I'd forgotten how darned difficult checks are to paint. Think not? Try it. It's not the getting the lines straight, although that's bad enough. It's the points inbetween. I'd drawn one in in a pre-painting rough, so far, so good - but found when I came to do the final artwork, I had to really, really concentrate - hard - to get the exact matching up of the corners of the squares, without overlap.
Because there is an infinitisimal point at which they all meet up, and it doesn't really exist. So you are trying to paint a nonexistent thing. I think. Maybe it does but you need a microscope to see it. It is created instantly and effortlessly if you simply draw one line across another. But I keep coming back to the same thing, trying to pinpoint in my mind's eye the precise, oh I don't know what to call it, the precise 'bit' where four corners touch each other, creating a miniscule area which can't be an area, as we can't see it. I really can't explain what I mean and whenever I dwell on it for too long (more than 30 seconds) my mind does flip-flops. It reminds me of the idea of angels dancing on a pinhead. I wonder if it would make a good meditation focus? Maybe not. In my attempt to get my head round it, I went to a book I bought some years ago, but never really got round to reading fully, 'The sense of Order (a study in the psychology of decorative art)' to see what trusty old Gombrich had to say about it. But although it threw up some fascinating observations on the checkerboard as a pattern, it didn't explore my four-corners-touching conundrum. If you are interested in pattern as artist this is a wonderful book and if you're very clever you will find it a brilliant read. I simply dip into it until my head reels with the academic-ness of it, and prefer looking at the pictures. Oh yes, what was the background for? Another strange creature, Koko. Maybe because she is that kind of Chanel pink.
I think she's gone boss-eyed thinking about the corners in a checker pattern, too.
