revealing the hidden

I’ve been trying to figure out effective and efficient means to parse some of my more …erm… complicated images, to reveal what I see hidden in them. If I had the chops to be able to reproduce what I see as drawings, cartoons, or even tracings, I would spend many happy hours rendering photographic captures into hand-drawn graphics. While I can imagine what such translations would look like, I certainly haven’t the powers or skills to realize my imaginings. Yesterday it occurred to me that the combination of details clipped out and narrative might be effective enough to begin with. Here’s the starting point for today’s exercise:


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What it is : a stretch of highly-figured Drift Inn rock, 5 or 6 feet wide, with tidewater pooled in hollows (the white-flecked areas).

On the left I see a crowned bird-headed Hieronymus Boschish figure in a speckled robe, looking to the left over its right shoulder:


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Below that is a long-toothed and perhaps cat-like nightmare figure, reminiscent of Ralph Steadman’s graphic style:


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and to the right of those is a flame-haired human figure, arms raised and possibly with Harry Potter glasses or maybe just preternaturally googly eyes:


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and on the far right edge, a long-snouted foxy-horsey creature, with what might be a single horn on its head:


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You may see none of these, or find other figures that I haven’t yet discerned. There’s another shot of most of the same scene, from the other side, which offers a whole different array of interpretative challenges:


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For the moment, I’ll just point out the insouciant but demented (and possibly fanged) flying squirrel in the upper left:


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2 thoughts on “revealing the hidden

  1. Kentlee

    There are “coloring pages” for adults, on-line. Perhaps your photos (in black/white?) could be embedded in one of the extant programs with suitable directions to colorists to render the various creatures and their backgrounds. This would be most easily done with the mirrored images of course. A “contest” might even go viral (awk!) e.g.
    “Find and name the astonishing rock beings!”
    Best I can suggest for now.
    Kent

    Reply
  2. Pingback: perhaps a coloring book? | oookblog2

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