1a. Horizon, n. The boundary-line of that part of the earth’s surface visible from a given point of view; the line at which the earth and sky appear to meet.
Without a horizon line, your eye is lost. You might not notice it right away, depending on the image. It might look outrageously crooked, with wonky skies and mismatched trees — those tells are always easier to see at first glance. It’s harder with a tighter focus, when every part of the image is more or less the same distance from the viewer. But there is a floating sense of unreality when a painting is missing a horizon line, even if your brain can’t figure out what exactly is wrong.
Even if I can’t figure out what is wrong as I’m painting. My own horizon line is more in line with the figurative definition: “The boundary or limit of any ‘circle’ or ‘sphere’ of view, thought, action, etc. (often with direct reference to sense 1); that which bounds one’s mental vision or perception; limit or range of one’s knowledge, experience, or interest; formerly, sometimes = the region so bounded.”
In this case, “the region so bounded” in question is my own mental vision. More accurately, my lack of it. It’s a hard thing to describe: seeing but not seeing. When I say the word apple, what do you see? I see, technically, nothing. What enters my mind is more of a conceptual vision, and though I know what I am “seeing” is not actually an image, I understand it as one. I can paint from imagination well enough; it’s the act of translation that ensnares me. If this stream is this far from this tree which is equidistant to the boulders, then how did I run out of room for that cabin or row of mountains?
That’s where I’ve ended up again. Attempting to fill out some of the trees in the background clued me into the fact that they could not logically exist where they are, if the rocks I’ve already sketched out are any indication. I look at the photo, the painting in progress. Photo, painting in progress. Each time a new, startling error jumps out.
Photo, painting in progress: a stream that remains the same width the whole way through the page.
Photo, painting in progress: a tree that seems to be growing from the sky.
Photo, painting in progress: shadows on the water with no source.
A photograph, not quite rendered, but scrambled in translation. I feel the annoying but predictable compulsion to start again, knowing that just recognizing that impulse will make it true. I will start again. I’ve never been great at resisting my impulses.
There is, of course, a formal word for this condition: Aphantasia, the inability to visualize. It’s something I’ve known vaguely about myself for years. I can’t remember the first time I saw the Apple Test floating around the internet, but I remember shrugging off the blackness that persisted, no matter how hard I concentrated. Something was missing or maybe I just didn’t have all the pieces. At the time, I couldn’t fathom how it might be relevant. If I had never visualized anything in my mind, what was the use of lingering on it? I am good at putting things away, and well, away that thought went. Recently, the topic came up with friends, including one who blinked at me in surprise.
“That can’t be right! How do you paint?”
I blinked back. I hadn’t thought about it. I didn’t know.
I still don’t.
Perspective,n. The art of drawing solid objects on a plane surface so as to give the same impression of relative position, size, or distance, as the actual objects do when viewed from a particular point.
Perspective is a mother fucker. My mind can’t translate it properly, no matter how hard I try. I have been working to understand the difference between my mind’s limitations and how they affect me. Aphantasia, while rare, is no more threatening to my day-to-day life any more than being right handed is. There is no value in it, no more so for labelling it, not really. Naming it isn’t the battle; figuring out how my mind tries to compensate for it is.
In the absence of images, I am prone to stuffing my mind full of too many words. I’m greedy for them; I always have been. I collect them, store them, roll them around with all the others I’ve picked up, relishing the taste as they appear, heady and rich in my mouth the moment I need them. For the most part, they are deliberated on and deployed with exacting and, in fact, quite exhausting care.
Far more rocks than I’d like in my second painting are floating. I can’t quite figure out how, but I know they are floating in a different direction than they were in the first. Those drew the eye up and to the left somehow, disconnecting from the rest of the scene. Drifters. This time, they dazzle me with their wrongness. My eye doesn’t fall off the page; it’s stuck on these two lumps sitting gracelessly over what could be water. I wonder if it is that disconnect that spurs the nasty little impulse throbbing at the base of my skull.
Start again please, you’ve found the error, you know what to do.
It so rarely occurs to me that I can start again and make a different kind of error.
1.a Granulation, n. The action or process of forming into granules or grains; the process or condition of being so formed.
