I have Aphantasia. Can I become an artist?
I'll tell you about all the hurdles in the way and how to overcome them
Realizing I had Aphantasia was a pivotal point in my art journey as there are a lot of implications to having it.
I’ve largely avoided explicitly emphasizing that I even have it. I don’t wish to be put in a box as “the Aphantasia artist”. That is not how I want portray myself in the long term, but after having to learn how to deal with the many downsides of it, I believe I can provide valuable information to anyone in the same position.
How did you find out?
Let me tell you about my relationship with it. I first learned about it from a random YouTube comment, and I only looked it up not because I suspected I had it, but out of curiosity! Only later fully understood what it is and how it affected me.
Back then it was all still a bit novel, but I found this very insightful presentation (see video here) by Professor Adam Zeman.
He is credited for coining the term Aphantasia and is a leading expert in the field. I found that he is a professor at the University of Exeter, not too far from me.
So I e-mailed his team and volunteered for any studies they may need people for. Just last year I participated on an online questionnaire about emotional reasoning. Fascinating stuff!
“What sets us apart is a life in the mind, the ability to imagine”
Robin Dunbar, The Human Story, 2004
part of the presentation by Prof. Adam Zeman
The biggest and most impactful downside for me was emotional. I had decided to dedicate myself to an art career and I wasn’t sure of the implications of it all. Self-doubt hit me like a horse. Without visualization can I even make art well enough to compete with my peers?
I truly felt like I was mourning the loss of something I never had.
Then you realize there are even more implications. I can’t recall my children’s or my parents faces, not like an average person can. The hazy recollection of my childhood memories is not the symptom of deterioration by the passage of time, they where never clear in the first place. So many life events I didn’t know were missing from my visual library and I just assumed it was normal.
Every time someone affirmed “close your eyes and imagine you’re at the beach”, I always thought it was a manner of speaking. No one can really see the ocean in their head right? Or imagine the crowd in their pants!
And counting sheep was never relaxing. It was just a lot of work to maintain concentration!
These and many other expressions are engrained in every language, and I doubt even I will stop using them.
Worth adding that I’ve had conversations where people found out they too have Aphantasia and they just couldn’t care less, so experiences will vary is what I learned.
What it is, and what it is not!
“It’s the inability to create mental imagery.” That is the basic definition if you google it and it is very much accurate. People have a range of intensity to which they can create a mental image, some very vividly and others like myself, nothing at all.
Below is a very common but again accurate depiction of the range. That image was only a web search away but I will now tell you some things you won’t find so easily.
Mental imagery does not mean memory or imagination! If you’ve always had a visual memory this may seem odd because you use them together, but follow me here.
I show you a set of keys and ask you to memorize the details of it.
I then ask you to describe them. You don’t have to recall anything visual to know information about it. You may! But you don’t have to.
You can likely tell me this hypothetical set had 6 or 7 keys, a keychain with a little wooden bear, some keys are silver and others are brass, and so on and so forth.
You could ask me to count the windows in my house without physically walking around and I can still close my eyes and using my memory, recall room by room counting the windows without seeing anything.
And imagination is a derivative of memory in terms of how it functions, so no issues there either. I can imagine a T-rex wielding dual pistols and dressed like The Matrix’s Trinity as much the next guy.
Kind of like you would still be able to drive a car if it had blackout curtains.
How does this affect making art?
In very specific ways.
The first year of studying I really struggled, I’m sure for many other reasons besides Aphantasia, but here are some common exercises you may be having difficulty with, based on lessons I’ve taken:
Replication exercises - the most common variation is, do it from reference once and then again from memory.
Observation training - you should observe and study an object for at least 5 minutes to internalize it’s shape.
Rotate objects - Imagine an object and rotate it or see it in different perspectives.
Be the light - When lighting a scene or character, imagine them from the point of view of the light source.
Sketches - practice sketches from imagination for 30 minutes a day.
Here’s where you start to make improvements:
Avoid exercises like the ones above. Yes these have their place, and you can still try them in moderation, but don’t get stuck on them.
Now that you know others can recall images and you don’t, start taking references and lots of them! Make folders and folders of things you see, observe, process, internalize and take many pictures.
