Reflections on Aphantasia
And changing sunlight on the water
There is a walkway on the Chicago River that takes you under the busy streets and over to Navy Pier. There’s a small gap between the roads that allows light to hit the water. On my wat to the Pier the sun was shining, the sky was blue with big fluffy clouds and it created a skinny reflection on the water almost as if a swath of bright blue and cream were painted across the river.
I went into the City for an adventure (the Air and Water Show) and to spend the evening with a childhood friend and a small group for a fundraiser for MOMS Sierra Leone1.
I took my sketchbook with the plan to sit down and draw people and practice drawing movement, body shapes, and body positions. I have a lot of fear when it comes to drawing in public and drawing humans. Fears, I don’t want to continue holding me back. I shored up my courage and sat by the fountain at the Pier and took out my sketchbook and pencil.
Several years ago, I took an Urban Sketching class and my teacher was amazing at it. I asked him how he remembered so much detail. He said he took a picture in his mind. I remember thinking that I wanted to learn how to do that. I’m constantly lifting my head to look at the thing I’m drawing. I didn’t know then that I had aphantasia and that his “trick” was visualization.
Well, I can’t see an image in my mind’s eye, there is no internal mind’s eye camera that can shoot an image for me and I draw from that.
I have to make decisions about what’s important to capture and sketch what I can. The open-mouthed boy above seemed to be gathering all of his power in the water. Before I knew it, he was gone. Possibly called to head home, or just moved to a different part of the fountain. So feet and hands were missed. The little girl had been playing and then she squatted down, I sketched her body shape as quickly as I could. Feet lost again, but I got her body position well.
These two were kind enough to just sit and play with the fountain. They moved around a bit, but I had more time to look at feet and hand position. I can work with these sketches and truth be told, I can figure out details for feet and hands from photos.
I DID IT! I drew in public and have begun to figure out what I need to focus on so that I can capture people and their movement.
Later while passing some time, I sat at another location and watched the people passing. As I noticed interesting things that made me itch to draw them before they were lost to new sights and sounds.
I had to try to remember what was intriguing and capture it as quickly as I could. I think these sketches became conglomerations of people passing by and remembered details of clothing. When I got to the hands, I realized I hadn’t really noticed how they were positioned so I watched the hands of people passing by and made a sketch and notes. Finding those universal things and making notes is my form of a mind’s eye photo visualization. The more I practice it, the more it will embed in my body. hand and, mind so that I can use the “formula” when I draw people in the future.
I learned that I can draw in public, I need to capture the main shapes and positions of the body and then fill in details by looking at many people and finding the universality, and make notes of things that I want to remember.
How do you draw people? Can you take a mind photo and draw from that? Do you break things down and figure out all the parts? What do you like to notice and capture when you draw people? What fear is holding you back from accomplishing your dreams? What are you doing to move past that fear?
One last reflection:
When I walked back past that gap between the roads above, everything had changed. The reflections were new. I was new. I moved through my fears and took notice of the hidden beauty beneath the busy streets of Chicago.
https://www.moms-midwives.org/Programs/Sierra-Leone/ This organization has an incredible mission to help mother’s have their babies safely. They have helped reduce the mortality rate in childbirth, give mother’s skills not just for use during their pregnancies, but to eat healthy, understand their bodies, and problem solve.