I like the Express yourself with BIC competition because making images from lines which initially make no visual sense is lots of fun. It’s interesting to link abstract lines to make a coherent image. And everyone tackles it differently.

I’ve seen some people search by adding lines, which then inspire an image. I feel that I’m seeing the abstract lines in the same sort of way as a tetris game —searching through my visual library for that piece that fits. Some of them fit better, some leave little holes. When the right piece comes along (you know when you’ve stacked it too high either side and nothing but an I block will solve it?)  it slots in perfectly!

If you are interested in my mental labyrinth:

These were the five options (the last one’s just a colour-in!). Before you read on, please look at each one and and see if any images immediately come to mind.

What is really interesting is how people can make similar visual connections. How many of us immediately think of the horizontal squiggle of the bottom left hand image as ‘water’? I think maybe such links are caused by abstract lines being close to existing visual symbols. And existing symbols are really powerful visual hooks. Funnily enough, though, I didn’t see a sword in the top left one .

I saw the teeth of a skull.

But in terms of composition, it’s a bit awkward and well, the subject matter’s a bit morbid. So, the middle one on the top row was my pick. With this one, I could quickly get away from immediate mental links and could hear my brain trying to make cognitive sense out of it, like the duck/rabbit illusion.

I came up with this:

And then my browser froze, which meant I had to start again.

Take two.

This was about half-way when I seriously considered re-starting because she was starting to look ugly. As this BIC application doesn’t have layers, what’s covered is lost. What I remember quite distinctly was a growing conviction that I had, in fact, overworked her, and was past the point of no return.

But actually, it wasn’t overworked. In retrospect she was definitely underworked, but a lot of the lines had been pushed this way and that whilst painting. I decided to trek onwards, and came back to the face later.

With a bit of tidying up and polishing, the image was finished.