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As most of you know, I'm not a painter. However, when I managed a portrait painter, there were many times when I had to make an aesthetic decisions. It might have been the color balance between different photos of a finished painting. Or, it could have been the choice between two or more photos for the basic reference material for a painting.
I found I often could make decisions to a point, but when I got down to the last two or three choices, it became more difficult. So, I used the following technique. I would prop the photos up somewhere in my work area and then decide to forget they were there and just go about my business. At some point, usually during that day, the view of the photos would catch me by surprise and I would get a spontaneous attraction to one or the other that would break the tie. It was the "being caught off guard" aspect and the immediate spontaneous impression that worked for me. In my case, if I had turned them over and not looked and then consciously turned them over and looked, I would have been using the same evaluation mechanism as before. Sometimes that would work, but when all else failed, the being caught by surprise technique always saved the day.
I do the same thing when choosing paint colors for my walls...I'll paint a few patches of different colors and then let myself be caught off guard by the colors over a period of days.
Though I realize evaluating a painting isn't a matter of viewing and choosing between two things side by side, but perhaps there's something worthwhile here for painters. What do you think?
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