Seems I have gotten myself into a both interesting and inexhaustible topic. Yesterday I wrote an answer to a question by @roused which became quite long: An answer to a question by Roused. I think you should read it if any of this shall give any sense, but the question was:
Is it like that with you and drawing, are you able to draw your thoughts, or is it just a close approximation?
I posted a link on Diaspora my other social media and I got some new question from a user called Bo.
Here are Bo's questions:
some random questions occurred to me while reading this:
If you can “draw a thought”, then what is this thought then?
Is it literally a thought? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought
Or is it an idea? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea
Or is it a mental image? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_image
Another random thought: If it is a mental image, then what happens if you have “aphantasia”? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
It seems that people with aphantasia can make visual art, but then the question is how they translate this, supposedly non-visual thought into a visual expression.
Personally I can have pretty vivid music ideas (images) in my head, but do not have nearly enough skill to express them.
Here's my answer
I am not sure I see a big difference between a thought and a mental image - I can see them apart, but there it is a strangely blurry border between them. Ideas are somehow a later stage, a sort of construction on top of the thought or the image. The idea (as I understand it) can involve reasons and that is not what I am after.
As soon as the brush touches the paper, the first note is heard, or the words are uttered inside the head of the author, there is a physical or mental feedback. You react to this immediately and the more trained you are the more automatic is the reaction. If you play a flute you will adjust the tone with your mouth to be in tune. This happens by muscle-memory and is mostly subconscious. But if concentrating you will also be able to make more conscious decisions based on the feedback. For a pictorial artist this is of course done by running many mental images through a process that at the same time register what is actually happening at the paper... I would call that thought, but not a very word dependent one (it is partly). If you compares to music it is exactly the same thing that happens. As much as you concentrate on getting it right, you also let go of control and let the feedback guide you. It is a strange process and very hard to explain, but I think you know it somehow from music. (I am an amateur musician and know exactly when I am not able to express myself in music.)
From this Ideas will arise too. You just played a good phrase in your jazz improvisation and then you take it and transcribe it a quarter, plays the same phrase in minor instead of major etc.
A strange fact is that as an artist you somehow always will have to fight your ability and technique, as it has a tendency to automate your responses to the feedback. You start drawing the same things over and over again, perfect maybe, but without nerve. In a good session you let go of this tool box and swim through the music, in a bad one you fall back to all the old muscle-memory phrases you have learned. In ink drawing and jazz-improvisation nobody is in doubt if it is one or the other, while recorded music, composition and complex painting you can of course edit later. The process remains the same none the less.
I think this is how I will explain it.
As for aphantasia I have no idea :) I have a hard time imagine it.
Try to look at this. Forget about what he says and see how his head moves.
P.S.
I think this is also the reason that drawings made by children at the age of 3-4 year are always so good. They do not have a toolbox, but they finally have the motor skills and the concentration and they are in a learning period of their life so they do not have the inhibitions and conventions that plague humans at older age.
Another important question is where does the thoughts come from ?
Not only a question - a holy grail!
This is a fascinating point. Now that you mention it, it made perfect sense. In a way, those pictures are near perfect, because they are created in a moment they can actually reflect what the author needed/wanted to reflect.
So, so interesting.
Back in my fine art days I brought my first daughter to a lithography workshop where I had a scholarship so I could work alone. She was sitting on the enormous table among the stones drawing the most wonderful drawing. I put them on the wall and started experimenting myself if could get to the same intense state of concentration. Suddenly I was into a very intense struggle with myself and especially with my hand. The best method I realised was when i only looked at the tip of the brush only saw the flow of the indian ink onto the paper. But I made many other drawings that included me moving my body around in jerks, holding very loosely on the brush or posca, drawing the lines very, very slowly etc. etc. I never made one drawing that was even close to the beauty of hers.
It has to be said that even at age 3 children draw differently and hers was especially beautiful :)
Now she draws like this: @scarlet-rain
The talent is indeed great in your family. Congratulations, man.
Thanks :)
Col. Bruce Hampton is a musician who has influenced so many great Southern musicians. Wise and insightful cat, who stressed, take your art seriously, but don't take yourself seriously.
Billy Bob is also a musician and asked Bruce to be in Sling Blade, Bruce (Morris in the clip) wrote his character's speech.
PS Come on guys, we're talking about what in your mind, do labels matter ;-) Just sayin'
It might not have much to do with art really, not directly anyway, but analytic philosophy is one of my other passions, and if you can get the concepts right (or labels) it is of course preferable. Honestly can't see why that should be a problem... just sayin'
Not a problem at all ;-) Point well taken about properly identifying concepts. In this particular case, since I posed the initial question, that frames the way I view it. Thus, for me it was simply an interest in knowing if you are able to create what is in your mind -- regardless if it is a thought, an idea, or a mental image.
