It dawned on me today. My creative process over the past few days amounts to the equivalent of an interactive Rorshach Test. Yesterday, I started out by painting swirls of metallic and iridescent paints and after spending time with them, added to them. The end result was a coherent portrait of sensory input to a human being.

Lately, I start my paintings with an ink blot of sorts (a streak of paint, chalk scribblings, splats of color) and build the rest based on what comes to mind as I looked at the patterns (i.e., Different, Puzzling, How Does One Create?).

Today’s experiment:

I started today’s watercolor with a central blob of quinacridone purple surrounded by permanent mauve. These two pools of paint were separated by a moat of dry paper, and mixed together when I ‘broke the dam’. After the paper was nearly dry, I dropped in a spot of peacock blue and a spot of cadmium yellow pale. This decision was not based so much on visual feedback as much as my knowledge that these colors were harmonious with the purple and the mauve.

After the paper was thoroughly dry, I noticed a human face and the shape of a fish, present in the ink blot, I mean watercolor painting. I drew an arc with brown conte chalk with the idea of adding to the profile of the face. This didn’t work too well, so I made it into a fishing line, to catch the fish shape. I outlined the shape of the fish with white conte chalk.

Among my final steps were: darkening the areas outside the ‘head’; and re-outlining the fish shape with white chalk.

I suppose that someone can draw all kinds of conclusions about me based on how I interact with my paint blots. But I venture to say that what is more telling is how I choose to name my creations.