In spring 1951, Pollock embarked upon a new series of canvases using a turkey baster to pour long continuous lines that seem to evoke surreal figures. That June, he wrote to a friend, the painter Alfonso Ossorio: "I've had a period of drawing on canvas in black--with some of my early images coming thru--think the non-objectivists will find them disturbing--and the kids who think it's simple to splash a Pollock out." One critic noted: "Pollock has confounded those who insisted he was up a blind alley."