Exercise: Rorschach Tests

I was asked to make my own Rorschach blots!

I did two sets. First with one basic colour and then adding different colours in. One set of grey with blue and yellow, and one set with warmer tones to see if that made a difference with yellow, copper and and a touch of black.

From the beginning, I uploaded these digitally to to play around with them using the pen tool to actually create shapes and images:

• I first used what I thought would be a neutral grey to start. Though I guess nothing can be neutral as my first go to on this one was a grey elephant!
• I also thought it could be a kind of venetian or party mask.
• Perhaps also because of the colour it reminded me of stone or perhaps a landscape or overview of a quarry for example.
• I then turned the shapes around to different positions and saw two ladies doing pottery, a rat playing with a ball, mushrooms (again influence by the grey colour!)
• I realise that because of the way the initial paint was put on ie with space between the two sides of the paper, it was kept quite separate as images so a lot of my images were in pairs even though I tried to see fuller images, I found this quite hard – a trick of the mind!

I then added some colour to this:

• Though I realised I was using quite a lot of paint so every time I added colour and folded again, the paint was spreading more which was good as it gave me more images
• At first I was reminded by the above and below of a 3D MRI scan of my pelvis that I had done when I was getting an operation.
• Then I saw a kind of bear or animal with ears and a nose and mouth etc which I drew below
• On its side the image was quite abstract but I started drawing lines and ended up with a vase and added some flower stocks coming out!
• The more obvious butterfly shape was clear and helped with the added colour and then I even saw a duck but because of the symmetry I was imaging its reflection on the water

Next I added more colour:

• Yellow made it look a bit like a monkey or two monkeys with hats on!
• The middle part with no paint seemed to form an open mouth or beak which then made me think of a bird
• I also thought of ski goggles and sunglasses and drew that on with the blue all of a sudden becoming big busy eyebrows!
• The shapes again got more merged and bigger with more paint and even ice lollies or candy floss came to mind as drawn below
• Turning it around again I thought of a bird with a Christmas hat on or two acorns

Adding more colour ie more and darker blue really gave it a lot of texture and pattern:

• I first saw an animal face, like a lion or something, even a monkey with the big wide face
• Moving it around I saw a manta ray and added a tail
• I tried to get myself away from animals and zoomed out more and traced the edges and came up with lakeside mountains
• Tracing again the yellow parts that stood out I realised they could be stalactites or stalagmites and created a kind of cave!

I then tried another series using different colours and trying to put a little less paint on and vary the blobs I added:

• This made it less paint and more blob looking and more abstract therefore
• The golden yellow and the way the paint created lines from being so thick actually reminded me first of shells and then of trees
• I tried to see shapes and things and saw chicks and fish and bubbles (yellow influence!)
• Turning it around I tried to trace around the shapes and then I got a kind of pair of legs to which I added a body!
• Turning again I even traced around the blobs to get little cats/small dogs

Sticking to warm colours I added some copper paint:

• this gave even more of an autumn tree likeness because of the colours!
• Enjoying the drawing around shapes to see shapes emerge I eventually saw two dancers and aded their legs, added branches and trunks to make trees, created a leaf, a buddha sitting down and an hour glass!

Adding more colour again:

• the paint continued to spread more so I saw fuller figures this time and still very separate from each other so really a kind of couple
• This made me think of a mermaid and so I tried to draw the Little Mermaid, her fishy friend and her holding the stone sculpted face of her prince – I realise that so many of the things I am seeing are connected so much to own experince and memory and things I have loved or been more interested in as a child or as an adult.
• Turning it around I got two cute little kids all wrapped up for the snow!
• Then I tried to see more abstract shapes of jigsaw pieces

Reflections:

• I definitely think that colour and experience and memory completely influence what we see.
• It’s quite surprising what comes to mind when you move things around and turn them upside down etc. This was really useful to get more ideas and think again about images.
• Blotting seems to be a very good way to get abstract and create ideas – much like when I discovered collage, I think this is a great way for me to help me be more creative and exploratory.
• I perhaps should have used other media or tries more original black and white or ink and water. I guess that any media would give a different feel and image. For example ink and water might be more fragile, delicate, intricate. Whereas using thick acrylic paint, I got a more playful, solid and rounder overall feel.