Finding an image based on a not very good painting

August 1, 2019 9:27 AM

I wanted to revisit the first painting I did (or at least the first in over 20 years) and compare my progress. The problem is, I can't find the original source image on google

This is the painting. The flower itself may have been part of a larger image. I'm pretty sure I just typed pansy into google image search and scrolled til I found one I liked but I can't find it again.
I've checked my browser history but it doesn't show anything - it shows things I googled around that time because there are google searches for watercolour technique and how to make colours darker - problems I was having with the painting but not the image itself. I've gone back to before my birthday (the art supplies were a birthday present) and there's nothing there. The search appears in my google activity logs but doesn't show what I looked at.

I realise this is a super-long shot but can anyone help me find the reference image I used for this painting?

posted by missmagenta to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

There's a free utility called ImageCacheViewer that will allow you to look at the browser cache on your computer. You might find the image in your cache (along with a bazillion other images, I'm sure). The utility runs under Windows. I've used it, and it works -- though it's not necessarily the most user-friendly application out there. If you're on a Mac or some other platform, you can probably find similar utilities.
posted by alex1965 at 9:32 AM on August 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

This one is quite similar, especially if you might have simplified the background petals. "Isolated pansy" seems to be the term to get just one flower straight-on like that.
posted by teremala at 9:49 AM on August 1, 2019

This one from the Wikipedia entry?
posted by Catseye at 11:09 AM on August 1, 2019

Maybe from this tutorial on how to draw a pansy?
posted by FirstMateKate at 9:21 AM on August 2, 2019