Pixellated Odelisque

My interest in pixellation goes back many years.

Nowadays, these images are so commonplace on computers and as a device on television news to provide anonymity, that it's difficult to imagine a time when they were virtually unknown. (Although Roman mosaics are essentially pixellations?)

I am not a fan of outlines. We don't see things because they have a thickly drawn line around them but because of the difference of colour or shade between them and the background or because of the need to refocus our eyes at a different distance.

In two dimensional representations, the latter is not usually an option so it is more important to differentiate between the colours, textures or tones that separate objects from their surroundings.

In my early years of teaching 10 year olds in the early 1970's, I wanted a tool to help them look at objects and improve their drawings by moving away from “colouring in”.

Enlarging or copying by squares is a well-known technique often taught to children but it emphasises outlines.

I introduced a technique to emphasise shade or tone.

Using a number of small black and white portraits of toddlers (from surplus “Sunny Smiles” booklets sold to raise money for National Children's Homes), the children drew carefully measured squares on them and larger squares on plain sheets of paper. Then, looking at each square in turn, they had to decide whether it was predominately black (when the corresponding square on the plain sheet would be shaded in heavily) or white (when the corresponding square would be left untouched). In some cases, it was permitted to use light shading on a square to provide an intermediate tone. The resultant images close up were just light or dark squares on paper but pinned to the far wall in the classroom, the faces could be easily distinguished.