Day 13. Do You Think in Pictures?
Drawing from our mind's eye
Hello, my wondrous crew of artists.
Thanks to everyone who supported the Corita Art Center’s art kit effort in Los Angeles. It makes a difference. ❤️
It’s Day 13 of 30 days and we are focusing on how drawing teaches us to see. Yesterday I gave you a big ol’ lesson on negative space and all the metaphors it suggests. As always, I was blown away by your drawings in the chat, not to mention your thoughtful reflections and support of one another. 10 minutes well spent, y’all.
Today, I want to talk about seeing in a different way. People often use phrases like “imagine this” or “picture that” or “what you see in your mind’s eye” - but nobody talks about what that actually means. Like, what if you can’t imagine, picture or see much at all?? Today, instead of thinking about what we see outside ourselves, I want to pause and think for a moment about how we see - and draw - with our mind’s eye.
Picture a giraffe.
No, for real. Close your eyes. Now picture of a giraffe in your mind’s eye. What do you see?
Do you see a perfectly crisp clear image of a tall giraffe delicately eating from a tree? Or do you see a kind of murky hazy “sense” of a giraffe floating in space? Or maybe you see nothing - just a dark, empty abyss.
Of course there are no wrong answers, but I have to tell you the truth: I am a little embarrassed to tell you what I see. As a visual artist, I’d like to think I have stunningly vibrant, hi-res images zipping around in my brain all the time. Sadly, that’s not the case. I mean, I am visual. I can perform some unusual visual feats: I can never remember anyone’s name, but I can tell you how many letters are in it. And I can write upside down - and backwards! That’s visual, right??
But ask me to picture a giraffe and you know what I see? Not much. Sort of a blink of a long neck, and the idea of a head, some long legs, and maybe some dark eyes… But I definitely don’t see a clear picture in my head.
….Do you?
We are all so different. Some people can summon perfect, detailed images in their head and even draw from them. Think of artist Stephen Wiltshire, who can draw an accurate, nineteen-foot-long drawing of 305 square miles of New York City after just a 20 minute helicopter ride. It’s as if he is drawing from a model inside his mind.
Amazing. And also - how can our mind’s eyes have such different vision?? What’s going on here??
I wanted to understand. So I did a little digging.
Mental Imagery and the Mind’s Eye
While scientists started asking questions about mental imagery as far back as the 1800s, it wasn’t until 1973 that English psychologist David F. Marks developed a study that measures people’s visual imagination. It's called the VVIQ, or the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire. His findings? Yup, everyone is different. And also like most things, it’s a spectrum.
According to the Aphantasia Network, if you ask most people to picture a giraffe, a lifelike image will appear in their mind. For some people, it’s a vague, incomplete picture that takes time and effort to see. And some others can picture a giraffe as clearly as it were standing right in front of them. Meanwhile, others see nothing at all. It’s a spectrum. And there are two extremes of the spectrum: Aphantasia and hyperphantasia.
People with aphantasia have no mental images. They cannot see any images in their mind. No visual memories, no visual imagination for the future. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just the way their brains work. Here’s a great video on Aphantasia if you’re interested:
People with hyperphantasia have an abundance of visual imagery. Asked to imagine something, they find themselves looking at a photograph of the subject in their mind. They see things clearly, with context, and can almost sense every aspect of the subject. Wow.
Where do YOU think you fall on the spectrum? I’ve included a link for you take the VVIQ quiz below with our assignment.
Drawing from the Mind’s Eye
So what does this have to do with drawing specifically? Well, I’m curious how our unique forms of memory and imagination impacts our drawing. Does being able to conjure up a clear image help us remember or imagine differently and how does that manifest in our drawing? I wish we could perform a study right here and now, but in lieu of that, I do think drawing from our mind’s eye is interesting and worth experimenting with - especially when we spend so much time drawing from life.
So today we are going to do a little personal experiment to push ourselves to draw from our mind’s eye and see how we see. (Don’t worry - it’s a weird one for me, too - and challenging and ridiculous!) The assignment is very simple, and very fun. And I promise you: THE DRAWINGS WILL BE WACKY. So let that perfectionism go, if you still have any left. It’s gonna be “good enough.” And it’s definitely gonna be goofy.
So let’s go.
