I am Carmen Delacroix. I paint dusk scenes where a second image hides in the first—not added on top, but drawn from the same light and shadow that makes the room or the water or the street corner real. This one asks whether you find the sleeping cat in the shallows, or whether it finds you.
The pool is a pool. The cat is a cat. Neither one is a trick.
The form was already there
I start every piece by drawing the hidden image in charcoal—here, a cat curled nose to tail. Then I build the landscape over it. The rocks follow the curve of the spine. The weed traces the ear. The light chooses what to show.
If I force it, the whole thing reads as a puzzle and you stop believing in the pool. So I glaze dark to light and stop the moment before it becomes obvious. Valentina called it subtle. I would say I left it alone.
Dusk does the rest
The lantern is the only warm light. Everything else is cooling—blue stones, green-black water, the sky losing its last colour. That single glow makes you look twice because your eye wants to know what it is lighting.
Ruby wrote that the luminous dusk frames the scene. It does more than frame. Dusk is the hour when one thing can look like two things and both are true.
The print holds the glaze layers—you can see where the dark was laid down first and the light came through after.
Who should look, who should skip it
This is for anyone who likes finding the second story. If you want the image announced, this will frustrate you.
It belongs near water or windows—anywhere the light changes during the day. It does not need a quiet wall. It needs a wall you pass often enough to catch it differently.
See Sleeping in the Shallows →
Gallery-wrapped canvas, in 3 sizes — 12×16, 16×20, 18×24 in. Ships free within the continental US.
