One Trick and One Treat

Face pareidolia and cookies for witches 🍪💜

Dear Reader, happy Halloween, depending on your time zone. It’s a bit late here; I’m writing this past 10pm Eastern, and by the time this hits your inbox, it may well be November 1st. Typically I write these in advance (not the day of) and I meant to send this out sooner, but it’s been one hell of a month. So I’m going to keep this short and sweet. I plan on elaborating more soon, and my next newsletter will hopefully go out earlier than usual, because one very significant change is on the way. And no I’m not talking about the election but that’s been on my mind too.

watercolor spooky friends.

I’ve been feeling particularly exhausted. Tired to my core. There have been several times this month where I really wanted to paint something just for fun, just for me, just for the sake of making something and not for a workshop or a class or a commission, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it until earlier today. The playfulness of Halloween reminded me of a phenomenon called “face pareidolia” — the inclination or tendency to see faces in objects that don’t actually have faces. Like seeing a face in the shadows of the moon, or Jesus on a piece of toast.

watercolor face pareidolia exercise.

Anyone that has ever experienced face pareidolia can paint like this. All you have to do is make some misshapen blobs, unfocus your eyes a bit, and imagine a face inside of that blob, then use your paintbrush to fill in the phantom image that your mind conjured up. It’s a great way to trick yourself into painting when you’re feeling tired.

So that’s the trick. Here’s a treat: