Below is an example of a autostereogram. ‘Crossing your eyes’ (crossing the lines of sight from your eyes) you should be able to see a 3D version of this pic. This concept, invented by the Hungarian neuropsychologist Bela Julesz features in this chapter.
Forgot to get the reference, it’s from the Wikipedia article about autostereograms.
… is a way of painting with watercolors, I’ve discovered. And I’m in the throes of experimenting using the technique.
First came across it on Susan Cornelis’s blog. https://susancornelis.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/googleeye.jpg
So I’ve fallen in love with granulating paints. My first effort was Miss Tabitha…
Ordered a couple more tubes of granulating paint and washed out a fine spray bottle originally used for a deodorant.
Second, this fish. I call it a bottom feeder, but may rename it … I’m having so much trouble getting this from my mobile … might have to do magic. Like, abracadabra … OK I’ve got it. Ended up saving it to the desktop … isn’t she beautiful? A spatter and spray painting barely touched up. Well, OK, I painted the scales. The rest is dabbed. Not yet sealed.
This is the top half of my third effort. I’ll tentatively call it The Aviatrix. The bottom half of this painting is still a problem. one thing is for sure, I’m learning a lot about gouache.
It’s hard to believe what you can get from spattering paint onto the paper then spraying it with water. But that’s only the first layer. You let it dry, then the next day, if the pattern you have doesn’t yet suggest anything to you, you do it again. Like I did with this one. The third day, this aviatrix lay there waiting for me. I painted some of the areas to increase that likeness and here she is.
The bottom half of her face needed work of a different sort. After my efforts first with gesso, then with gouache that’s still in the thought-pan, and another post.
As well as the spatter and spray technique, I’m experimenting with sealing my watercolor paintings with an acrylic varnish. I hate the look of paintings behind glass or the whole process of framing. Miss Tabitha has been varnished and the look is good.
And plus, I don’t have enough wall space to hang everything I paint. Nor will I foist amateurish experiments on my nearest and dearest. So, most must be stored. Varnishing them seems like a good option.
The varnish I’m using is water-based so easy to cut. A mixture of 25% acrylic varnish in 75% water seems to be working pretty well. Ideally this should be sprayed on but since I’m still only experimenting, I’m laying the varnish on the painting with a watercolor mop brush. A time-consuming procedure but the only one I can afford at the moment.
This something cats are capable of, lying right beside your chair and having a little doze while they wait impatiently for you to stop typing and get up already, it’s time to do xyz for me! ME! ME!
Like, get going old woman! It’s 10.30 AM! We are so far behind schedule I am quite out of sorts! And you threw a towel at me this morning when I hooked you to make you hurry up!
I’m not forgiving you until we are back on track!!!
This image is a cut from an original photo by whom I don’t know from somewhere in the gloaming beside the virtual ocean where we go surfing when we open our laptops, switch on our desktops or scroll up our mobile phones. Cell phones to you, too.
It might even be a cut from an image from iStock where I purchased maybe thirty useful shots a few years back. I don’t remember. The fire is the important thing, though. As in, Claire builds a fire.
My online world broke this morning, like this tile broke … and was rethought in the way that I’m having to rethink my desktop …
I was glad to hit on a familiar page at last with this one … my WordPress dashboard. Thankfully, it was the same as it’s always been. I heaved a sigh of relief when I arrived.
It was then 2.30 PM and I’d struggled since I sat down after breakfast and chores to get back to my familiar scenario. My troubles began when suddenly my online bank was unavailable and the helpline operator and I thought at first that I’d been hacked.
But no, my then-browser updated overnight and apparently threw up a firewall that kept me out of my bank as well as several other places. Well I thought, away with that browser. I de-defaulted it and all my problems began.
Who knew there’d be 500+/- settings, and that there’d be a whole different architecture to accustom myself to, and that there’d be a bunch of new rules? One good thing about the new old browser is that everything is easy to find. I learned more about browsers in a couple of hours than I’d learned the whole year with the de-defaulted one.
I hope all the new stuff sticks in my head, as do I hope that all the stuff I have open on the desktop stays on there when I close the laptop. That I don’t have to find it all from scratch again next time I open the lid.
And although I enthusiastically welcome the password app, I also wrote down a bunch of them. You never know when you might be shut out, and at what level.
I managed to retrieve the situation without the help of an AI assistants, I’m glad to say. What FB AI assistants are doing beggars belief.
We have started training. Apparently it’s a good idea for me to learn the meaning of some human words. This week we’re tackling “Sit” and “Come”.
When the old woman says “Sit” she means for me to go sit beside her on the couch. When I get there, I usually get some kibbles on her lap table, which is the board she lays over her knees to eat her dinner off or use her laptop on. “Sit” is easy.
“Come” is hard. She wants me to come right up to her feet before she puts the kibble down. When I have finished the kibble, she walks to the next place where she can perch on a chair or a bed, and says it again. “Come.”
I so don’t see the point. I’ll sit down and wait for the next kibble right where I am.
So then, next time we did “Come” I was really hungry, and it was worth my while to just follow her around the house, and be there before she even said the word. Too easy!
Probably she’ll make it hard again next time.
PS, I’m also learning to take selfies …
This story was written well before the no-no thing started about dogs dying in a story.
[I realize dogs are our best friends. I’ve owned a dog myself and it was a wrench to let her go when that became necessary. She was only nine years old when she developed a brain tumor and could not be saved.]
In this story one of the dogs briefly dies. So, I guess, you can take this as a spoiler alert.
Rita de Heer 
