Bakery guy in Portland made me question my whole color palette

I was selling prints at this small craft fair in Portland last month, and this older baker walks by my booth with flour all over his apron. He stops, looks at my digital landscape art for a solid minute, then says 'your oranges are lying to you.' I laughed it off at first, but after he left I kept staring at my work and realized he was kind of right. My sunset pieces all had this fake-bright fake-warm orange that looked nothing like how light actually falls in real life. I spent the next three days mixing swatches based on actual photos I took around the city. Now I'm redoing like 20 pieces from my portfolio. Has anyone else had a random stranger point out something obvious that made you rethink your entire style?

2 comments

2 Comments

brookep271mo ago

Strangers see what we've trained ourselves to ignore.

sandrap401mo ago

and that's so true because we get so used to our own mess or bad habits that we stop even noticing them. like the way you might always walk past the same crack in the sidewalk without seeing it until someone points it out. a friend once told me my kitchen counter was always cluttered with mail and papers, and i didn't even see it anymore, it was just background noise to me. strangers get a fresh look at our lives without all the blind spots we build up over time. it's kind of humbling honestly to realize how much we tune out.