Picking at my scab

I am sure most of us have picked at our scabs.  Some of us more often than others.

A nasty habit.

Scabs are like our body’s natural armor, protecting us from blood loss and keeping out nasty germs. They’re made up of fibers known as fibrins in our blood that form a mesh, trapping platelets and red cells to create a physical barrier. But guess what? They’re all meant to fall off as we heal. So, why do we keep picking at them?

Maybe they feel different from the rest of our skin. Or maybe they’re just plain ugly. Or maybe they’re all crusty and itchy.

Interestingly, picking at a scab at the wrong moment, before it has fully healed, can result in bleeding and the formation of a new scab. This behavior is playing with fire, albeit on the skin. The urge to pick is often strong, especially when an edge of the scab can be lifted and pulled away from the underlying skin. In some cases, it is possible to remove half of a scab while leaving the other half intact until it falls off or the individual becomes bored and picks it off.

Often we wonder what’s really going on beneath the surface, like what lies beneath the manhole in the street. But that’s a whole other story!

My current scab is my painting of the egret taking off.

The metallic acrylic used in this painting creates a fascinating effect. The different angles the light hits it changes the appearance dramatically. It’s like looking at the prism of a RGB projector, where only red, green, or blue light passes through. Under a single color mode, things start to look strange and out of place. Our brain is not trained to interpret objects outside of their familiar colors.  For those of us who are photographers and have experience with a circular polarizer, you will understand the effect well.  By turning the polarizer onto different axis, you can make the reflection on water go away and actually see what's beneath the water surface. 

In this example, the yellow and gold overwhelms the egret's beak,

Copper tone dominates the painting in this light,

 So I painted in a few minnows amongst the circular ripples.

I added 16 minnows in all to my painting and thought about naming the piece 16 Minnows.  The idea was to encourage the viewer to find the minnows instead of getting distracted by the forever changing colors.  

But that would be too much like "Where is Waldo?" and also runs counter to my original premise of the painting, which predicates on color changing depending on one's viewing angle, as if one was looking at real water and how the reflected light was polarized. 

My final act of scab picking was to add a few dabs of emphasis dots onto the ripples around the center. Hopefully this will lure the viewers to stay put for a while and get to look at the details and composition of the painting before the color changing effect hits them. Oh and I piled on a few rounds of plain watercolor to minimize the reflectivity of the metallic acrylic. 

Here's a more balanced appearance of the painting,

Okay I'm done picking at my scab.  For now.