I was fooling around with the scanner today making crazy pictures when this idea happened.
When you invert the colors of this image, the face becomes apparent.
Sfumato, from the Italian word sfumare "to evaporate like smoke," was a renaissance painting technique which used subtle and gradual shading to produce soft forms. These portraits, made using polyester pillow stuffing placed directly on a scanner bed, reminded me of the smoky technique.
Here are some pictures of how it was done.
