s pretty damn close.


For more information about how this map was created, click here.

Do facts matter or is truth just another possibility?

When we are faced with information that contradicts what we think we know, is there value in trying to understand the new information? Or is truth really based on some kind of sliding scale of perception? Why do we accept dogma for truth? Why work so hard to hold onto information that compromises our ability to change and move forward?

Red, yellow and blue are considered primary colors in the art world. This primary system of red, yellow and blue predates modern scientific color theory. Yet it persists in painting color theory today. This is what most artists learn and it is what children around the world are taught in art classes.These three primaries do not correspond to the subtractive primaries dictated by human color vision.

The more accurate and more scientific color primary system for subtractive color is magenta, cyan and yellow. (Pigment is subtractive color. This is the process of subtracting color as the light waves are absorbed and reflected off the surface of the pigment.) Subtractive color is also used in printing and photography. Just take a quick look at the ink cartridges in your desktop printer.

The primary colors for additive color, anything using light such as computer monitors and televisions, are red, green and blue. So we have two scientific primary color systems, additive and subtractive, and then we have the “painting” color primary system. Artists are still clinging to an outdated model of a color primary system.

Does using an outdated primary system make a difference? It is difficult to mix colorful greens, cyans, purples and magentas using these three colors, but most artists use multiple colors on their palettes. Unlike photography and printing, we have the ability to use variations of reds, yellows and blues. And even a simplified palette can be incredibly powerful. Just take another look at some Zorn paintings where he used black, vermillion, ochre and white. However, it is quite possible our critical thinking (or mixing) skills are compromised when we cling to a primary system that predates current scientific color theory.

Is our dependence on cadmium red a result of red, yellow, blue thinking? While cadmium red (or similar variation) is useful, it is not nearly as useful for mixing as a red that leans more towards magenta, such as alizarin or quinacridone.  Think about the possibilities of alizarin, mixed with a blue such as cyan, or alizarin mixed with yellow. Now consider what happens when cadmium red is substituted for alizarin.

Artists are dealing with the perception and psychology of color. Our job is to interpret, not to try and replicate, which is an impossible task. Light is the science of additive color; pigment is the science of subtractive color. Light is a physical entity; seeing color is a perception. Let’s not make this any more confusing than it already is.

Why the world map you know is wrong

In yet another example of inaccurate and misleading information, we are still using a world map created in 1596. The original map was made by a globe maker named Mercator to help sailors navigate the world, and its distortions and exaggerations are the result of the difficulty inherent in portraying a spherical world on a flat map. Imagine stretching a map on a globe to fit a rectangular space. Despite attempts at other projections, the Mercator map has maintained its dominance over centuries and is now used at Google Maps and Bing. We think Greenland is huge, but in reality it is about four times smaller than the United States and 14.5 times smaller than Africa. In fact, Greenland is about the size of Saudi Arabia. Africa is actually larger than Russia and Brazil is more than five times larger than Alaska.

Want to learn more? Check out the app The True Size Of.


And while we are at it - no, the moon is not huge when on the horizon. It did not zoom in for a visit. It is an illusion. Other perceptual observations such as perceived distance and the size of nearby objects are used by the brain to determine what size an object appears to be.

Also, your mirror image is not life-sized. This, too, is a perception and not reality. Just measure next time you are looking a mirror. The explanation for this one? We see what we know and what we expect to see.

Intuition is just another form of pattern recognition

Intuition is not some mystical sixth sense, nor is it the opposite of rational thinking. Intuition is pattern recognition outside the normal range of conscious thought.

Different areas of the brain process different information. Since we are a language dependent species, we have a tendency to favor language based, rational thought and relegate intuition to the hinterlands of unexplained phenomena. Neuroscience seems to be having a difficult time understanding how the brain integrates information, but the fact is that various areas of the brain process different kinds of information, sensory and otherwise, and all that information gets filtered into conscious awareness – emphasis on the word “filtered”.

In painting, if we fall into the expected path of language-based object recognition, the path of least resistance will be one of fidelity to object description and not to interpretation. Our rational brains will dictate our responses while our subconscious intuitive selves will be sidelined. Painting is difficult because, ideally, it combines craft and creativity, two very different ways of thinking.

In order to foster a different path of pattern recognition, it’s necessary to describe the information in a new way.

Do you see a still life or do you see bananas, an apple and an orange?

How you choose to describe the information will alter how you perceive the information and, in turn, direct the choices you make to interpret that information.

Choose the object names and you will see and describe individual things and then have to solve the problem of unity and how one “thing” relates to another.  Choose the less specific description of “still life” and you will change your perceptions and your expectations. The “whole” will become more important than the pieces and the visual elements of value, color and shape will become more important than the name of the thing. Finding new patterns is dependent on seeing the information in a different way, one that is informed by more than preconceived expectations.

Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, considered intuition an “irrational function”, but he also said “intuition is perception via the unconscious that brings forth ideas, images, new possibilities and ways out of blocked situations." It is interesting to note Jung was willing to consider intuition as irrational, while also recognizing the necessity of intuition in creative problem solving.

We seem to have an innate tendency (perhaps a reflection of brain organization?) to categorize everything into simplistic categories of “either-or” instead of simply acknowledging and accepting the unity of different, but complementary, aspects of reality. Intuition is not the opposite of rational, conscious thinking. It is an important and very real part of the brain’s ability to process information.

Where's all the art and other interesting stuff

Where’s the art?

Probably in storage in some museum somewhere. Quartz, a digital business news publication, surveyed 20 museums in 7 countries. While their survey was limited to the works of only 13 major artists, there is certainly enough information to draw some conclusions. Only a tiny fraction of art is actually available for people to view and enjoy. Much of the available work for viewing is purchased art, rather than donated art. And, of course, certain artists are better represented than others.

Cezanne and Monet were well represented, while Egon Schiele did not have a single work on display despite 7 different museums holding a total of 53 of his figurative works. Washington, DC’s National Gallery of Art has 199 Rothko paintings in storage and only two are on display.

Since most museums consider archiving, storage, and conservation to be their primary purpose, it seems as if the public’s access to art is far down on the list of importance. One can only wonder how long these museums can keep stacking up the work. And exactly who is all this art being archived for?



Do people who grow up in the arctic see better in the dark? 

C. Anderson

Leave it to a cognitive neurophsychology specialist to try and find out. In 2007 Bruno Laeng divided about 250 students from the Arctic University of Norway into two groups: those born above the Arctic Circle and those born below it. Both groups took a test measuring color discrimination. People who live north of the Arctic Circle experience two months each year with no direct sunlight. The only natural illumination during the dark winters is twilight, which tends to have a bluish color.

Those people born above the Arctic Circle made more mistakes arranging the yellow-green and green tabs, but fewer mistakes arranging the bluish ones.

And in yet another study  Ohio State University psychologist Angela Brown looked through dictionaries for more than 450 languages and found that the closer people lived to the poles, the more their languages distinguished between blues.



Nature’s fractal patterns

Marcia Bjornerud wrote an excellent article for The New Yorker, “David Maisel’s Geometric Geographies” about  Maisel’s aerial photographs of Toledo, Spain,

“Classical geometry—Greek for “earth measure”—is not very earthly. We love the serene, eternal, incorruptible form of the circle, and the illusion of mastery that being able to reckon with it mathematically gives us, but the shape itself is rare in the natural world. . . Given enough time, nature prefers other, quieter motifs. Consider the dendritic geometry of a river system. Each tributary stream is fed by creeks, which are fed, in turn, by rivulets of progressively smaller size. Try to determine the system’s total length and a paradox emerges: the closer you look, and the smaller your measuring stick gets, the longer the river becomes. Each level in the hierarchy encloses a smaller but equally complex microcosm. No single scale is more important than any other. Such unruly geometries, which are known as fractals, are obvious and ubiquitous in nature—in weather patterns, mountain ranges, ecosystems . . .

"Architects and urban planners are, on the whole, still acolytes of Euclid. It is rare that a human system develops into a fractal; most become top-heavy, with a few outsize elements dominating form and function. But look closely at Maisel’s images of Vicálvaro and you can see nature reasserting itself, the wind and rain forming notches and rills around the edges of the simple rectangular blocks.”



How Real is Reality?

A while back I wrote an article titled “The Problem with the Real in Realism”. I was trying to address the issues of visual perception, learned symbolism, and the impact of language on how and what we “see”.  So, of course, I was drawn to this article by Adam Frank “How Real Is Reality?” on NPR.

 Frank’s article details the convergence of the brain-frying science of quantum mechanics and its intersection with philosophy. While the scientists are left scrambling to explain quantum weirdness, we can question the possible fractal pattern in the micro and macro worlds of reality. The Copenhagen interpretation posits that electrons don’t have intrinsic properties like position or spin. It is only the act of measurement (observation) that makes the electrons take on specific values.

Frank wrote, “Is there something out there independent of us that has specific properties in-and-of-it? Or is it all a mush of potential and possibility about which only our knowledge takes on a stable form?

"The fundamental question remains. How real is reality?”



Museums are keeping a ton of the world's most famous art locked away
Do people who grow up in the Arctic see better in the dark
David Maisel's geometric geographies
How real is reality
The problem with the real in realism