I wasn't thinking so much in terms of being prepared to work, and seeing what happens. Rather, that inexplicable situation in which artists are channeling. In the clip below, fully composed and arranged symphonies come into this 12 year old boy's mind, and he writes them in a couple of hours.
Sorry, if my previous comment came across harsh, I meant it playfully.
I did not see it as harsh at all. I just wrote a fast reply as I was busy - might have seem equally harsh :) - The fine art red necks are hilarious.
The guy asking is new on Diaspora and the only thing I know about him is that he is a Dane that came to the US to study psychology and according to his tags he is now interested in deep learning and other computer stuff. Therefore this is not really about the original question you asked, but more about using it as a case for looking at it from another angle.
To me his questions was not that difficult because I know the process well. The jumping between thought and sensory. But underneath it is some very interesting and hard to grasp reality that has interested me a lot. I do not go into it here - I just keep on the surface where I actually know what happens.
I think that the boy is probably the same type of person as Mozart. The future will tell us if he will become a great musician or composer, which is not necessarily what will happen. Prodigy children are special cases that already has what other needs a lifetime accomplishing. They are not natural born super-artists, but they tend to work so much that many of them will be. Some of the artists I admire most are not talented at all, but they still gets to a place where they make great art.
Look here for example: https://steemit.com/comic/@katharsisdrill/phill-from-gchq-and-it-s-inspirations-freak-brothers
Cool, that's a relief I didn't offend you. That clip of the 12 year old is fairly old, I'll have to check out what has become of him -- though I must admit I'm not into modern classical music.
In real life, the redneck Morris in the clip was Jimmy Herring's mentor :-) He was an artist who just happened to be a musician if you know what I mean.
Oh man I loved the Freak Brothers -- I never registered who wrote them, I'm going to have to check out Gilbert Shelton and find out more about him. We used so laugh so hard we cried reading those CBs :-D
I am not completely unoffendable, but in things like this you would have to come up with something much better to make me just slightly grumpy :)
I agree very much with the statement about artists not taking themselves seriously, I try not to and that is why I love people like Shelton!
Yesterday I watched an interview with Gilbert Shelton on Youtube, and also saw a really great clip of a film someone wanted to produce of the F. Freak Bros. :-)
Okay you have officially fired my brain cells into working overtime :-)
I was wondering about the question............. A thought is more of an abstraction brought into existence by our choices unlike ideas. I think there might be a subtle difference.
An idea can be explained in more than one suitable way but thoughts have to be expressed depending on what we choose to be the best way.
His questions made me think too, and I am not sure my answer is as clear as it could be. Much of this is just me trying to explain how I understands what a thought is and how it interacts with perception (making an artwork). No one to my knowledge has defined what a thought is, and the original question could be answered without going into it, but there is a difference between an idea and the other things that goes on in your head.
Ideas can be explained to others. Thoughts on the other hand consist of the inner dialogue we have and including imaginary sounds and images and words. It is interesting that you think it thoughts are linked to choices... I think that you can imagine a thought that is not linked to a choice...
I will have to get back to this... Sunday. Tomorrow I have to go to a family gathering. I will think it over.
No problem man. I actually enjoyed the concept of the post.
Glad that you shared it with us.
I am back!
This is my theory:
The big problem is though. Ideas are , like you write, transferable, explainable, both to yourself and others. What we write here is ideas.
Thoughts are, I believe, language in a very broad sense. Not only words, but also imaginary sounds and images and fragrances. We have this inner dialogue all the time that stands in close connection with our sensory. We understand the world through it and we are limited in our understanding of the world by it.
I find it interesting that you focus on choice. There is something binary in that idea that is intriguing. Like life is going through an endless series of rail tracks with and endless number of switches.
Reading the comment even more interesting @katharsisdrill. You are talking something a bit difficult for me to understand as I am not an artist at all, but sometime the image come cross my thought and it stay there for a while. I never try to explore how far I could go for drawing or painting.
I just love art things. I will look over and over to the art work because I know that artwork somehow come from the thought of the artist. Like you said:
That is way I pay much more attention to detail of art work.
Honestly, I often look at the painting or drawing and I found my own imagination follow that drawing.
the way I can relay your explanation only by looking at my hobby to cook something. I have read you other comment about when you say : Cooking and art have some similarity:
I need your suggestion: What I should to start my very first drawing?
Sorry if my comment does not touch the topic
I think the best way when starting drawing is to enjoy ourself and play around. Don't get angry when it does not meet your expectations, but look for the unexpected qualities.
i have to learn a lot of things for you...
be continuous sir
Many things i have to learn... keep it up @katharsisdrill thank you so much for sharing...
any image that does not have a real visual is like an imagination, and the imagination is different from one person to another, so I think you are free to draw whatever you have in mind :-))