Look closely at the image above. Do you see paint glistening in symmetrical shapes? It’s actually color pencil! Artist Cj Hendry makes hyperrealistic drawings that look like vibrant globs of paint. To make Shutter Island, above, she meticulously layers color pencil in varying hues to mimic oil paint’s glossy sheen and goopy texture.
The Australian artist gets her inspiration from the inkblot test, a diagnostic tool used in psychology. The test invites participants to look at black inkblots rendered as abstract, mirror images on a white card. Participants identify shapes they see in the inkblot, like a butterfly or a face. Then psychologists draw conclusions about how a participant’s brain affects what he or she sees. Hendry plays with these ideas, creating her own colorful versions.
Hendry’s drawing is an optical illusion: Before the viewer identifies an image in the work, he or she most likely believes it to be paint oozing across a white background. The artist uses only color pencils to render the highlights and shadows that make her drawings seem three-dimensional.
When you look at the drawing above, what image do you see? Compare your interpretation with your classmates’!