If you’re drawing a character take reference pictures of yourself or another with the right lighting. Taking a video is also great idea also since you can stop at the right frame.
Let me be clear, these example are something everyone should do regardless! Every professional does a variation of it. Below you can see an example of one of my folders with references for an illustration I’m working on.
Maybe you will never be Kim Jung Gi - sketching straight from imagination and looking all cool while doing it. Well, I certainly won’t do that, my sketching is hideous! Probably it is as bad now as when I first started. But it really doesn’t matter, because beyond the initial idea, I sculpt my art on the page and not on my mind. I’m even willing to share these, my initial sketches, which I find really embarrassing.
As I said before, as often as possible, I work from a photo reference with the general pose and lighting.
So, the first sketch! It’s very rough but you can already see some of the decisions I’m making here: the general idea of the pose, the basic proportions and the viewing angle.
Then we go to sketch two, these is where gestural drawing comes in!
Still not polished. I want to push the figure first while I can still move everything around until it makes sense. I mirror the canvas often to get a sense of balance.
Sketch number three! You work out the anatomy, the volumes, finalize all the proportions and start adding features.
Then sketch number four, draw all the clothing and accessories over the anatomy, since we’ve already worked out the volumes this becomes very easy! I’m applying things like folds theory and readability of the silhouettes here. You can also see the very rough sketches of the little Pigmin on the left.
Only then I go over everything and do the line art. Things like line weight and cross hatching are applied during this step.
Everything else rendering related comes after that, all kinds of different art theories being applied here too.
So what is the point of showing you this breakdown? I want to make it clear that drawing is not just putting what you see in your head straight onto the page.
Drawing and painting is about mastering a collective of problem solving tools, and for artists those tools are just different ways of thinking how to solve the problem of representing a 3D image in a 2D medium.
Identifying if you have Aphantasia is foremost about knowing how to mitigate its downsides. Focus on developing the right skillset instead of wasting energy on unsuitable tools and exercises.
It’s also worth pointing out that I am very grateful to be able to draw digitally, as I can easily manipulate things on a canvas this way. I can now easily draw with pencil and paper but I believe learning digital first helped to substantially speed my learning.
Are there upsides?
You know there’s a silver lining to every cloud! The main one I’ve noticed is in the connection from Eye>Mind>Hand.
When studying gesture drawing it is essential to be observational. You need to reduce the time between seeing something and moving your hand, since our brains have the pesky habit of adding unnecessary information.
There is definitely deprograming to do in order to get rid of unwanted habits, regardless of mental imagery capacity, but I find it easy to do with little interference from my mind’s blind eye.
I find that in traditional painting, in subjects like landscapes or portraits where it requires you to be purely observational, it is just as hard if you have Aphantasia as any other poor soul who attempts to learn it. (Can you tell I’m trying traditional painting at present time?)
I also fall sleep fast! No pesky distractions at night when the sandman comes around.
Is there a cure?
Maybe. Could it even be called a cure? Aphantasia is not impactful in most facets of life, and in some scenarios maybe beneficial.
There are anecdotes online of strange meditation rituals and exoteric treatments.
Worth sharing that I have personally experienced a “visual episode”, it was the middle of the night and it was just like watching TV for about 10 seconds.
I had my eyes open and was looking at the ceiling and I could plainly see a vision of myself walking down a street and turning a corner! Very exciting I know! But as soon as it was over I remembered it just as faintly as any other memory.
Even if there was a cure I’m not sure I’d pursue it, I’m too scared I would be not to be able to control it.
I often think how someone who’s hearing impaired and gains the ability to hear later in life always has some limitations, or even how I’ve been living in a different country since I’m 18 but will never have a local accent. Even with life long neuroplasticity the brain doesn’t always fully adapt.
I think if I got the ability to see images in my mind now, I’d struggle with it.
To you, from the home of magic.
Marco D Blanco.
This may seem weird but if you can't picture things in your head how do you imagine a scene before you paint it?
This is so interesting. I'd never heard of aphantasia last year until I found out a student had it (and he didn't know the name of it, I had to find it.) It's a subject I want to learn more about. He struggled to take an interest in reading and I assume that was a part of it.