The Observer in The Milford Cabinet and Wilton Journal (Nashua NH), May 15, 1919, p, 2—
WWI ship camouflage painters
…The Observer knows he isn’t an artist, but he had a notion he could take a 3-inch brush and a can of paint and somehow get it spread around. He had watched house painters and it looked easy. Also he has a friend who never knew anything about painting. At least nobody ever suspected he did. But when the war came along and war jobs cropped up, this chap attached himself to Uncle Sam’s payroll, somewhere near the top, and got himself appointed to a shipyard as Chief Camouflager or General of Camoufluers, and bossed the job of painting ships to look like clouds on the horizon. He got away with it. His pay checks were large and regular.
So the Observer bought a brush for $1.50 and a small pot of paint for $2.20 and proceeded to take some of the conceit out of himself. He still thinks he could paint a house so it would fool a submarine commander into thinking it was a school of whales or a grove of pine trees; but painting it so it looks like a house is something different yet. When the job is done the Observer wants his house to look like a human habitation not like a spotted cow or an aurora borealis with streaks running up and down.
RELATED LINKS
Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? / Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage / Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage / Optical science meets visual art / Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness / Under the big top at Sims' circus
