Art Unseen by Morte
November 25th, 2008 2:47 PMI have a confession to make. *steadies myself*
I
am
a
geek.
*phew!*
Shocking I know. Not only am I a geek, but I'm a geek about a lot of things. I'm a crafting geek, a literary geek, an SCA geek, a horror movie geek, etc. But I am also a comic book geek. Specifically, I love the Green Lantern. I even have a GL ring that was made by a jeweler from Tiffany's (a present from one of my best friends) that I wear all the time. Love the Green Lantern. Am totally scared about the movie that's coming out.
I didn't know what piece of art I wanted to use. I know that I suck as an artist, so I wanted to do something that would be reasonably within my limited talent. Then I thought I should use a piece of artwork that I see every day, one that I am very familiar with. I have tons of art at home, but this piece is the only one that I have hanging at my front desk at work.
It was a b-day present from Cristos and was made by my friend Brian. I look at it every day and it makes me happy.
I thought that this would be the perfect piece of art to use for this task. It's simple and complex at the same time, and I thought that I couldn't screw it up too badly.
So when I took a break for lunch I gathered two pieces of heavy paper, markers, and my camera and went into the lunch room. As I was eating my lunch I studied the picture very closely.
I would like to state for the record that I am psychosomatically colour-blind. When I was in pre-kindergarten my teacher was blue/green colour blind and he taught all of us that they were the same colour. Even though it's not a neurological problem, to this day I have a hard time distinguishing between green and blue unless I'm really paying attention and comparing the colours to things that I *know* are green or blue. There are about 15 of us running around out there with the same problem. It was an interesting court case when it all came out, but I digress.
Once I was done eating, I put on the blindfold and began.
As an added touch, I mixed up all the markers that I had so I also wouldn't know what colour I was using. I drew until I felt it was finished, and this is the result.
Just for comparison I then drew one without the blindfold, paying close attention to copying the art as much as possible.
When I was done I then hung all three of them on the wall next to my corkboard at my desk, which is the only part of the building that the public have access to.
They are also not upside down anymore.
Whee!
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Mega-man? Gods that takes me back. I was (and still am) a Robotech fan. Tried to draw them, failed miserably.
Oddly enough, I used to be a tattoo artist. I could do tribal and Escher pieces perfectly, ask me to draw a puppy I might be able to give you something vaguely canine.
The the vibrations from the gun got to my wrists and there went that.
That story of kindergarten blues vs greens, mindblowing. That takes me back: the "is my red the same than your red?"-8-year-old-awe all over again.
Which was the first thing I dared to discuss about at the defunct Future Philosophy board, where I met Strange Loops who happened to know Loki and therefore mentioned SFØ at the forum and ... yeah, I am very fond of qualia.
I wish I had found out about this site years ago. I think it would have helped me through some pretty rough times. Just knowing that there is a whole group of people out there who may not see the world the way I do but are willing and ready to accept and share my view of it is very .... how do I put this .... affirming, i guess.
Funnily enough, Japanese people are ALSO non-physically blue-green colourblind, though in their case it's a function of linguistics... I argue with them til I'm blue/green in the face when they talk about the "blue" traffic lights. She's a funny thing just how powerful language is in shaping what you would think of as purely physical processes, so long as you get to kids when they are small...
I never knew that. Weird.
I totally understand the power of language on young children. As a result of another teacher I consistently mess up the exceptions to the 'i before e' rule with words like their and neighbor. And I can never say the word cinnamon right the first time.
Thank the gods for spell check!
'People complain about the purity of the English language. That is nonsense, the English language is about as pure as a crib-house whore. It not only borrows from other languages, it has on occasion been known to chase them down dark alleys, club them over the head, and rifle their pockets for loose grammar.'
I like your blind drawing. It's nice to have the three pictures in a group, are you keeping them hung up like this? They tell the whole story now. It's like a little family.
Also I like that you choose from all colors you had and didn't sort out the "right" colors before starting.
Now I wanna do this task.
You should. Yeah, they're still up, but I'm expecting my boss to yell about them any minute now.
Dear Morte,
I like blindfolded photographs.
Love,
Inky
That's actually rather good! You had the shapes in the right proportions and everything!
Having the three of the pieces grouped like that has a great impact. It's like simultaneously seeing things from three points of view.
I like it and no one in the office has said a word about it yet.
My love, you have created a Gimp Chick Blind Pic Triptych. That is beyond sublime.
Some African languages have only two color categories. They're usually translated loosely as "white" and "black", but that's a bit misleading since some darker colors go into the former category.
(I'd like to state for the record that it's not physically possible for the color terms one learns as a child to actually change one's ability to see certain colors, only to change how one mentally categorizes them. So psychosomatic is a good word for it, I think.)
linguistics nerd >
Well, that's why I said that. I know that a) it's very very very very rare for women to be colour-blind and b) I had my rods and cones tested when this all came out and they're fine so I know physically there's nothing wrong with me on that end. I know it's a mental thing, and one I've struggled with my entire life. I mean, I know that leaves are green, but they look almost the same colour as the sky to me. And it frustrates me to no end because I know I'm intelligent enough to reason with myself that they are a separate colour, but my mind refuses to see it as such. Blah.
The things the human mind can do to itself are infinite and amazing, but it's still annoying when I mess up.
I'm a linguistics nerd too. For a hobby I research the origins of words. I once wrote a paper on the etymology of the word O.K. for an English class.
Okeh? Oll Korrect?
It's fascinating about your color vision. How long did it take for you/your parents/your teachers to realize that you weren't distinguishing between blue and green?
I didn't know anything was wrong until they told me. The teacher was clinicaly blue/green colour blind, and I think all of our parents realized it when I was 6 or so. Like I said, the court case was interesting....
Oll Korrect. Ah, those crazy 1910's...
Man, Your sense of spacing and memory is amazing! Thanks for the last comment. It takes a little while to start thinking outside of the box we are thrown into. ;-) Thanks again for your help ;)
there's a supercommon art school exercise that is sort of like this, but not as hard. the exercise is called "blind drawing," and the idea is you look at the object you're drawing, but not the paper you're drawing it on. the idea is to train your hand to follow your eye around the object, not your mind around your hand. needless to say most drawings come out pretty odd. you've done an almost miraculously good job here.
I love it!!
"outsider art" is actually my favorite type of art - art done by children, mentally disabled, etc... and I'd say blindfolded could almost get squeezed in there.
my friend and I used to do this when we were bored in the car. I'd say "now draw Mega Man, but close your eyes!!" and then we'd laugh at the results