According to Wikipedia, pareidolia is our tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known or imagined. It's the process by which we see a familiar shape in the clouds or imagine a face on the surface of Mars.

Early this summer, it was a tarp covering a pile of sand that played on this phenomenon of pareidolia. The folds of the fishy looking tarp inspired my last two L&PG posts: PISCINE DREAMS and I, REPTILIUS.

Before the sand was used up, I turned to oils and painted this alien profile employing shapes the tarp had made when the sand was being shoveled up.

The tarp is gone but not to worry...there were shadows in my studio that led to something entirely different!