Wonky faces

Okay, this is just a thing that has been playing on my mind, which revolves around three things that I heard recently which tie in together but do not yet form a complete theory.

(Can't write about 'theories' at any time without hearing Sickboy from Trainspotting, but that's a diversion>)

Thing number one is the mention in the Howson documentary of the use of a mirror to check the 'rightness' of a portrait. This is something I do myself; I think we were pointed in the direction in art college. Just never really thought about it before in the context of:

Thing number two, which I read about in the paper the other day; how we see ourselves 'wonky' in the mirror and correctly in photographs. Look over someone's shoulder in a mirror and they look weirdly 'wrong' because we are used to seeing them the other way around; this is weird because they see themselves most often this way and may account for why we often dislike photos of ourselves or find them strangely alien. How does this apply in the case of the portrait painting though - are we checking for 'rightness' or just symmetry? Have I been forever correcting faces to make them better when in fact I am just correcting symmetry, which is not necessarily essential. Because of the third thing:

Which is the fact that we are all asymmetrical to a degree and often (allegedly) chose partners with a similar degree of symmetry. The article that outlined this theory also suggested that we essentially find more symmetrical people more attractive.

As I suggested obliquely in the Sickboy reference, this is not a very good or watertight theory about anything in particular, but the point of interest that I took from it was the question of whether we are striving to paint symmetrical faces unneccessarily due to our urge to look at them in mirrors for correction.

I think that's all I have to say on this for the moment.

Spent a few meaningful and fulfilling hours shovelling snow off the cul-de-sac today and revelling in the cameraderie of it all. Having put up with miserable snow-doom-mongers for the last four days it was refreshing to have a bit of good old fashioned manual labour, meet some previously unacknowledged neighbours and poke fun at others who were resolutely indoors in a good-natured way. One guy had a great 'spade' made of planks, which actually did a fine job and made a further mockery of those whose non-participation rested on the lack of proper implements.

One big chunk of tarmac, now clear of ice and neatly gritted, is now forever mine. Park on it at your peril non-diggers.

Feedback on the wonky face issue will be greatly welcomed as it is bugging me now.