Stephen Wiltshir is a autistic savant. He flies one time over the inner city of Rome and from that he can draw a detailed picture of the town.
People look at him in awe and wonder how it is possible that he remembers so much detail. I’ve wondered how he could remember so much detail. I’ve been taught that you start out with the big picture and go back to fill in the details. But now I’m trying it I’m finding that is not the way my memory works.
Working on a excavator
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I don’t remember the big picture. I only have a lot of detail.
The clever thing in what Stephen Wiltshire does is not that he remembers all the detail but that he remembers so much detail that they over lap. Mine don’t. When I try to draw something I remember a lot of detail but I don’t remember enough of the big picture to draw it.
When I look at his picture of the Tokyo skyline I wonder whether I should be jealous of his drawing skills. But I don’t actually think he is drawing. I think he is tracing the picture he sees in his mind.
At the moment I’m kind of at a loss as to how to proceed. When I started drawing a few month ago I expected that I would learn how to make my drawing look like pictures. But after a while I learned that that wasn’t possible. Then I thought that my pictures would look something like those of Stephen Wiltshire. Not with the same amount of detail but something in the general direction.
At this point it seems that I have to make a choise: Either I try to draw object like they are and walk back and forth as often as it needs to get a clear picture in my mind. Or I draw detail of an object and find a way of convey to my audience what it is supposed to be. Either by the way I name it or maybe with a little story.
The question I ask myselve is whether those two methodes are actually excluding each other. Couldn’t I find a way to do both?
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