Quote Originally Posted by Madcrafter View Post
I read a very interesting blog post today discussing the idea that quite possibly many experiences that one has/does not have are statistical outliers, and that people actually experience the world far more differently than one imagines from normal interaction. The header example was and experiment by Galton in 1880 that implies that there is a significant segment of the population that cannot see any form of mental image (imagination) and even lack any concrete concept of the idea (and it varies on a spectrum from no ability to those who are eidetic).

Anyways, someone in the comments linked to a test to distinguish between colours, something else that varies quite widely apparently. While results will certainly be affected by the hardware it's done on, it made me wonder about the resurfacing criticism I get that my art can be ill-defined and watery. While I typically agree that it is, I wonder how much the origin of this might be attributable to me seeing more sharp edges than I'd like and over-smoothing to compensate. Certainly not applicable in every case, but it is an interesting thought. I wonder if I could do some sort of training working in a deliberately restricted colourspace?
Over-smoothing is something I've done a lot of too - it's just so easy to see something that doesn't quite work and blur it until it's nice, safe and flatly gradiented. My tendency to do it comes from 'i have to do something, this is something, i have to do this'. I've been trying for a while to get my head around much harder, sharper lines and shadows but I've been limited in that by my hardware.

If you're concerned about it, try doing some very hard, flat pieces for a while. You're making great progress overall with the painterly stuff but it could really be worth exploring a polar opposite to your usual style.