Do You See What I See?

Perception, seeing, and the subconscious mind

by Phil Wallace, Member blogger


With so many images bombarding our senses each day, what do we really see?  How much do we skip over, relying on images in our subconscious to complete the perception?  A good artist trains the mind to see beyond what others see.  For example:

Question:  "What color is the sky?"

Answer:  "On a clear day, it's blue."

Observation:  "Ah yes, but isn't the blue overhead deeper than the blue on the horizon? Doesn't the blue seem to fade in the distance?  Isn't a hint of pink creeping in?"

Suddenly, we realize that the clear blue sky we paint must have a considerable range of color.  When we paint, a landscape plein air, we try to concentrate on such things even though the subconscious says to us "hurry along, we know this part."  We resist the subconscious and sure enough, we see shapes and shadows. colors and values that at first escaped us.  The same is true of painting still life or portraits, or even in some cases, abstracts.

Still, we tend to fall back on that subconscious memory bank.  Our job:  to keep that memory bank as fresh and accurate as we can.  We do this by concentrating on the art of looking, and really SEEING  what we're looking at.


Phil Wallace

Phil Wallace is an artist and author, as well as a retired filmmaker and advertising executive.  He paints landscapes, still life, and portraiture in oil and watercolor.  He is also a cartoonist.