I’ve always been drawn to landscapes, no matter the medium. It wasn’t until I started watercoloring that I realized the feeling I kept avoiding. Partially the frustration of my eye for art far surpassing the actual level of skill I possess. Unavoidably — regrettably, even! — my embarrassment at the subject matter. I mean…landscapes? Landscapes like hotel art in their constant sameness. A variation on a theme of mountains, trees and water, almost every time. Blues and greens spreading across the page, pigments depositing in a way I never would have predicted but suddenly reads as a distant tree.
A good set of watercolors, in my opinion, has a lot of granulation. It’s what makes watercolor look like watercolor.
I’ve been fixated on rocks lately, among the landscapes. Somewhere during my third attempt, I realize the color of these rocks is wrong. They’re spatters of Prussian blues, patches of quinacridone rose, too harsh (maybe, my concept of color is clearer sometimes, but it’s still not something I can, well, see) and rather suddenly, it strikes me that the image is clearly filled with bright warm reds, scarlett lake made even richer with yellow ochre. Closer, then, I want to focus on those warm spots, where they contrast with the cool tones in the snow. Piles of rocks, crumbling stones, old stone cottages with cracks and ivy.
Structures that are falling apart, marking the ways they have given way to time keep catching my eye on long drives. The shale-filled valleys of Connecticut, the rocky, hilly streams and rivers that wind through Pennsylvania. Always, in the back of my mind: the stone ruins scattered through the Hudson Valley, the inescapable landscapes of my childhood. I can’t find it in me to get interested in any modern architecture, anything glass and reflective. I keep looking for the ways nature has started to fight back. Roots twisting through doorways and windows, stone crumbling, revealing jagged, worn down edges.
Sometimes when I think of stones, I think of empires.
Value, n. Due or proper effect or emphasis; relative tone of colour in each distinct section of a picture; a particular tone or emphasis. Also in extended use.
The line between a shadow rendered properly and a shadow rendered incorrectly is frustratingly thin. It’s also the difference between an object that sits stranded in a painting and one that looks like it’s part of a cohesive whole. When I get it right, it feels like I actually created something real, an image I can reach out and touch. It’s addictive, and if I’m not careful, I find myself so carried away with the satisfaction of placing my brush just right around a snow covered branch that I’ll sit back and realize I’ve gotten lost among the trees. So to speak.
On attempt number four, I make a deal with myself, that I can’t stop until it’s actually done. I’ve tightened the composition, focused on the rocks, given myself as many image translation outs as I can. Just a hint that the water curves past the rocks, not a full stream cascading down. I force myself to slow down and look at the rocks I’m sketching, trying to better understand where the next one goes. And when I inevitably get bored of that, I just try to remind myself of the direction of the sun. Keep the shadows vaguely consistent, at the very least. Sometimes, I want to write in what I mean into the places where I’ve made a mistake. Technically in the right corner there is a jagged rock, higher above the ground, casting a shadow that falls across the rest, can’t you see it? I wonder where this compulsion comes from, knowing that it wouldn’t help me any, if I saw such a thing.
But then again, translation goes both ways, doesn’t it?
> I can’t find it in me to get interested in any modern architecture, anything glass and reflective. I keep looking for the ways nature has started to fight back. Roots twisting through doorways and windows, stone crumbling, revealing jagged, worn down edges.
> Sometimes when I think of stones, I think of empires.
I may not have aphantasia but we see the same things
loved this so much
This is so good and so, so interesting. I also have Aphantasia and it has never, ever occurred to me to wonder how, or even if, it impacts my art until I read this.
My first loves are sculpture and fiber, but I’ve been doing more drawing lately – including color pencil landscapes, so this resonates. Those blasted shadows!
Fascinating to read! I’d always been mystified because both sides of my family have numerous *professional* artists…and then there was me. Very validating to realise I have aphantasia a few years ago. Also made sense of why I have always instinctively stuck to crafts like origami and cross-stitch with exact instructions and limited need for visualisation.
Your painting is beautiful by the way. At first glance I thought it might be abstract, outstretched hands, palms facing up. Funny/frustrating how I can perceive all manner complexity and symbolism in art, but can never portray it myself.
all manner *of